Walks in Rome

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Walk 6 Around the Testaccio Even frequent visitors to Rome raise a quizzical eyebrow when you mention Testaccio, for many have never heard of the place. This gentrified district lies to the south of the Aventine Hill and is where you should go if you really want to experience modern Rome combined with some amazing ancient relics ... from a pyramid to a pot mountain. About 2 hours easy stroll. Starting Point: The best location to start is outside the train station Porta San Paolo. ﷯Get there by metro train, getting off at Piramide stop then walking around to the front of Porta San Paolo (X), or by bus (B) or tram (T), both of which have stops at the station. ﷯ 1. (You can skip this first bit if you want) Porta San Paolo is the start of southbound regional regional train system. However just around the corner (500mtrs along past the Piramide Metro station) is the large Roma Ostiense Train Station that is part of the Italian Urban Rail System. This station was built by Mussolini especially to welcome Adolf Hitler to Rome in 1938. ﷯The connecting road was initially named Via A. Hitler but, after World War II, it became Viale delle Cave Ardeatine, as a way of commemorating the victims of Nazi occupation. There remains a particularly grand sculptural fresco representing the mythical figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus. The small palm gardens that surround the parking lot are today occupied by a number of homeless people, asylum seekers and political refugees. ﷯ 2. Back to the Roma Porta San Paolo steps. Head straight across (over the waiting taxis and the busy Via Ostiense) to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, an Egyptian-style pyramid with a frescoed interior. The pyramid was built about 18–12 BCE as a tomb for Gaius Cestius, a magistrate and member of one of the four great religious corporations in Rome, the Septemviri Epulonum. It is of brick-faced concrete covered with slabs of white marble standing on a travertine foundation. In the interior is the burial chamber, a simple barrel-vaulted rectangular cavity. When opened in 1660, the chamber was found to be decorated with frescoes but only scant traces of these survive and no trace of any other contents. The tomb had been sealed when it was built, with no exterior entrance, but had been plundered at some time thereafter, probably during antiquity. The pyramid is supposedly open to the public every second and fourth Saturday each month. (But looked very much closed permanently when last seen in October 2022). Visitors must arrange their visit in advance. ﷯3. To the left of the Pyramid are remains of the 3rd Century Aurelian Walls. The walls enclosed all the seven hills of Rome plus the Campus Martius and, on the right bank of the Tiber, the Trastevere district. The Aurelian Walls continued as a significant military defense for the city of Rome until 20 September 1870, when the Bersaglieri of the Kingdom of Italy breached the wall near the Porta Pia and captured Rome. The walls also defined the boundary of the city of Rome up until the 19th C., with the built-up area being confined within the walled area. ﷯4. However a far better preserved part of the wall is opposite ... the Porta San Paolo Gate. The original name of the gate was Porta Ostiensis, because it was located at the beginning of via Ostiense, the road that connected Rome and Ostia. Via Ostiense was an important arterial road, as evidenced by the fact that upon entering the gate of the same name, the road split, with one direction leading to the famous Emporium, the great market of Rome. Later, it was renamed to Porta San Paolo because it was the exit of Rome that led to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. The gatehouse is flanked by two cylindrical towers and has two entrances, which had been covered by a second, single-opening gate, built in front of the first by the Byzantine General Belisarius (530s–540s). In 549 when Rome was under siege, the Ostrogoths of Totila entered through this gate following the surrender of the Isaurian garrison. On 10 September 1943, two days after the armistice between the Allies and Italy had been agreed, Italian military and civil forces tried to block German seizure of the city, with 570 casualties. The stretch of the wall that connected it to the Pyramid was destroyed during bombing in 1943. Today the Gate is home to the Museum of the Ostian Way (Museo della Via Ostiense), created in 1954 in order to illustrate the topography of the area between Roma and Ostia, which, in the Roman age, was hinged on this important arterial road. Within it are held materials from that area; among them, worth particular notice, are three painted arcosolia from a tomb of the 3rd.C. CE near the Basilica of St. Paul and numerous plaster casts from inscriptions as well as funerary stones. On the first level of the two towers are two important models, made by Italo Gismondi, representing the ancient town of Ostia and the ensemble of the imperial ports of Claudius and Trajan. In the eastern tower there are remains of frescoes, dated between the late 13th C. and the early 14th C., which decorated a chapel wherein a Byzantine community used to convene. 5. Pass between the pyramid and the gate and walk further along the Via Raffaele Persichetti towards the Via Marmorata. The wall and gardens on your left are the boundary of the Rome Protestant Cemetery. We will be returning to this at the end of this walk. ﷯6. One block along you come to the grand "Vigili del Fuoco - Ostiense"... the local fire station. An interesting example of the architectural trends prevailing in Rome during the Fascist period (1922-1943). This Fire Station was completed in 1929. It assembles elements of classic and medieval styles with even a touch of ancient Egypt in the design of the portal and the window of the tower. There is a small museum around the corner in Via Galvani. ﷯7. Continue along Via Marmorata, passing the Trattoria Perilli ... an authentic Roman restaurant, well worth a lunch stop or returning to later. 8. Turn left into Via Alessandro Volta (Volta invented the voltaic pile in 1799. With this invention Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically), but first have a look inside the Salumeria Volpetti ... a gourmet deli stuffed full of wonderful treats. ﷯9. Continue along Via Alessandro Volta four blocks until you come to a small park on your left. Turn to see the biggest wolf ever, drawn down the side of an apartment building. ﷯10. In the next block are the Testaccio Markets, full of small shops selling anything and everything. Lots of fresh local produce and there is an area showing the ancient ruins found when the old local market hall was replaced with the rather unimpressive new building. ﷯11. After checking out the markets, go to the far end of the central plaza and turn left onto Via Benjamino Franklin. Opposite to your right is a complex of old buildings, the Mattatoio, which used to house the city abattoirs. Between 1888 and 1891 a modern slaughterhouse and a cattle market were built between Monte Testaccio and the river. Scraps from the slaughtering process were taken home by the workers, most of whom lived in the new quarter or given for free to the owners of the inns who catered for porters and drivers who came to the slaughterhouse. Over time the area became famous for its cooking and some recipes became broadly popular. Today, even though the slaughterhouse was relocated elsewhere in 1975, the restaurants of Testaccio are popular among the Romans who dine out (which they do quite often). ﷯It is being gradually transformed into a precinct for education and the arts, however many of the old buildings remain abandoned and you can see into some still containing equipment from previous times. The lofty aim of the rebuild is to "create a pole of artistic and cultural research and production and offer a decisive contemporary image of the city by recording its development and stimulate its evolution". You may find something interesting. Certainly worth a wander through. 12. With your back to the Mattatoio entrance, you are now looking directly towards nondescript storerooms and garages, backing onto a large tree and scrub covered mound. This is Monte Testaccio. Not a mountain of dirt at all .... actually a mountain of broken pots! Millions of them. ﷯These are fragments of ancient Roman pottery, nearly all discarded amphorae dating from the Roman Empire. It is one of the largest spoil heaps found anywhere in the ancient world, covering an area of 2 hectares and a volume of approximately 580,000 cubic metres, containing the remains of an estimated 53 million amphorae. It has a circumference of nearly a kilometre and stands 35 metres high, though it was probably considerably higher in ancient times. ﷯

The huge numbers of broken amphorae at Monte Testaccio illustrate the enormous demand for oil by imperial Rome, which was at the time the world's largest city with a population of at least one million people. It has been estimated that some 6 billion litres of oil were imported. By the end of the 2nd C. AD, as many as 130,000 amphorae were being deposited on the site each year. Monte Testaccio was not simply a haphazard waste dump; it was a highly organised and carefully engineered creation, presumably managed by a state administrative authority. Excavations carried out in 1991 showed that the mound had been raised as a series of level terraces with retaining walls made of nearly intact amphorae filled with sherds to anchor them in place. Empty amphorae were probably carried up the mound intact on the backs of donkeys and then broken up on the spot, with the sherds laid out in a stable pattern. Lime appears to have been sprinkled over the broken pots to neutralise the smell of rancid oil. It does not seem possible to get individual access onto the mound, although aparently admission is allowed to groups with their own guide, who must make a reservation at 060608. Walk over and continue to circle Monte Testaccio counter-clockwise, taking the smaller lane close to the bars and storerooms. You pass a number of restaurants that are built directly into the mound, some with glass walls at their rear exposing the broken pottery. Some look quite smart ... others not so. ﷯About half way along the lane, take the short set of stairs leading up to the via Nicola Zabaglia. Then to the left is the Fontana del Boccale (unsurprisingly representing terracotta pots), but about face and continue along via Nicola Zabaglia to the right. Ahead of you are remnants of the Auralian Walls, boundary of the ancient city of Rome. Atop the walls are the remains of the Aqua Virgine aquaduct which supplied fresh water to public fountains and drinking troughs across the city. ﷯ You next come to the Commonwealth War Cemetery where some 500 soldiers and officers of the British Commonwealth, including Australians, rest in peace. They were buried in a piece of land next to the ancient walls, donated by the City of Rome. Approximately 50,000 Commonwealth soldiers fell in the WWII Campaign of Italy. Should you find yourself in Rome on ANZAC Day, a small service is held here by the Australian Ambassador to Italy. Retrace your steps back along the via Nicola Zabaglia and turn right into the via Caio Cestio. A few hundred metres along is the entrance to the Non-Catholic Cemetery, also known as the Protestant Cemetery of Rome. ﷯This Cemetery contains possibly the highest density of famous and important graves anywhere in the world. It is the final resting-place of the poets Shelley and Keats, of many painters, sculptors and authors, a number of scholars, several diplomats, Goethe's only son, and Antonio Gramsci, a founding father of European Communism, to name only a few. It is one of the oldest burial grounds in continuous use in Europe, having started to be used around 1716. Throughout the 19th.C. and into the 20th, the little cemetery was something of a pilgrimage site, revered by authors. Daisy Miller, the heroine of Henry James's eponymous novella, is buried here. After an audience with Pope Pius IX in 1877, Oscar Wilde visited the Cemetery, proclaiming it "the holiest place in Rome." Leaving the cemetery, turn right along the via Caio Cesto and right onto the Via Marmoratto, shortly arriving back at the Pyramid of Cestius. Ahead of us is the front of Porta San Paolo rail station where we began this walk.