In the Aqueduct Park between history, film and literature

The incipit of another unforgettable literary and artistic excursion has as its physical address the corner of Via Lemonia and Circonvallazione Tuscolana (Subaugusta metro station) because there lies the most scenic access to the Parco degli Acquedotti, that harmonious interlocking of arches and ordered tangle of ancient artefacts that are precisely the aqueducts. Six of the eleven routes in ancient Rome cross this stretch of the Appia Antica Regional Park, which witnesses the passage of these hanging waterways erected between 38 and 52 AD. One thus finds oneself within a landscape of tall ears of corn, patches of poppies and thistles that the cinema has always chosen from Federico Fellini's Dolce Vita to Paolo Sorrentino's Grande Bellezza and Mario Martone's Il Giovane Favoloso. And above all, many artists - including Ippolito Caffi and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot - have often portrayed the succession of peperino marble arches (the outer ashlar ashlars resemble diamonds) narrated by Charles Dickens, Nikolaj Vasil'evič Gogol', François-René de Chateaubriand. Superimposed one on top of the other, they still show the conduits of the waters that always sloped down from the Upper Aniene Valley driven by the force of gravity alone. Sections of the Via Latina can be recognised, drawing shade under the foliage of domestic pines, willows, strawberry trees and plane trees. This originally 68-kilometre-long road, commissioned by Caligula and Claudius, can be followed on foot and by bicycle to the 14th-century Torre del Fiscale. For a deeper understanding of its history, you can also visit The City of Water, or the underground path in the meanders of the Trevi district that still feeds the mythical fountain of the same name, the Barcaccia and the Quattro Fiumi fountain.