This website “Il Cammino dell’Appia Antica” / “Walking on Appia Antica” is born with the aim of reviving the experience of walking and retrace the most famous ancient road in the world, an infrastructure built by the Romans, that connected Rome – at that time “caput mundi” – to the south of italian peninsula and Through the ports, to Africa and the Orient. A road 600 kilometers long,  once traveled by armies, wayfarers, traders, on foot, on horseback, in a carriage. And this for many centuries.

The idea of realizing a project – a path – grew up at the end of the pedestrian walk that Paolo Rumiz, Irene Zambon, Alessandro Scillitani and Riccardo Carnovalini run, following the whole original Appia trace. Walker and experienced researcher, Riccardo Carnovalini studied and retraced this ancient walk on the base of  detailed bibliographic and carthographic reserches. The result was a GPS trace the he used leading the walk from Rome to Brindisi.

In the book titled “APPIA”, edited by Feltrinelli, Paolo Rumiz tells about this great adventure – a modern exploration – while Carnovalini describes the 29 stages in which the walk was devided, and designed 31 detailed maps of the much difficult traits.The GPS trace of the walking and the maps are available by free on this link: https://www.feltrinellieditore.it/news/2016/06/08/appia. On the base of this trace the Italian Heritage Ministry started studing a project of a path secure for walker, at the same time enhancing monuments, cities and landscape of the surround.

Walking on Appia Antica will not always means stepping on the original “basolato” – the large heavy slates that covered the roman road – because many of that have been lost, destroyed or covered by modern Appia driveway or even by buildings. But many parts are still waiting to be discovered.

This Project is on. The tender regarding the executive project has been assigned. The project will forecast all the works regarding security, signposting, rest areas, the infrastructures necessary to go over natural or buit barriers.This means that the trace you will find in the Atlante (see section) at the moment is not yet a secure path, because oftenly run along busy driveways without any protection, and the same could happen crossing streams or rivers without bridges, or even in open cultivated land and some times is even interrupted by fences or gates.

At this time, any walker aimed to retrace Appia Antica path walk at his risk, becuase the project is not yet realized.

On these days the projest has been slowed by CODVIRUS pandemia. We are using this time improving this website with data and informations about archeologycal finds, history, places and different landscape, but also with information about pubblic services, transport, railways, usefull to prepare a future journey once the emergency will stop and the works on the path will be completed.

Walking on Appia Antica and any of the 29 stages mean crossing half Italy, four regions, cities, lands, landscapes, original roman bridges, monuments and roads, but also degraded areas, inhabitants, traditional food, folk music, dialects, art craft.

Walking on Appia Antica would be the experience of your  life, to be run with a backpack, passing through places and history of Italy.