From Heathrow to antiquity (Roman diary 1)

The Via Appia begins here

It didn’t take much to prepare – to unpack after the previous trip and repack again, keeping the number of items to a minimum, almost symbolic number, so few that my backpack could easily pass as hand luggage. What was most worrying was the prospect of a sleepless night as my flight to Rome was at 6am, and that meant either tossing about in bed and leaving the house at 3 anyway, or being a dozy, part-time nomad at the airport …
I took the last tube to Heathrow at 1 and an hour later found it strangely silent. In empty spaces – all counters and shops shut, no uniformed staff in sight – my own steps resonated on the vast floors. Suddenly the terminal felt grim and depressing. Quite a few passengers of the early morning flights seemed already well accommodated in the waiting hall, most of them sleeping, sprawled across two or three seats, lying in awkward vulnerable positions on the filthy carpet; new ones, laden with heavy intercontinental-style suitcases, emerging from the lift every now and then and swiftly joining in the rituals of night airport survival. Perhaps as ironic and unnerving entertainment, precisely at fifteen-minute intervals, taped female voices warned of any unattended luggage being removed and disposed of, in five languages in turn. At around 4, those most alert of the travellers started to leave sleepily and form a queue for the check-in. All heading for Rome. Soon, a bunch of black-clad young Orthodox Jews dispersed to seek semi-secluded places and began to wag and bow against walls in their morning prayer. Outside, distant lights of the first planes were descending from the brightening indigo sky.

It’s shortly after 9. I leave Fiumicino airport in no time, wide awake, ready to face blinding Mediterranean sun with all its blessings and dangers. Within 35 minutes a rather stuffy Leonardo shuttle train takes me to Termini. I make a beeline for my B&B, just two streets away, in a quiet XIX century building neighbouring S. Maria Maggiore. Only now do I realise it’s Sunday morning – I’m experiencing a nearly perfect, travel induced time warp. I change and leave, intuitively look for another B&B nearby, this time Bici & Baci, a scooter and bike hire shop, carefully selected well ahead this trip for its convenient location. It’s a good city bike I’m after and I pray it won’t be that red boneshaker standing in the corner of the shop’s arched premises. It’s that one, unfortunately. I take to the streets, downhill, until feeling increasingly dry I stop at a tiny corner shop in via Urbana, have a bottle of lager, shamelessly standing at the doorstep. I pack a large bottle of water and some fruit for later, on that first day in the scorching sun. And it’s only 11.
I bump into a police car parked across via Cavour, but they kindly beckon me to go past – all the streets in the ancient heart of the city are closed to traffic on Sundays, so my ride to the Forum and then Collosseum has an air of exhilaration and wonder, something I expect to assist me for the entire week here.
I encircle the Collosseum among the herds of helpless tourists, go past the Palatine and the Baths of Caracalla, where in the scarce shade of pine trees mad cicadas have already started their relentless drone, a natural musical phenomenon to which even most elaborate electronic music never lives up to. I stop at Porta S. Sebastiano. The Appian Way starts (or ends) here. The infallible voice within tells me to go farther, regardless the mid-day heat. Why not, why ever not? So far I’ve managed to make it from Heathrow to antiquity in under six hours.

It’s strange that one of the aspects of Rome that is most evocative of the past is a ride along a single road which takes me right away from the hectic city to quiet countryside. The traffic is minimal – a few ramblers, cyclists and occasional cars down the very first stretch of the road. The air is considerably fresher, the sights expand with every kilometre I cover, all the important landmarks well spread out in one massive, peaceful and beautiful archeological site. In some disbelief I look down to the slate coloured cobbles and slabs in which Roman wheel ruts are so perfectly preserved. This is the Via Appia with its villas set in the fields, ruined tombs, deserted churches and hidden catacombs. It’s the year 312 BC. Melancholy at its purest.
In antiquity the via Appia was a desirable location to live and so it is today. Life goes on in the scattered houses of those lucky and rich enough to live here. Most old villas and farmhouses are behind walls, set in lush greenery of vast gardens incorporating ancient monuments. Only numbers on the humble wooden gates indicate present day addresses.
As I go farther down, the landscape on both sides becomes almost rural, the nearby ruins become more prominent and I can’t help thinking I’m in the midst of one long cemetery. Major roads in ancient Rome were the places where the problem of disposing of the dead was resolved; most burials were beside them. Wealthy citizens would built a great individual monument before their death, the ashes of slaves or the poor were stacked on top of another in structures known as a columbarium. Here is one, incorporated into a house, another one freestanding, yet another, large one, houses a small restaurant. At some stage of the ride I pass the clusters of catacombs – S. Callisto, S. Sebastiano and Domitilla. A claustrophobic feeling grips me inside the Sebastiano. In evenly cool and slightly damp corridors, with thousands of niches carved in the rock in which bodies were once stored, I sense a faint presence of the people who used them, grieved the loved ones and celebrated their own lives.

The Via Appia seems to stretch endlessly to the south-east; most walkers have long turned back at some stage. When I’m finally going to get to the point it intersects the main circular road of Rome I dread for my solitary experience of The Queen of Roads to get spoiled with modernity, so I resolutely turn back and simply walk for half an hour or so before getting on the bike again. The late afternoon sun is spreading an orange glow over the and fields, the sky is beginning to flame in the west and the pine trees turn green-black. The ruins I first saw in perfect harmony with the landscape a few hours before now look different, jagged against the sky. As I approach the section of walled villas, oil lamps on the ground light the entrances to the darkening gardens.