Tusculum: where Romans go to see Rome from above

The city that Rome destroyed

Tusculum stood on this ridge for a thousand years before Rome was strong enough to matter. Legend gave its founding to Telegonus, son of Ulysses and Circe; history records a rival city that fought Rome, was absorbed by it, and then became the place where wealthy Romans built their country villas to escape the summer.

Cicero had one here, and wrote the Tusculan Disputations in it. The exact site has never been settled, which has not stopped anyone from arguing about it for four centuries.

In 1191 the Romans came up the hill and destroyed the medieval town that had grown on the ruins, thoroughly enough that it was never rebuilt. What is left is a Roman theatre, a stretch of ancient paved road, cisterns, the outline of a forum, and one of the great views in central Italy.

What is actually up there

The theatre is small, semicircular and remarkably intact, cut into the slope with the stage facing the plain. You can sit on the stone tiers where an audience sat two thousand years ago, and almost always you will be alone doing it.

The ancient road runs below the theatre, basalt-paved like the Appian Way, with the ruts of cart wheels still visible.

The acropolis path climbs to the highest point of the ridge, where the medieval fortress stood. This is where you go for the view.

The woods. The whole ridge is chestnut forest, cool even in August, criss-crossed by walking paths that lead down towards Frascati and Grottaferrata on one side and up to Monte Cavo on the other.

The view

From the top you see the entire Roman plain: the city spread across it, the dome of St Peter's, the Alban Hills folding away to the south, and on a clear day the sea beyond Fiumicino.

At sunset the light comes in low from behind Rome and the whole plain turns copper. It is the reason to come here rather than to any of the other high points in the hills, and it is why every local photographer knows this road.

Go an hour before sunset. Bring something to sit on: the stones are hard and the wind on the ridge is real, even in summer.

Getting there

The road climbs from Frascati through Camaldoli, or from Grottaferrata on the other side. Either way it is a narrow, winding, wooded road of about fifteen minutes, with a few passing places and no lighting.

Parking is a gravel area below the archaeological zone; from there it is a walk of ten minutes or so on an unpaved path, uphill. Wear something other than sandals.

There is no public transport worth the name. This is a place you reach with your own vehicle, which is precisely why it stays empty while Frascati fills up.

Come down after dark and the descent through the chestnut woods, with the lights of Rome appearing between the trees, is its own reward.

When to go

September and October for the light, and because the woods turn.

Spring for the wildflowers on the open ground around the theatre.

Summer only in the late afternoon: there is shade in the woods but none on the ruins.

Winter for the clearest air of the year — the days when you can see the sea are all between November and February.

How it fits the day

Tusculum is the last stop, not the first. Spend the day below — the Appian Way out of Rome, Castel Gandolfo and the lake, Nemi in the afternoon — then climb the ridge for the last hour of light and come down in the dark.

Everything you looked at during the day is visible from up there at once. That is a good way to end a day, and a rare one.