Rocca di Papa, journey to the heart of the Roman Castles

At the foot of the mountain lie the Fields of Hannibal, the territory where the general camped, which still bears his name today.
Rocca di Papa, which was called Cabum during the Latin League times, instead owes its name to Pope Eugene III (1145-1152), who stayed here in exile from Rome, while the town was first mentioned in 1181, on the occasion of the occupation of Pope Lucius III, who incorporated the town into the Church’s possessions.
Rocca di Papa hosts the headquarters of the Roman Castles park, which surrounds the city with lush woods, providing it with breathtaking panoramas that can be admired from the heights of the Rocca, among the winding narrow alleys and ancient buildings where time seems to have stopped.
A setting that was well suited for some scenes of the film “The Marquis of Grillo” with Alberto Sordi, which were shot here. Among the points of interest are the church of Santa Maria ad Nives of Palazzolo, a place of worship perched over Lake Albano, near which passed the Via Sacra, which from the Appian Way led to the temple and nearby where there is an ancient tomb believed to belong to the Cornelii Scipiones.
Curiously, the shape of some bas-reliefs found on this unsuspecting tomb is said to have later inspired the symbol of the fasces, used during the Fascist era. On the land above, in 1629, by the will of Cardinal Girolamo Colonna, the “cardinal’s villa” was built, now serving as a ceremony and conference center.
The pontifical fortress located at the highest point of the town was the setting for Guglielmo Marconi’s experiments and today hosts the city’s geophysics museum, where one of the first seismological observatories in Italy is located, still active today.
Among the curiosities of the area is the physical phenomenon of a stretch of road that appears to be uphill but is actually downhill, located outside the town, on the stretch of the Via dei Laghi between Ariccia and Rocca di Papa, where curious visitors and researchers come to witness the phenomenon with their own eyes.
Among the local gastronomic specialties, the proximity of the woods has inspired many dishes based on porcini mushrooms and chestnuts, to which the town dedicates a festival every October.