Cervara di Roma (RM)

Cervara di Roma (RM) is the highest town in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital: the built-up center sits at 1,053 meters above sea level, and the municipal territory climbs from the 419 meters of the Aniene valley floor to the 1,611 meters of the Simbruini ridge, with an internal elevation difference of almost 1,200 meters. You get there by Provincial Road 40/b from Subiaco or by Provincial Road 39/b from Arsoli, and if you leave from Rome you take the A24, exiting at Vicovaro-Mandela or at Carsoli-Oricola depending on which road you prefer. The trip from the capital takes about an hour and a quarter without traffic. You don't pay to visit the town: there are no tickets, no turnstiles and no opening hours, because the monument is the town itself. You leave the car in the parking areas along the road that skirts the built-up area, because the historic center is pedestrian by necessity: the streets are stepped and as wide as a loaded mule. The rest of the municipal territory includes the hamlet of Campaegli, a plateau at 1,430 meters with an information point of the regional natural park of the Monti Simbruini. Hours of the municipal offices, openings of the Museo della Montagna and the updated calendar of festivals should be checked on the official website of the Comune di Cervara di Roma before you leave, because in a town of a little over 400 residents the openings follow the season and not continuous hours.

Cervara di Roma is the gateway to the regional natural park of the Monti Simbruini, the largest protected area in Lazio, and belongs to the Aniene Mountain Community together with the towns of the Aniene valley.

Where Cervara di Roma (RM) Is and How You Really Get There

Geography explains almost everything about this town. Cervara occupies a limestone spur on the western slopes of the Monti Simbruini, overlooking the valley the Aniene has carved between Subiaco and Arsoli. From up there the eye runs toward the Monti Lucretili and the Monti della Sabina, and on clear days with a north wind you can make out profiles that seem to belong to another region. The old core is perched on a rocky plateau that no engineer would have chosen to found a settlement on, unless defense was on his mind.

Driving to Cervara di Roma

The two provincial roads that reach the town are SP 40/b, which climbs from Subiaco, and SP 39/b, which comes from Arsoli. They are real mountain roads: tight hairpins, dry-stone walls, stretches where the asphalt narrows and the beech forest comes right up to the roadway. In winter they can be snowy, and having winter equipment on board is not a whim. From Rome the easiest route is the A24 toward L'Aquila with the exit at Vicovaro-Mandela, then Via Sublacense to Subiaco and from there the climb. If you come from the north or from Abruzzo, exit at Carsoli-Oricola and come down toward Arsoli. A third branch of provincial road links the contrada Palio to the Campaegli plateau, eight kilometers of climbing to be taken calmly.

Reaching Cervara di Roma by Public Transport

There is a bus connection and it goes through Subiaco, which is the hub of the whole upper Aniene valley: regional runs are few per day and change between the school period and summer, so the times should be read on the regional carrier's website the day before and not the same day. The railway, on the other hand, has been gone for almost a century: the Mandela-Subiaco line, which had a stop named Rocca Canterano-Cervara-Canterano, ended service in 1933. If you travel without a car and want to see Cervara at leisure, you do well to spend the night in Subiaco and go up for the day.

Where to Park and How Much You Walk

The historic center is reached on foot with a climb of a few dozen meters of elevation, short but steep, all steps and cobblestones. It's not a route suited to rigid strollers or to people with walking difficulties: those with mobility problems can still enjoy the lower square, the view and the flat part, which on its own is worth the drive up. Closed shoes with a lugged sole: the local stone, polished by centuries of footsteps, is slippery on a damp day.

The Highest Town in the Province of Rome

The fact the locals of Cervara repeat with justified pride is this: 1,053 meters above sea level, no other town in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital is higher. In Lazio only Filettino exceeds it. It's a record with nothing folkloric about it, because it determined the agrarian history, the architecture and even the language of the place. At that altitude wheat doesn't ripen well, the vine doesn't hold, the olive tree is out of the question: the historic economy of Cervara was sheep farming, woodland, chestnuts, timber and hunting. The houses huddled one against the other to save on walls exposed to the wind, and the windows are small for the same reason.

The official climate classification places Cervara in zone F, with 3,134 degree days: it's the coldest band provided by Italian regulations, the same as Alpine towns. In practice it means winters with lows well below zero, snowfalls that in some years become imposing, and a summer that rarely goes above 30 degrees. Whoever comes up from Rome in August in a T-shirt and stays until sunset regularly regrets it: at eight in the evening, in the square, you need a sweatshirt even on Ferragosto. It's common to see groups arrive in flip-flops and ask to borrow a jacket.

The Historic Center of Cervara di Roma Step by Step

Calling it a visit is almost improper: in Cervara you go up and down, and the layout of the town is one continuous staircase between two squares. The lower level is Piazza Giovanni XXIII, the upper level is Piazza Umberto I, and between the two runs the system of stairways that made the village famous.

Piazza Umberto I, the Balcony of Cervara di Roma

The upper square is the point where the town looks out over the void. From here the Aniene valley opens in all its depth and the landscape reads like a topographic map: the beech woods up high, the chestnuts at mid-slope, the fields and gardens below. It's the place where 19th-century painters set up their easels, and not by chance: the afternoon light cuts across the rock and lifts the houses off the background as in a theater. If you have little time and want to understand Cervara all at once, sit here for 20 minutes.

The Streets Carved into the Rock

The common nickname of Cervara di Roma is the town sculpted in the rock, and it's not an advertising metaphor: whole limestone walls serve as the load-bearing wall of the homes, the alleys are cut into the bedrock and in several places the street surface and the wall of the house are the same stone. The twisting, steep lanes, often covered by arches and vaulted passages, keep the medieval layout without restorations that falsified it. Until the 1950s the town could be reached only by mule: this isolation, which was poverty back then, is today the reason the urban fabric has come down to us intact.

The Fonte Munistrigliu and Daily Life of Long Ago

Just outside the built-up area the Fonte Munistrigliu keeps the old wash house, which for generations was the real women's social center of the town. The locality of Munistrigliu also hosted a rural sanctuary tied to the devotion to the Madonna della Portella and was the community's gathering point on feast days. The women whom French painters made famous under the name cervaroles are the same ones who came up from here with the water jar balanced on their heads: when you look at the slope of the road in front of the wash house you understand how little picturesque that gesture was for those who performed it.

Piazza Giovanni della Prugna

The lower square is named after Giovanni della Prugna, killed in 1943. A town of 400 souls that dedicates a square to one of its war dead is saying something precise about its collective memory, and it's worth reading the plaque instead of rushing across.

The Rocca of Cervara di Roma and Its Wars

Above the town, on the top of the spur, the ruins of the medieval rocca remain. Local sources place the construction between the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th: the date most often quoted is 1115, while the documentation of the municipal body dates it generically to the first half of the 11th century. What all the sources agree on is the function: a military control fortress, made nearly impregnable by its position more than by the thickness of the walls.

Pelagio da Jenne, the Abbot Who Took Cervara

The darkest page of the rocca bears the name of Pelagio da Jenne. In 1273, after trying in vain to get himself elected abbot of Subiaco, he occupied the fortress of Cervara with his men and made it the base of a personal dominion over the whole territory, going as far as occupying the monastery of Santa Scolastica at night. The reaction came from Rome: an army of men of Subiaco sent by the pontiff laid siege to the rocca, which capitulated after two months. Pelagio ended up a prisoner in the rocca of Subiaco, where he died. Three years of unlawful lordship on a limestone spur: the history of the Apennine castles is made of this too, and telling it at the foot of the broken walls works much better than reading it in a textbook.

The Decline and the Statue of the Immaculate Conception

After the 16th century the fortress lost every defensive role and began to crumble. Pope Pius VI considered a restoration and gave it up because of the cost: a decision that has left us a ruin instead of a remodeled castle, and frankly the ruin tells more. In 1954 a statue of the Immaculate Conception was placed on the remains of the rocca, which can be seen from the town against the light and is lit in the evening. The climb to the ruins is short but exposed: in strong wind it's not a good idea to go near the edge.

La Prugna, the Vanished Fortress

Of the territory's second stronghold, called la Prugna, only a few foundations remain. Local tradition attributes its destruction to the raids of the brigand Marco Sciarra, who between the end of the 16th century and the very first years of the 17th devastated the upper Aniene valley. Since then the site was abandoned. The only pictorial document that gives us back the original look of la Prugna is a 19th-century oil painting: a case in which landscape painting did the work of archaeology.

The Churches of Cervara di Roma

For such a small town the religious heritage is surprisingly varied, and already in 1660 the parish sources counted three in use.

The Collegiate Church of Maria Santissima della Visitazione

It's the main church of Cervara di Roma, and it stands near the ruins of the rocca, in the upper part of the historic center. It's built entirely of local stone, has an old bell tower and an entrance portal from the 15th century in the Renaissance style, the most valuable architectural piece in the town. The full dedication also includes Saint Elizabeth and Saint Felix.

Inside are kept two oil paintings on canvas from the first half of the 17th century. The first depicts the Visitation and is attributed to Vincenzo Manenti, a painter born in Orvinio and active throughout the Sabina, a prolific and uneven author whose hand is recognized by the broad drapery and the pale flesh tones. The attribution is traditional, not documented by a contract: it's good to know that in front of the painting. The second painting, on the high altar, depicts the Madonna del Carmine and belongs to the same few years.

San Felice, the Martyr Who Came from the Catacombs

Under the high altar rests the body of a martyr given to Cervara by Pope Pius VI and coming from the catacombs of San Callisto, on the Appian Way. Next to the remains a plaque with the inscription Felix was found, and from that word the martyr took his name: San Felice is today the patron saint of the town. The 18th-century practice of distributing to country parishes the bodies taken from the Roman underground cemeteries produced hundreds of cases like this throughout Lazio, and Cervara is a clear example: the saint has no biography, he has an inscription.

Santa Maria della Portella

The church of Santa Maria della Portella owes its name to its position near the gates of the town and dominates the Aniene valley from a remarkable lookout. It was established in 1702 by the Jesuit Fathers on the occasion of the holy missions they held in these lands, but the building is older than the institution: its construction is placed between 1514 and the second half of the 16th century. Inside is kept a terracotta statue of the Madonna and Child, the object of a tenacious local devotion.

Sant'Emidio and San Rocco

The church of Sant'Emidio stands at the edge of the built-up area, at the main entrance to the upper part of the town. In the 17th century it was dedicated to San Rocco, and the change of dedication to Sant'Emidio, protector against earthquakes, tells by itself the seismic fear of these mountains. The church of San Rocco, protector against epidemics and plague, stands on the road that leads toward Camerata and toward the mountain gate. To these is added the church of the Beata Vergine del Carmelo, from the 18th century, with a painting on wood of the Virgin.

The Scalinata degli Artisti, the Symbol of Cervara di Roma

If Cervara is known beyond the boundaries of the valley, the credit goes to a staircase. The Scalinata degli Artisti links Piazza Giovanni XXIII, below, to Piazza Umberto I, above, and along its course the limestone rock has been worked in bas-relief, incised with lines of poetry and flanked by sculptures. It's not an open-air museum built on paper by a marketing office: it was born in 1984, when the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence, coordinated by Professor Vincenzo Bianchi, holder of the chair of sculpture, came up to Cervara and worked directly on the living stone of the town.

The result is a narrative device that the visitor crosses without noticing: you climb to get to the square and find yourself reading carved verses, passing figures that seem to emerge from the rock instead of having been applied to it. In some points of the stairway are incised the musical notes composed by Ennio Morricone for the town. The advice: walk it uphill, never downhill. Going up, the eye meets the works at the right height and the rhythm of your steps forces you to stop. Going down, you look at where you put your feet and you lose everything.

The Scalinata della Pace

Alongside the Scalinata degli Artisti is the Scalinata della Pace, which climbs toward the rocca and is punctuated by figures of symbolic value. The two stairways link the lower part and the upper part of the built-up area, and together they make up the pedestrian backbone of the town: in Cervara di Roma there is no flat stroll, there is a climb that has become a work of art.

The Montagna d'Europa and the Murals of Cervara di Roma

On the limestone wall overhanging the little square develops the sculptural complex that bears the name Montagna d'Europa, dedicated to world peace and modeled with figures alluding to brotherhood and solidarity among peoples. It is the mature outcome of the same project begun by the Florentine students: the rock no longer serves as a support, it becomes the material of the work. Looking at it from below, in the morning backlight, it's hard to tell where geology ends and the chisel begins. It's the most ambitious piece of the whole artistic project of Cervara and, in our view, the most successful.

Alongside the sculpture is mural painting: along the streets of the town 14 murals have been made, accompanied by incised poems. The season of the Cervara murals starts as early as the 1970s, when artists such as Eric Hebborn, Giuseppe Ciotti and Julianos Kattinis decided to leave a trace of their passage directly on the walls of the houses, with frescoes and paintings. The town, which for a century and a half had hosted painters who came to carry off the image of Cervara on canvas, begins to keep art on its own walls.

Cervara di Roma, Town of Art: the Artists' Colony

This is the real reason it's worth climbing all the way up here. From the beginning of the 19th century Cervara di Roma entered steadily into the itinerary of the foreign painters staying in Rome, and for over a century the town became a fixed stop on the artistic pilgrimage toward the Lazio mountains, together with Subiaco, Anticoli Corrado and Olevano Romano. They don't come by chance: they are looking for the harsh landscape, the bare rocks, the folk costumes and the human types that the Roman academy no longer offered.

The First Gaze: Koch and Pinelli

In 1810 the Tyrolean painter Joseph Anton Koch, one of the leading figures of heroic landscape in the Roman setting, took the subject of an engraving from Cervara. The old local account calls him Antonio Koch, but the artist's full name is the one given here. Almost in the same years Bartolomeo Pinelli worked on the town, the most prolific illustrator of Rome and its province, author of about 10,000 drawings and engravings: his plates with the Cervara costumes did for the image of the town what photography would do in the 20th century. Alongside them are Gaetano Cottafavi, Filippo Ferrari and Ernest Schweinfurth.

Adrian Ludwig Richter and the Dresden Drawing

In 1826 the German Adrian Ludwig Richter made a Cervara landscape, a pen drawing now kept at the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden. Richter belongs to that generation of northerners who came down to Italy to learn light: the Dresden sheet is the proof that the name of Cervara was already circulating in the notebooks of the Roman studios.

Samuel Morse, the Painter Who Invented the Telegraph

On May 24, 1830, Samuel Finley Breese Morse arrives in Cervara from Subiaco, with his luggage loaded on two mules. Before being the inventor of the electric telegraph and of the alphabet that bears his name, Morse was a professional painter, trained in England and active in the United States. Of his arrival there remains a note worth more than 10 descriptions: the landscape is grand, past an oak grove Cervara appears, reached by a goat path, no carriage would ever pass there, and there is something strangely majestic in the calm of a place like this, where for the most part a perfect silence reigns. Anyone who drives up today on a paved provincial road would do well to keep the goat path in mind.

Willers, Lear, Gautier, Corot, von Blaas

The German painter Ernst Willers painted Cervara in 1836, and the painting is now in the Kunsthalle in Bremen. Two years later, in 1838, the Englishman Edward Lear, illustrator and author of nonsense, took some lithographs from the town. The French critic and writer Théophile Gautier passed through here. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot worked here, who in the Roman countryside had formed his own way of treating light. There is Karl von Blaas, marked by the experience of the Nazarenes, the group of German Romantic painters active between Rome and the province in the 19th century. Five names that in any European museum would fill a room: all of them, in different years, in front of the same crag.

Ernest Hébert and the Cervaroles

Among them all, the artist who made Cervara di Roma famous in Europe is the Frenchman Ernest Hébert, born in Grenoble in 1817 and died in La Tronche in 1908. Hébert didn't just pass through: he settled in the town and shared its simple, hard life. He fell in love with the women of Cervara, the cervaroles, and made them the recurring subject of his painting, celebrating every gesture and every expression. From that stay came Rosanera alla fontana, Le pic de Cervara, Une rue à Cervara, Porteuse d'eau de Cervara and above all Les Cervarolles, painted in the years 1856-1858 and now displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In the town they still point out the arch that appears in that painting. Standing under it, with the reproduction of the painting on your phone, is the most instructive exercise you can do in Cervara: the geometry of the arch is identical, the women are not.

Robert Wellmann and Oskar Kokoschka

In 1900 the Austrian Robert Wellmann was the first artist of the new century to settle in Cervara: he bought a villa in contrada la Maddalena and lived and worked there for a few years. 30 years later, in 1930, Oskar Kokoschka arrived, an Austrian painter and playwright who trained in direct contact with Gustav Klimt in the years of the Vienna Secession. That a leading figure of European Expressionism set up his easel in this town is a fact that is told little in Cervara and that would deserve a plaque.

The 20th Century: Alberti, Monachesi, Morricone

After the Second World War the bond between Cervara and artists loosened, and was only renewed in the 1960s. The first to set foot again in the little streets of the historic center were Sante Monachesi, founder of the Movimento Futurista Marche, the neorealist Domenico Purificato and Aldo Riso.

Rafael Alberti, the Poet of the Square

The figure who dominates the 20th century in Cervara, however, is Rafael Alberti, a Spanish poet of the Generation of '27. Forced into exile by the Francoist victory, Alberti spent decades between France, Mexico and Argentina, and from 1964 lived in the province of Rome. He returned to Spain only after the death of Francisco Franco. In Cervara he left some verses, which now stand out in the main square, and a definition of the town that no tourist office could have written: a sculpture in the sky, which would fly to the sky if the air held it up. Reading those verses in the square, with the valley below, explains the choice of the word sculpture better than any commentary.

Ennio Morricone and the Music for Cervara

In 1998 Ennio Morricone composed two previously unpublished pieces for the town, Notturno per Cervara and Passacaglia per Cervara. They were performed in Cervara on July 2, 1998 by the Roma Sinfonietta conducted by Andrea Morricone. The notes of those scores have been engraved on the stone of the stairway: a town of 400 inhabitants that takes home a world premiere by the greatest Italian composer of film music, and writes it on the steps.

The Museo della Montagna of Cervara di Roma

The Museo della Montagna occupies two floors and collects the material culture of the town: sheep farming, the ceremonial cycles of the year, women's work, local costumes with their goldsmithing, agriculture, crafts and objects of devotion. The route comes with educational material in Italian, English and Braille, an accessibility choice that is rare in a town of this size and deserves to be pointed out. Among the most interesting sections is the one dedicated to the locality of Munistrigliu, with the rural sanctuary of the Madonna della Portella and the community gathering function that place served.

A village ethnographic museum is worth as much as its objects were really collected in the local homes, and here they were: the costumes with the gold jewelry, the water jars, the tools of the woods and of the shepherd come from Cervara families. The hours are not continuous all year round: if you want to visit, call the Comune di Cervara di Roma a few days ahead, especially out of season. It's worth a good half hour, and for those traveling with middle schoolers it's the best way to make them understand what it meant to live at 1,000 meters with no road.

Campaegli and the Mountain of Cervara di Roma

Eight kilometers of provincial road above the town opens the plateau of Campaegli, at an altitude of 1,430 meters: summit meadows, beech woods, sinkholes and a horizon that has nothing in common with the usual image of Lazio. Here the regional natural park of the Monti Simbruini keeps an information point, and here is concentrated the mountain sports activity of the municipality, possible all year round: cross-country skiing and sled dogging in winter, horseback tourism, hiking, tennis and five-a-side soccer in the good season.

The Trails Around Cervara di Roma

The first itinerary, within anyone's reach, is the Sentiero della Pineta, which starts from the town and runs through dense vegetation of pines and beeches: barely an hour of walking, guaranteed shade, excellent for a summer afternoon. From Campaegli, on the other hand, start the ridge routes that enter the Simbruini massif, toward the peaks that exceed 1,700 meters and toward the karst plateaus. The park's trail network is marked with the classic white-and-red signs: updated maps and the condition of the trails should be asked for at the park's information point, because at altitude snow lasts until late April and certain stretches become demanding.

One rule: on the Simbruini the phone gets signal only in patches and the beech woods disorient more than rock, because all the trunks look alike. Walk with a map, a compass or a track downloaded in advance, and come back before sunset.

The Grotta Stoccolma and Karst Features

In the territory of Campaegli opens the karst sinkhole called Grotta Stoccolma. The limestone of the Simbruini is a geological sieve: it absorbs rainwater at the surface, makes it circulate at depth and gives it back to the springs of the valley floor. This is the reason the Romans came to take the water for the aqueducts Anio Vetus, Marcio, Claudio and Anio Novus here: the very name of the Simbruini points back to the waters beneath which the territory lies. Cervara di Roma is inside this water system, and its historic shortage of springs at altitude is the exact reverse of the valley's wealth of water.

The Astronomical Observatory of Campaegli

At Campaegli the amateur astronomers' association ASTRIS runs the Claudio del Sole Astronomical Observatory, with the possibility of night and day observations through the telescope. The altitude and the distance from the lights of the capital make this one of the best skies in the province of Rome: on moonless nights the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye. Openings are tied to the association's calendar and should be arranged in advance. If I had to name a single experience that Cervara offers and that can't be replicated elsewhere near Rome, I'd name a night of observation at Campaegli, preferably in August.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cervara di Roma (RM)

How much does it cost to visit Cervara di Roma?

Visiting Cervara di Roma costs nothing, because it is an inhabited town and not a paid site: you enter freely, with no tickets or hours. A cost may apply only for entry to the Museo della Montagna and for the activities organized on the Campaegli plateau, whose rates should be asked directly to the Comune or to the operator.

Why is Cervara di Roma the highest town in the province of Rome?

Cervara di Roma is at 1,053 meters above sea level, the figure that makes it the highest town in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. In Lazio only Filettino is higher. This altitude determined the agrarian history, the architecture and even the language of the town, because at that height wheat doesn't ripen well and the vine doesn't hold.

What is the Scalinata degli Artisti in Cervara di Roma?

The Scalinata degli Artisti is the stairway that links Piazza Giovanni XXIII, below, to Piazza Umberto I, above, in Cervara di Roma, and along its course the limestone rock has been worked in bas-relief with lines of poetry and sculptures. It was born in 1984, when the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence began to sculpt the wall.

How do you get to Cervara di Roma and where is it best to start the visit?

Cervara di Roma occupies a limestone spur on the western slopes of the Monti Simbruini, overlooking the Aniene valley between Subiaco and Arsoli. It's best to park below, start from Piazza Giovanni XXIII and walk up the Scalinata degli Artisti toward Piazza Umberto I, preferably early in the morning, because the town is covered from the valley toward the mountain.

Is Cervara di Roma wheelchair accessible?

No, the historic center of Cervara di Roma is not wheelchair accessible, because it is made of stairways carved into the rock and slopes that no adaptation could correct without altering the town. Still usable by car are the lower square, the scenic lookouts reachable from the road and the flat plateau of Campaegli.

Is Cervara di Roma suitable for a visit with children?

Children from six years up like Cervara di Roma a lot, because the town is all stairs with figures sculpted in the rock to look for as in a treasure hunt, and the upper square has a lookout that leaves them speechless. The Museo della Montagna, with the shepherd's tools and the traditional costumes, keeps the attention of even the smallest.

What is the best time to visit Cervara di Roma?

The best season to visit Cervara di Roma is autumn, between the end of September and the first half of November, when the beech woods of the Monti Simbruini change color, the air is clear and the town goes quiet again. Late spring is also excellent, from mid-May, when the meadows of the Campaegli plateau bloom.

What do you eat in Cervara di Roma?

The symbol product of Cervara di Roma is the truffle, recognized among the traditional agri-food products of Lazio, celebrated with a festival at the end of September. The signature first course is strozzaprete, a pasta of water and flour worked by hand, dressed plain with truffle or with a tomato sauce. In winter polenta dominates.

The Monti Simbruini Regional Natural Park

Cervara di Roma is the northern gateway to the regional natural park of the Monti Simbruini, which at almost 30,000 hectares is the largest protected area in Lazio. The park protects the largest beech woods in the region, a forest heritage that in autumn turns every shade of copper and that hosts the Apennine wolf, red deer, roe deer, golden eagle and a very rich lesser fauna. The municipal territory of Cervara represents its western edge, the one that looks toward the valley and toward Rome.

For those planning a whole day, the most effective combination is Cervara in the morning, with the stairway and the historic center, and the mountain in the afternoon: Monte Livata, with the localities of Campo dell'Osso and Monna dell'Orso, is a few kilometers from Campaegli, in the territory of Subiaco. Campo dell'Osso develops around 1,560 meters and the summit zone of Monna dell'Orso reaches over 1,700, served by a four-seat chairlift inaugurated in 2013. If you have demanding hikes planned or want to move in a group on these ridges, turn to qualified professionals: the network of tour guides of TourLeaderPro works regularly in the Lazio Apennines and knows the real times of the routes.

Festivals and Traditions of the Town

The Cervara calendar is dense and preserves rites that have disappeared elsewhere. The dates that follow are those of established tradition: confirmation year by year, with hours and programs, comes from the notices of the Comune di Cervara di Roma and of the parish.

January and Holy Week

On January 17 Sant'Antonio Abate is celebrated with a procession, bonfires and a dinner in the square open to everyone: it's the festival of livestock and fire, the most archaic of the Apennine year. In Holy Week the Friday is marked by the procession of the dead Christ along the stairways of the town, which at night, with only torches, produces a scenic effect that no director could construct.

Summer: Patron Saints, Inchinata and Mammoccia

On July 1, 2 and 3 the patron saints Elizabeth and Felix are celebrated, with performances by brass bands. On August 10 the great bonfire of San Lorenzo's night burns. On August 15 the procession of the Inchinata takes place, the meeting of two processions that bow to each other: a rite of mutual greeting between statues widespread in Lazio and always charged with emotional tension. August 16 is the turn of San Rocco, with the dance of the Mammoccia, a paper puppet around which the celebrations revolve, while on the same day the Soffitta della Nonna is held, a market for swapping and exchange. Also in August are held the Festa dei Faggi and the Sagra dello Strozzaprete. At the end of August the plateau hosts the Palio di Campaegli, a chivalric tournament set up in the field of arms.

September and December

At the end of September the Festa degli Artisti and the Sagra del Tartufo are held, the double event that best sums up the identity of the town: art and the woods. Between the last week of December and the first days of January comes the Sagra della Polenta e del relalicu, a dish of the Cervara tradition. If I had to choose a single date to understand Cervara, I'd choose the end of September: the light is the best of the year, the beeches begin to turn and the town is full without being invaded.

What You Eat Up Here

The symbol product is the truffle, recognized among the traditional agri-food products of Lazio: it grows in the woods of the municipality and holds its own against far more advertised truffle areas. The festival at the end of September revolves around the truffle. The signature first course is strozzaprete, pasta of water and flour worked by hand, dressed plain with truffle or with a tomato sauce. In winter polenta dominates, served on the spianatora and accompanied by the humble dishes of the mountain. Added to these are the sheep cheeses of the Aniene Mountain Community, chestnuts, mushrooms and game. The trattorias are few and on Sunday they fill up: if you come up as a group, book, otherwise you end up eating a sandwich in the square. It has happened, and not to other people's customers.

Cervara di Roma with Children

Children from six years up like the town a lot, for a precise reason: it's all stairs, there are figures sculpted in the rock to look for as in a treasure hunt, and the upper square has a lookout that keeps them quiet for a few seconds. The sculptures of the Scalinata degli Artisti work very well as an observation game. The Museo della Montagna, with the shepherd's tools and the costumes, holds attention for half an hour. In summer Campaegli offers room to run and meadows for picnics, and the astronomical observatory is the trump card for older kids.

With very small children it's a different story: the stroller is useless in the historic center, and you have to plan on a baby carrier. A changing table is not guaranteed and public restrooms are few, so it's best to get organized before going up.

Accessibility and Limits of the Visit

It must be said clearly: the historic center of Cervara di Roma is not wheelchair accessible. The urban fabric is made of stairways carved into the rock and slopes that no adaptation could correct without destroying the town. Still usable by car are the lower square, the scenic lookouts reachable from the road and the Campaegli plateau, which is flat. The Museo della Montagna offers educational material in Braille, a sign of attention to sensory accessibility. Those traveling with people with reduced mobility can still organize a satisfying day, as long as they give up the climb and concentrate on the landscape and the mountain.

When to Go

The best season is autumn, between the end of September and the first half of November: the beech woods change color, the air is clear, the town goes quiet again and the photographs come out on their own. Late spring is also excellent, from mid-May, when the meadows of Campaegli bloom. Summer is very pleasant thanks to the altitude, with average temperatures between 25 and 28 degrees, and August concentrates most of the festivals. Winter is for those who love real mountains: beautiful, often snowy, with the provincial roads requiring caution and suitable equipment.

The time to avoid, if you're after silence, is the afternoon of an August Sunday: the town is small and the parking fills up early. The best time of all, in our view, is the early morning of a weekday in October, when the valley fog rises and Cervara emerges from the white like an island.

What to See Around Cervara di Roma

Cervara lends itself very well to serving as a base or a stop within a wider itinerary in the upper Aniene valley. A short distance away is Canterano, the neighboring town. Subiaco, with the Benedictine monasteries of Santa Scolastica and the Sacro Speco, is the historic and religious center of the whole valley and deserves a whole day. Not far away are the ruins of Camerata Vecchia, the village abandoned after the fire of 1859, and the sanctuary of the Santissima Trinità of Vallepietra, set into the rock wall.

Going down toward the valley you meet Arsoli with its Massimo castle, Anticoli Corrado, another town of models and painters, the little lakes of Percile and farther down Tivoli with its villas. Toward the Ciociaria open Trevi nel Lazio, Filettino with the Campo Staffi ski station, Guarcino and Campocatino, Fiuggi with its waters. To the west are Palestrina, Olevano Romano and the ghost village of Antuni. If you're organizing a trip to Rome in English and looking for ideas for out-of-town excursions, you'll find an overall picture in ItalyPlanner's guide to day trips from Italian cities.

A Curiosity About Cervara di Roma (RM)

The most surprising curiosity about Cervara di Roma doesn't concern a stone or a painting: it concerns vowels. In Italian dialectology there is a technical category called condizioni cervarole, named after this very town. In a wide area of the Aniene valley, straddling the Sabine group and the Romanesco group of the central dialects, the vowel system behaves in a particular way that linguists have described and classified using Cervara as the sample locality. It means that the name of a town of a little over 400 inhabitants has entered the scientific vocabulary of Romance linguistics: when a scholar writes condizioni cervarole in an essay on the vocalism of the central dialects, he is citing this spur of rock above the Aniene.

It's not a scholar's detail. The fact that an archaic linguistic condition has been preserved right here depends on exactly the same reasons that preserved the medieval fabric of the town: isolation. Until the 1950s Cervara was reached by mule, the nearest railway had closed in 1933 and the paved road arrived late. A town that talks little with the outside keeps its vowels as it keeps its alleys. The second curiosity is the name of the town itself: until 1881 it was simply called Cervara, and in that year it took the name Cervara di Roma, to distinguish itself from the many other Cervaras of the peninsula. The stag on the municipal coat of arms, leaping on a blue field with three green mountains in the corners, sums up in a single image the etymology and the geography of the place.

Something Nobody Tells You About Cervara di Roma (RM)

What you don't read in the brochures is that in Cervara di Roma the tourist almost always arrives at the wrong time of day. The Scalinata degli Artisti and the Montagna d'Europa are works sculpted in bas-relief in the limestone, and bas-relief exists only if there is a raking light that produces shadow. At noon, with the sun at its zenith, the figures flatten and many visitors walk past the Montagna d'Europa without understanding what they're looking at: they see a gray wall. The same works, at nine in the morning or in the two hours before sunset, emerge from the stone with a force that leaves you speechless. The difference between a memorable visit and a disappointing one, in Cervara, is four hours on the clock.

The second thing nobody says concerns the silence. Cervara is one of the few places an hour from Rome where you can still hear the background noise of nothing: on weekdays out of season the town produces very few sounds, and the acoustic bowl of the valley amplifies what there is. Samuel Morse noticed it in 1830, writing that for the most part a perfect silence reigns there, and his observation holds up. Anyone who goes expecting a lively village with shops and bars will be disappointed: there is no shopping street here, no nightlife, there are four businesses and a square. A third practical piece of information that is little known: services close early and in the cold months many businesses cut their hours. Going up at five in the afternoon on a Tuesday in February counting on having dinner in town is a gamble best avoided, and a phone call ahead solves the problem in two minutes.

The Advice I Give You for Visiting Cervara di Roma (RM)

The advice is one and I give it without hesitation: go up to Cervara di Roma early in the morning and plan on walking uphill. The town is covered from the valley toward the mountain, never the reverse. You park below, start from Piazza Giovanni XXIII, take the Scalinata degli Artisti and climb calmly, reading the incised verses and looking at the sculptures, which are meant to be met on the way up. You reach Piazza Umberto I, sit on the parapet and look at the valley. Then you continue toward the collegiate church of Maria Santissima della Visitazione, climb further up to the ruins of the rocca and the statue of the Immaculate Conception, and come down by the Scalinata della Pace, closing the loop. It's barely two hours of actual walking, but set aside three for it.

Second piece of advice, a practical one: bring a windbreaker even in summer and shoes with a lugged sole in every season. I repeat the point because I see people get it wrong all the time. At 1,000 meters, with the valley drawing air, an August evening is really cool, and the polished stone of the stairways after rain is treacherous. Third: don't dispose of Cervara in an hour by pairing it with Subiaco in the same morning. It's the most common mistake. Subiaco with its monasteries asks for half a day on its own, and squeezing the two visits together means seeing both badly. If you have only one day, choose: Cervara di Roma in the morning and Campaegli in the afternoon, or Subiaco. Fourth, and take it as a firm opinion: the Sagra del Tartufo at the end of September is the moment when the town is at its best, but if you want quiet contemplation go the day before or the day after, not during.

Another Well-Known Fact, Yet Rarely Cited

That Cervara di Roma was painted by foreign artists of the 19th century everybody knows. What is rarely cited is the economic mechanism that made that season possible, and that also explains the fate of other nearby towns. Between the end of the 18th century and the 19th century Rome was the European capital of artistic training: the national academies sent their fellows here, and every foreign painter staying in the city was expected to look for subjects from life. The Roman countryside and the Lazio mountains thus became an enormous open-air atelier, and towns like Cervara, Anticoli Corrado, Olevano Romano and Subiaco entered a precise circuit, with itineraries, inns and even established rates for those who posed.

The rarely cited fact is exactly this: Ernest Hébert's cervaroles were not just subjects, they were paid models. Posing for a foreign painter was, for a mountain woman, a source of real income in an economy that offered no other besides sheep farming and gathering. The celebrated beauty of the women of Cervara, which 19th-century literature turned into a Romantic myth, had a market behind it. The same happened in Anticoli Corrado, where the phenomenon was so widespread that it marked the demographics of the town. Telling the story of the cervaroles without this piece of economic truth means handing the reader a postcard instead of a story. The second rarely cited element concerns the geography of art: Cervara was not chosen for its beauty in the abstract, but because it lay on the itinerary that led from the monasteries of Subiaco toward Abruzzo, a route that Grand Tour travelers already followed for other reasons. The artistic fortune of this town was born from an obligatory passage.

The Right Photo to Take in Cervara di Roma (RM)

The photograph everyone tries in Cervara di Roma is the town seen from outside, clinging to the spur: you take it from the provincial road, on the last stretch before arriving, and it works in the late afternoon when the sun lights the rocky face from the west. It's a good photograph and worth the stop, but it's not the best one.

The right photo is another, and it has to be taken inside the town, under the arch that appears in Les Cervarolles by Ernest Hébert. You frame the arch against the light, with the valley opening beyond the vaulted passage: the structure is the same that the French painter used in the years 1856-1858 for the painting now in the Musée d'Orsay. It's a photograph that connects a real place with a work displayed in one of the most visited museums in Europe, and that makes it infinitely more interesting than a panoramic view. If you have the reproduction of the painting on your phone, compose the frame looking for the same cut: the overlap is striking.

Third option, for those with time and patience: the Montagna d'Europa photographed from below in the hour before sunset, with the raking light that draws the figures out of the wall. You need a lens that holds the dynamic range between the rock in shadow and the sky, and you need to accept waiting 20 minutes for the light to reach the right point. A technical tip that holds for the whole town: in Cervara the extreme wide angle lies, because it flattens the slopes and makes what isn't flat look flat. A 50 millimeter gives back the true proportions of the stairways. Last recommendation, one of good manners more than technique: many houses in the historic center are inhabited and the windows open directly onto the alleys. You photograph the stones, not other people's kitchens.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

The first event is a notarial deed. On August 21, 884, the consul and duke Cesario donated to the abbot Stefano a series of properties in the territory of Subiaco, among them the monte qui dicitur Cervaria: the document is reported in the Regesto Sublacense and is the first written attestation of the name. That donation works in effect as Cervara's birth certificate. The next certain date is 1052, when the name of the castle appears, together with that of 23 other properties of the monks of Subiaco, in the plaque that Abbot Umberto had set into the wall of the cloister of the monastery of Santa Scolastica. From that year Cervara enters fully into the often violent affairs of the valley.

The second event is the occupation by Pelagio da Jenne. In 1273 the monk, rebuffed in his aspiration to the abbatial office, seized the fortress of Cervara, proclaimed himself abbot and raged across the territory until he occupied the monastery of Santa Scolastica at night. The siege of the rocca by the army sent by the pontiff ended after two months with surrender. Pelagio died a prisoner in the rocca of Subiaco. It is the episode that brought Cervara into the ecclesiastical chronicles of the 13th century.

The third event is from 1511. After the false news of the death of Pope Julius II spread, Bishop Pompeo tried to put himself at the head of the inhabitants of Cervara. The operation failed and the reaction was very harsh: declared guilty of lese-majesty, he was stripped of his episcopal title and of all ecclesiastical benefices. A mountain town that ends up inside a papal succession crisis says a lot about the strategic value attributed to this crag.

The fourth is April 1592, when the brigand Marco Sciarra assaulted the town with his men, causing heavy damage and many deaths. Sciarra was the most feared gang leader of the central Apennines in the late 16th century, and his raid marks the beginning of the fortress's definitive decline. Local tradition also attributes to his action the destruction of the stronghold of la Prugna.

The fifth event is from the 18th century and has the opposite sign: Pope Pius VI endowed Cervara with a parish church with precious books and furnishings and gave it the body of the martyr San Felice, found in the catacombs of San Callisto. From the community's point of view it was a founding act, because it gave the town its own patron. The sixth is from 1933, when service ended on the Mandela-Subiaco railway, with its stop of Rocca Canterano-Cervara-Canterano: the closure isolated the area further and contributed to depopulation. The seventh, from 1954, is the placing of the statue of the Immaculate Conception on the ruins of the rocca. The eighth is July 2, 1998, with the performance in Cervara of Ennio Morricone's previously unpublished music conducted by Andrea Morricone.

Who Has Passed Through Cervara di Roma (RM)

The list of people who passed through this town is out of proportion to its size. On the artistic side it begins with Joseph Anton Koch, the Tyrolean who in 1810 took from Cervara the subject of an engraving, and with Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman engraver of popular costumes. In 1826 came Adrian Ludwig Richter, whose pen drawing is now in the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden. On May 24, 1830, Samuel Finley Breese Morse climbed up from Subiaco, an American painter destined to go down in history for the telegraph. In 1836 Ernst Willers painted here, with the work now in the Kunsthalle in Bremen. In 1838 Edward Lear took some lithographs from the town.

The French critic and writer Théophile Gautier, the painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and the Austrian Karl von Blaas, trained in the orbit of the Nazarenes, passed through Cervara. Gaetano Cottafavi, Filippo Ferrari and Ernest Schweinfurth worked here. Ernest Hébert settled here, born in Grenoble in 1817 and died in La Tronche in 1908, the artist who with Les Cervarolles, now in the Musée d'Orsay, handed Cervara over to the history of European painting. In 1900 the Austrian Robert Wellmann bought a villa in contrada la Maddalena. In 1930 Oskar Kokoschka arrived, one of the great names of Expressionism, trained alongside Gustav Klimt.

In the 20th century the Italians came back: Sante Monachesi, founder of the Movimento Futurista Marche, the neorealist Domenico Purificato, Aldo Riso. In the 1970s Eric Hebborn, Giuseppe Ciotti and Julianos Kattinis left frescoes and murals on the walls of the town. The Spanish poet Rafael Alberti dominates the scene, an exile from Francoist Spain, resident in the province of Rome from 1964, whose verses are now incised in the main square. In 1984 the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence led by Professor Vincenzo Bianchi came up here, authors of the Scalinata degli Artisti.

On the side of history and power, those who passed through Cervara or affected its fate include Duke Cesario and Abbot Stefano in 884, Abbot Umberto of Subiaco in 1052, the rebel monk Pelagio da Jenne in 1273, Bishop Pompeo in 1511, the brigand Marco Sciarra in 1592 and Pope Pius VI in the 18th century. In 1998 Ennio Morricone brought his own music here, with the performance conducted by his son Andrea. And in the movies the town appeared as a set for the film Quo vado? by Checco Zalone, released on January 1, 2016, in which Cervara di Roma appears under the invented name Castrovizzo: millions of viewers saw these stairways without knowing where they were. Those who organize guided visits and signature itineraries on these places will find a contact in the editorial team of TourLeaderPro for group travel in Italy.

Quick Questions About Cervara di Roma (RM)

How much does it cost to visit Cervara di Roma?

Nothing. Cervara di Roma is an inhabited town, not a paid site: you enter freely, there are no tickets or hours. A cost may apply for entry to the Museo della Montagna and for the activities organized at Campaegli, and in that case the rates are asked directly to the Comune di Cervara di Roma or to the operator.

How long does it take to visit Cervara di Roma?

For the historic center, the Scalinata degli Artisti, the collegiate church and the ruins of the rocca, allow two and a half or three hours, walking calmly. If you add the Museo della Montagna you reach three and a half hours. With the Campaegli plateau you need the whole day.

At what altitude is Cervara di Roma?

The built-up center is at 1,053 meters above sea level, which makes it the highest town in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. The municipal territory goes from 419 to 1,611 meters.

How far is Cervara di Roma from Rome?

About an hour and a quarter by car from the capital, taking the A24 with the exit at Vicovaro-Mandela and then Via Sublacense to Subiaco. The real distance depends on the starting point in the city and on traffic on the Grande Raccordo Anulare.

How do you get to Cervara di Roma without a car?

By regional bus, changing at Subiaco, which is the hub of the whole upper Aniene valley. Daily runs are few and vary between the school period and summer: the times should be checked on the carrier's website. The railway has not existed since 1933.

Is Cervara di Roma wheelchair accessible?

The historic center is not: it is made entirely of stairways carved into the rock. Reachable by car are the lower square, some scenic lookouts and the Campaegli plateau, which is flat.

What is the Scalinata degli Artisti of Cervara di Roma?

It's the stairway that links Piazza Giovanni XXIII to Piazza Umberto I, decorated with sculptures, bas-reliefs, murals and poems incised in the limestone rock. It was made in 1984 by the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence coordinated by Professor Vincenzo Bianchi. Along the route are also incised the notes of the music composed by Ennio Morricone for the town.

What is the Montagna d'Europa?

It's the sculptural complex carved on the limestone wall overhanging the little square, dedicated to world peace and made up of figures alluding to brotherhood and solidarity among peoples. You look at it from below, preferably in raking light.

Why is Cervara di Roma called the town of artists?

Because from 1810 onward it was a constant destination for Italian and foreign painters, from Joseph Anton Koch to Bartolomeo Pinelli, from Samuel Morse to Ernest Hébert up to Oskar Kokoschka, and because since the 1970s artists have left permanent works on its walls: murals, sculptures and incised poems.

Where is the most famous painting made in Cervara di Roma?

Les Cervarolles by Ernest Hébert, made in the years 1856-1858, is displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In the town you can still recognize the arch that appears in the painting.

Can you visit the rocca of Cervara di Roma?

Of the medieval rocca the ruins remain, reachable on foot from the historic center with a short but steep climb. On the remains, since 1954, stands a statue of the Immaculate Conception. In strong wind it's best to give up the lookout on the edge.

Who is the patron saint of Cervara di Roma?

San Felice, a martyr whose body was donated to the town by Pope Pius VI and comes from the catacombs of San Callisto in Rome. The collegiate church is dedicated to Maria Santissima della Visitazione, with Saint Elizabeth and Saint Felix.

When are the main festivals in Cervara di Roma?

On January 17 Sant'Antonio Abate, on Good Friday the procession of the dead Christ, on July 1, 2 and 3 the patron saints, on August 10 the San Lorenzo bonfire, on August 15 the Inchinata, on August 16 San Rocco with the dance of the Mammoccia, at the end of September the Festa degli Artisti and the Sagra del Tartufo, straddling December and January the Sagra della Polenta. The exact dates each year are checked on the municipal notices.

What do you eat in Cervara di Roma?

Local truffle, recognized among the traditional agri-food products of Lazio, handmade strozzapreti, polenta, sheep cheeses, mushrooms, chestnuts and game. On Sunday and on festival days it's best to book: the trattorias are few.

What is Campaegli?

It's the mountain hamlet of Cervara di Roma, a plateau at 1,430 meters with an information point of the regional natural park of the Monti Simbruini, sports facilities, routes for cross-country skiing, sled dogging, horseback tourism and hiking. It also hosts the Claudio del Sole Astronomical Observatory of the ASTRIS association.

Can you ski in Cervara di Roma?

At Campaegli cross-country skiing is practiced and winter activities are organized. For downhill skiing the nearest reference is Monte Livata, with Campo dell'Osso and the Monna dell'Orso zone, in the territory of Subiaco, a few kilometers from Campaegli.

Is Cervara di Roma suitable for children?

From six years up, very much: the sculptures of the stairway work like a treasure hunt and the mountain offers room to run. With small children the stroller is unusable in the historic center and you need a baby carrier.

When is the best time to go to Cervara di Roma?

Autumn, between the end of September and mid-November, for the color of the beech woods and the clear air. Late spring is also excellent. Summer is cool because of the altitude and concentrates the festivals, but on August Sundays the town fills up.

What's the weather like in Cervara di Roma?

Cold temperate climate, climate zone F with 3,134 degree days. Winters with lows below zero and snowfalls that in some years become heavy, summers with averages between 25 and 28 degrees and cool evenings even in August.

What's the difference between Cervara di Roma and Subiaco?

Subiaco is a small city with the Benedictine monasteries of Santa Scolastica and the Sacro Speco, an artistic heritage of international level and full services. Cervara di Roma is a town of a little over 400 inhabitants whose attraction is the urban fabric carved into the rock and the contemporary art on its walls. They are different visits and each asks for its own time.

Has Cervara di Roma been used as a movie set?

Yes. It's one of the places where Quo vado? by Checco Zalone was shot, released on January 1, 2016, in which the town appears under the made-up name Castrovizzo.

Where do you park in Cervara di Roma?

In the spaces along the road that skirts the built-up area, below. The historic center is pedestrian by its shape and there is no possibility of driving up among the stairways. On festival days the spaces fill up early.

Is Cervara di Roma worth visiting on a day trip from Rome?

Yes, as long as you give it a real half day and don't squeeze it into an hour's stop. If you're preparing a trip to the capital and want an overview of things to see in the city before heading out toward the mountains, you can start from the English guide to the best things to do in Rome.

Do you need to book anything to visit Cervara di Roma?

For the town, no. It's best instead to book the restaurant on weekends and at festivals, and to arrange in advance the visit to the Museo della Montagna and the observations at the Campaegli observatory, which follow their own calendars.

How many inhabitants does Cervara di Roma have?

A little over 400 residents. It is one of the least populated towns in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, and the number drops further in the winter months.

Cervara di Roma is one of those places that ask for a preliminary choice: either you accept climbing on foot and looking at the rock with attention, or it's better to stop at the view from the road and carry on. There is no comfortable version of this visit. The best moment is the end of September, when the Sagra del Tartufo has just closed and the town empties out, with this route: stairway uphill, upper square, rocca, and half an hour sitting looking at the valley doing nothing. If you have only one free day in the upper Aniene valley and want to understand why half of the artistic Europe of the 19th century came all the way up here, give it to Cervara: no photograph gives back the feeling of walking inside an inhabited sculpture.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

Planning a trip to Rome? The English guides to visiting the city are on ItalyPlanner.com.