Cittareale (RI)

Cittareale is a municipality of 377 inhabitants in the province of Rieti, in the upper Velino valley, at the northeastern tip of Lazio: its territory borders Umbria to the north and Abruzzo to the south, and until 1927 the town belonged to the province of L'Aquila. You get there by car: from the Salaria, State Road 4, you take Provincial Road 17 Umbra, first stretch, which connects the Salaria itself to the south with Norcia to the north. From Rome the drive is about two hours. There is no railway station and there never was one: the Salaria railway, planned several times to connect Rome, Rieti, Ascoli Piceno and San Benedetto del Tronto, was never built. Entry to the village and the Rocca is free. For the Museo Civico, the Rocca's hours and the status of individual buildings, it's best to check with the Comune first, because after the 2016 earthquake openings follow the calendar of the construction sites.

The main town is dominated by the Rocca, the fortress that the Aragonese rebuilt in 1479 and that today is restored and partly open to visitors. Around it, the municipality spreads over a crown of peaks that comfortably exceed 1,500 meters: Monte Pozzoni (1,903 m), Monte la Speluca (1,800.8 m), Monte Arcioni (1,754.8 m), Forca di Fao (1,662.6 m), Monte Caciaro (1,657.7 m), Colle Capoduro (1,598.3 m), Monte Rota (1,528.3 m). The hamlet of Selvarotonda hosts the ski area, one of the few in Lazio along with those of Terminillo and Leonessa.

If you're looking for a starting point to build a complete tour of the upper Rieti area, the page of tourist attractions collects the destinations of the region. For the mountain part, the listings for Amatrice, Accumoli and Rieti are especially useful.

A clarification that holds for the whole read: here we are inside the area hit by the 2016 Central Italy seismic sequence, and Cittareale lives it as the neighboring municipalities do, with open construction sites, service roads, shored-up buildings and others already handed back. The town can be visited, the people are there, the festivals happen. Anyone who arrives expecting an intact postcard has the wrong aim. Anyone who arrives to understand a piece of the Apennines that is getting back on its feet finds a great deal.

Where Cittareale (RI) is and how to get there

The geography of Cittareale is that of a mountain pass. The town occupies the upper Velino valley at the point where Lazio narrows until it touches two regions within a few kilometers, and this position determined its function for 700 years: controlling a passage. Keep it in mind as you drive, because it explains the Rocca, it explains the disputes of the 1400s and it also explains why the town never became large.

By car from Rome to Cittareale (RI)

The natural route is the Salaria. You leave Rome toward the northeast, run along the Sabina, pass Passo Corese, arrive at Rieti, continue toward Antrodoco and Posta. From there you leave the state road and climb onto the Umbra provincial road. The total travel time, with ordinary traffic, is about two hours. The road is good up to Posta, then becomes mountainous: curves, slopes, narrow stretches. In winter chains or winter tires are not a whim, they are an obligation of common sense.

A practical tip: don't do the round trip in a day by leaving late. The last hour of light in that valley is the most beautiful, and getting back onto the provincial road in the dark with low fog is no fun for anyone.

From Rieti and the Salaria

Those leaving from Rieti have the simplest road: Salaria in the direction of Ascoli, and at the junction Provincial Road 17. On the same axis, before the junction, you meet the Franciscan places of the Rieti valley, which deserve a half-day detour: the Sanctuary of Greccio, Poggio Bustone, Cantalice. They are a short distance away and completely change the register of the day.

From Umbria and Abruzzo

From the north you come down from Norcia and from Cascia along the same provincial road: it is the side from which, in the 1400s, the armies that contested the pastures arrived. From the south you climb up from the L'Aquila area. The circumstance that makes Cittareale an administrative rarity is exactly this: it is one of the very few municipalities in Lazio whose territory borders two regions other than its own.

Public transport to Cittareale (RI)

Public transport exists but is calibrated to the needs of residents, not visitors: school and service runs, few per day, with schedules that change between the school period and summer. Check with the Comune or the regional company before setting up a trip without a car. Put plainly: Cittareale is visited by car. Anyone who tries it in a day by public transport ends up spending more time at the stops than in the village.

The village of Cittareale (RI): how it's laid out

The main town is small and uphill, laid out on the slope below the fortress. The logic of the settlement is that of villages of Angevin foundation: a main street that follows the contour line, cross alleys that climb in steps, and at the top the military apparatus that dominates everything. There is no monumental square and no noble palace of rank: Cittareale was born as a garrison, not as a court.

The districts and hamlets of Cittareale (RI)

The municipality is actually an archipelago of nuclei scattered on the slopes, and this is its most typical characteristic. Vetozza, with the church of San Pietro. Selvarotonda, at altitude, with the ski lifts. Trimezzo, which in 1850 was acquired from the territory of Cascia and which the earthquake of 1979 brought to its knees. San Lorenzo, where archaeologists excavated the villa of the Flavians. Capodacqua, near the sources of the Velino. Whoever visits only the main town sees a third of Cittareale: the rest is scattered within a 10-kilometer radius and is reached by narrow but passable municipal roads.

The layout of the main town

Walking up from the lower parking lot you cross the medieval fabric in just under five minutes. The houses are of local limestone, with monolithic lintels, round-arched portals and a few dates carved on the jambs. The post-earthquake interventions have introduced elements that clash, tie rods, bracing, temporary roofs, and there's no need to pretend they aren't there: they are the present of this town. There are, however, corners where the old village can still be read in full, and they are the ones up high, toward the Rocca.

The Rocca di Cittareale (RI): history of a border fortress

The Rocca is the reason you climb all the way up here. It is pure military architecture, with no residential concessions, built for a single function: watching the border and the crossings.

The Angevin origins of the Rocca di Cittareale (RI)

A large part of traditional historical scholarship has attributed the founding of the village to Manfredi, who in 1261 is said to have built it on the ruins of an older center called Apolline, destroyed by the Saracens. The name is said to have been given by Charles I of Anjou in 1268, together with the construction of a defensive rocca meant to control the trade routes between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Papal States. This is the version you'll find engraved in local memory and repeated in popular writing.

More recent historiography proposes instead a different and better documented dating: the founding of Civitas Regalis dates to 1329 under Robert of Anjou, who in that year granted special advantages and immunities so that the new settlement, founded at the gates of the Kingdom to withstand enemy blows, would be a truly free town able to take in the inhabitants of the surrounding area. The population came from the people of the terra Camponesca and from the valleys of Falacrine and Radeto. The two reconstructions are not equivalent: the first is established tradition, the second rests on documents. I say it clearly because the visitor has a right to know what they are looking at.

The Aragonese reconstruction of 1479

The fortress you see today, in its present form and extent, is the one rebuilt by the Aragonese in 1479. It is a date that explains the layout: we are after the stable entry of gunpowder into siege warfare, and the fortification adapts. Thicker masonry, lower and more compact profiles, positions designed to withstand artillery fire instead of dominating from above with thrown weapons. In the centuries before and after, interventions have accumulated, because the Rocca suffered repeated attacks and each time was repaired according to the techniques of the moment.

Here it is worth correcting a widespread misunderstanding: the Rocca di Cittareale watched the border between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, not the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was born only in 1816, centuries after the decisive building phase of the fortress. The border function, that yes, lasted until Unification.

What you see today at the Rocca di Cittareale (RI)

After decades of abandonment the fortress has been restored and made partly open to visitors. You walk the circuit wall, climb to the walkways, recognize the overlapping masonry phases: the oldest facing, the late 15th-century additions, the modern patches. The view from above is worth the climb even for those who know nothing about military architecture, because from up there you read the whole valley at once: the cultivated valley floor, the wooded slopes, the ridges closing the horizon toward the Laga.

A firm opinion: the Rocca is the most underrated monument in the whole province of Rieti. In any other region it would be an attraction with a ticket office, a bookshop and lines. Here you reach it on foot in 10 minutes from the parking lot and often meet nobody. Take advantage of it while it lasts.

Falacrinae: the Roman village where Vespasian was born

The territory of Cittareale has a distinction that few Italian municipalities can claim: a Roman emperor was born here, and not just any emperor. In the vicus Phalacrinae, in the valley that still bears the name of Falacrina today, Titus Flavius Vespasianus came into the world on November 17 of 9 AD, founder of the Flavian dynasty and the man who commissioned the Flavian Amphitheater, the Colosseum.

What Suetonius says

The source is Suetonius's Life of Vespasian, which gives the birthplace with unusual precision. His father, Titus Flavius Sabinus, was a tax collector and financial operator from Reate, present-day Rieti. His mother, Vespasia Polla, came from a family of higher standing in the Nursia area. The future emperor spent his childhood in the countryside near Cosa, entrusted to his paternal grandmother. It is the biography of a homo novus, and Suetonius doesn't hide it: Vespasian came to power in 69, the year of the four emperors, without Julio-Claudian blood in his veins and without being ashamed of it. He died on June 23 of 79 at Aquae Cutiliae, the thermal springs of the Rieti area, a few dozen kilometers from where he was born. He was born and died practically in the same valley: few Roman emperors can say as much.

The archaeological excavations at Cittareale (RI) since 2005

Since 2005 a team from the British School at Rome and the University of Perugia has been conducting excavation campaigns in the municipal territory. This was not an isolated test dig but a multi-year program of survey and excavation, conducted with the methods of British landscape archaeology: first the reading of the landscape and of surface traces, then targeted excavation.

The finds cover a very wide chronological span. They start from the age of the Social Wars, the moment of the full Romanization of the Sabina, cross imperial Rome and arrive at the Middle Ages. It is exactly the kind of sequence historians need: not an isolated monument, but the continuous stratigraphy of a mountain community.

The villa at San Lorenzo

In the San Lorenzo area archaeologists identified the villa where Vespasian was born. It is the find that gave Cittareale international fame, because it connected an ancient text to a physical place. What you see on the ground is what you see in all excavations of this kind: foundation masonry, rooms recognizable in plan, floors, elements of a bath complex. Anyone who arrives expecting standing columns will be disappointed. Anyone who can read an excavation plan understands exactly where the Flavian family home stood.

Go with the Life of Vespasian open on your phone. Reading Suetonius in that field, with the valley around you, is an experience that no museum gives back.

The Museo Civico of Cittareale (RI)

The materials from the excavations are displayed in the Museo Civico of Cittareale, inaugurated in 2009 on the occasion of the celebrations for the bimillennium of Vespasian's birth. It is a museum of modest size, of the kind that in Italy are called civic and that often hold the best of a territory's archaeology.

What you see at the museum

The exhibition leads the visitor along the sequence the excavations have yielded: pottery, stamped bricks, architectural elements, grave goods, finds that document the life of the vicus and its territory. The key of interpretation is the right one, that is, territorial: not the treasure, but the ancient landscape.

Hours and visit to the Museo Civico

The opening hours are not continuous all year and depend on the season and the availability of municipal staff. If you're planning the visit, call the Comune a few days ahead: it's the quickest way to know if the museum is open on your chosen date and, if needed, to arrange an opening. The same recommendation applies to the Rocca.

The churches of Cittareale (RI)

The municipality's religious heritage is scattered between the main town and the hamlets, and it tells a story of layering: pagan temples reused, monastic dependencies, Marian sanctuaries born from an apparition.

The church of San Pietro at Vetozza

In the hamlet of Vetozza, the church of San Pietro is built over a Roman-era temple dedicated to the goddess Vacuna, a Sabine deity of waters and woods whose cult is attested throughout the Rieti area. The overlap is itself a document: where there was one place of worship, another was born, with a continuity that in the Sabina is almost the rule.

In the Middle Ages the church hosted a monastic community dependent on the powerful Abbey of Farfa, and this detail says a lot about the extent of Farfa's domain, which from the Sabina reached up to these altitudes. The building was rebuilt in the 15th century and preserves a triptych dated 1596.

The church of Santa Maria Assunta

The church of Santa Maria Assunta dates to 1396. It suffered serious damage in the earthquake of September 1979 and was the subject of long restoration work, unfortunately partial, which did not allow it to reopen for worship. The Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici e per il Paesaggio del Lazio later started a further batch of work. The conservation story of this building is the clearest example of what the word reconstruction means in the Apennines: long timelines, successive batches, and a relationship with the quake that is never an isolated episode but a story that repeats.

The Sanctuary of the Madonna di Capodacqua

Near the sources of the Velino, on the slopes of Monte Pozzoni, stands the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Capodacqua, built close to the place where, according to tradition, the Madonna appeared to a peasant woman of the area. It is a rural mountain sanctuary, of the kind tied to water and its sacredness: the coincidence between the point of the spring and the point of the apparition is no accident, and it is a recurring theme in Apennine devotion.

The churches of the hamlets

Every inhabited nucleus has its church, often tiny, often closed, often now fenced off. These are buildings that the hurried visitor doesn't register and that instead constitute the true religious fabric of a scattered municipality: a community of a few dozen souls that built its own place of worship instead of going down to the valley.

The sources of the Velino above Cittareale (RI)

In the municipal territory rises one of the decisive rivers of central Italy. The Velino gushes from the foot of Monte Pozzoni, at 1,667 meters of elevation, with an initial flow of seven liters per second. Seven liters: a vein of water you can step across.

From Monte Pozzoni to the Piana Reatina

That thread of water becomes a river of 90 kilometers with a drainage basin of 2,338 square kilometers, almost 15 percent of the entire Tiber basin. From the municipality of Cittareale the Velino runs south through the Gole del Velino, skirts Terminillo and Monte Giano, reaches the Piana di San Vittorino, crosses Rieti dividing its historic center, and runs through the Piana Reatina from southeast to northwest.

Along the way it collects the Ratto near Posta, the Scura stream from the slopes of Terminillo, the Peschiera springs with more than 20 cubic meters per second on average, the Salto, the Turano, the outflows of Lake Lungo and Lake Ripasottile.

The Velino and the Cascata delle Marmore

The finale is the one everyone knows without knowing where the water comes from: the Velino plunges into the Nera forming the Marmore Falls, 165 meters high over three successive drops, the first of which is 86 meters. The average flow at the confluence is 63.81 cubic meters per second. Between the seven liters per second of Monte Pozzoni and the nearly 64 cubic meters at the mouth runs the whole hydraulic history of the Rieti basin, Roman land reclamation included.

Monte Pozzoni

Monte Pozzoni, also called Monte Pizzuto, reaches 1,903 meters and belongs to the Monti Reatini. Watch out for a detail that almost all tourist pages get wrong: the summit is in Umbrian territory, between the municipalities of Cascia and Norcia, while the slopes from which the Velino rises fall within the municipality of Cittareale. The mountain stands on the main Apennine watershed and separates the Valnerina to the west, the upper Tronto valley to the east and the upper Velino valley to the south. From its summit you see the Sibillini to the north, the Laga to the east, Terminillo to the south.

The mountains around Cittareale (RI)

The Monti Reatini

Cittareale belongs to the northeastern side of the Monti Reatini, the set of mountain groups that surround the Terminillo massif and close off the Sabina to the north. The highest peak of the range is Monte Terminillo at 2,217 meters, followed by the Cresta Sassetelli at 2,139 and the Terminilletto at 2,104. The system is bounded by the Nera valley to the northwest, the Leonessa plateau to the north, the Velino to the northeast and east, the Monti Sabini to the west, the Monti del Cicolano to the east, and the Rieti plain to the south.

The Monti della Laga

To the east rises a completely different massif, and the difference is geological before it is scenic. The Monti della Laga are the fifth highest massif of the continental Apennines and, above all, the highest sandstone relief of the chain. While the central Apennines are dominated by limestone, here sandstones and marls prevail, deposits of molasse and flysch that geologists call the Laga Formation.

The practical consequence is that water doesn't sink into the subsoil as it does in karst massifs: it runs on the surface. That's why the Laga is the only group of the central Apennines rich in waterfalls, of water in summer and of ice in winter. The main peaks are Monte Gorzano at 2,458 meters, which is the highest peak in Lazio and lies between the territories of Amatrice and Crognaleto, Cima Lepri at 2,445, Pizzo di Sevo at 2,419, Pizzo di Moscio at 2,411. Lake Campotosto, an artificial reservoir, closes the L'Aquila side.

The Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park

The largest protected area of this sector of the Apennines is the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, established by the framework law on protected areas of December 6, 1991 number 394 and delimited with later decrees up to the decree of the President of the Republic of June 5, 1995. It extends over about 141,341 hectares across Abruzzo, Lazio and Marche, with the agency's seat at Assergi, a hamlet of L'Aquila. Here live the Apennine chamois, reintroduced between 1992 and 1999 and numbering about 1,200 head in 2021, the Apennine wolf, and sporadic appearances of the Marsican brown bear.

An honest clarification that concerns Cittareale itself: the municipal territory is not within the park's perimeter, which in Lazio includes Amatrice and Accumoli. Cittareale lies just outside, on the side of the Monti Reatini. From the town, however, the park is reached in a few kilometers, and for those organizing hikes the distinction is administrative more than scenic.

Selvarotonda and snow at Cittareale (RI)

The hamlet of Selvarotonda hosts the municipal ski area, one of the three reference points of Upper Lazio along with Terminillo and Leonessa. It is a small, family-run resort, without the ambitions and without the prices of the Alpine resorts. Anyone looking for kilometers of slopes should look elsewhere. Anyone looking for a place to teach a child to ski without lines finds what's needed.

Selvarotonda and cycling

There is a date cycling fans remember: on March 15, 2014 the fourth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico, starting from Indicatore, ended right at Selvarotonda di Cittareale, with the victory of Alberto Contador. A provincial climb that entered the international calendar for a day. If you climb by bike, that is the ramp under your wheels.

Cross-country skiing and snowshoes

The shape of the slopes and the snowfall typical of these altitudes make the area suitable also for progression on snowshoes. The advice, however, is categorical: with winter snowpack, on these mountains, you don't improvise. Getting informed about conditions and, when needed, moving with a licensed mid-mountain guide is not excessive caution, it's the bare minimum.

The 2016 earthquake and the reconstruction at Cittareale (RI)

This chapter has to be written with numbers, without adjectives, because the numbers are enough.

The 2016 seismic sequence

The sequence began on August 24, 2016 at 3:36 with a magnitude 6.0 shock, epicenter between Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto, in the province of Rieti. On October 26 two strong aftershocks followed, of magnitude 5.4 and 5.9. On October 30 the most violent shock was recorded, magnitude 6.5 with epicenter between Norcia and Preci: the strongest earthquake in Italy since 1980. On January 18, 2017 a new sequence of four intense shocks reached magnitude 5.5.

The overall toll is about 300 victims, 388 injured and about 41,000 people who lost their homes. Damages exceeded 4 billion euros. The hardest-hit centers were Amatrice, where 235 people died, Accumoli, where the victims were 11, and Arquata del Tronto. In Norcia a large part of the Basilica of San Benedetto collapsed.

Cittareale inside the crater

Cittareale is included in the seismic crater area and, like all the municipalities in that perimeter, falls under the program of the Reconstruction Commissioner's Office, which operates in four regions: Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche and Umbria. The post of Extraordinary Commissioner of the Government is held by Guido Castelli, appointed by decree of the President of the Republic of January 13, 2023. The office has an operational seat right in Rieti, at Via Giuseppe Pitoni 2, in addition to the Rome offices at Palazzo Wedekind in Piazza Colonna and on Via del Quirinale.

What you find today

Anyone arriving at Cittareale finds a town under construction. Some buildings have been handed back, others are under way, others still await their turn in the sequence of batches. The main roads are open, some streets in the center may have narrowings or pedestrian detours. It is not a red zone and not a set: it is a municipality that works, with its administration, its businesses and its residents.

The most useful thing a visitor can do is trivial and concrete: stop to eat, buy local products, sleep a night instead of leaving right away. In these municipalities tourist spending is not a detail of the economy, it is the economy.

1979, the precedent almost nobody remembers

2016 was not the first blow. On September 19, 1979, at 23:36, an earthquake of moment magnitude 5.8 with epicenter near Maltignano di Cascia, about eight kilometers south of Norcia, struck the Valnerina. The strong aftershocks came at 23:41, 23:46 and 23:51. Among the mountain villages most damaged, the news reports of the time list Chiavano, San Marco di Norcia and Trimezzo di Cittareale. The toll was five dead, about 100 injured and about 1,500 displaced. More than 5,000 buildings were damaged in the Valnerina and about 600 had to be demolished. It is the earthquake that brought Santa Maria Assunta to its knees.

A curiosity about Cittareale (RI)

The real curiosity of Cittareale is not the castle and not the view: it is the fact that a town of 377 inhabitants gave the Roman Empire its most solid dynasty. In the vicus Phalacrinae, in this valley, Titus Flavius Vespasianus was born on November 17 of 9 AD. Two other emperors descended from him, his sons Titus and Domitian. The family was not aristocratic: the father, Titus Flavius Sabinus, worked as a tax collector and financier, a trade no senator in Rome would have claimed. The mother, Vespasia Polla, belonged to a family of higher rank from the Nursia area.

The detail that makes the thing almost comic, and that never appears in the guides, concerns the geography of his life: Vespasian was born at Falacrinae and died on June 23 of 79 at Aquae Cutiliae, the thermal springs of the Rieti area. Between the birthplace and the place of death lie a few dozen kilometers of the same province. The man who built the Colosseum, who reordered the finances of an empire devastated by the civil war of 69 and who answered the joke about the urine tax with the most quoted phrase in the history of taxation, began and ended his life in the same Apennine valley.

There is a corollary you can touch at Cittareale. When in 2009 the town celebrated the bimillennium of the emperor's birth, the way chosen to celebrate it was not a statue but a museum. The Museo Civico was born there, as a container for the finds the excavations were yielding. It is a choice that says quite a lot about the character of this community: instead of monumentalizing a name, it decided to preserve things.

Something nobody tells you about Cittareale (RI)

Few know it, but Cittareale was Abruzzese much longer than it has been Lazio. The town passed from the province of L'Aquila to that of Rieti only in 1927, with the reorganization of the provincial districts decided by the Fascist government. Before then, for centuries, these valleys looked south: the Kingdom, L'Aquila, the transhumance toward the Tavoliere, the Abruzzo courts and markets. The same goes for Amatrice and Accumoli, which made the same passage in the same year.

Why does it concern you as a visitor? Because it explains everything you see. It explains the cooking, which is pastoral and Apennine and has nothing Roman about it. It explains the architecture, with the block houses and stone portals typical of the L'Aquila area. It explains why the Rocca looks toward the Papal States and not toward the Kingdom: it was the Kingdom that had to defend it. It even explains the speech, which to the ear sounds much more Abruzzese than Sabine. Anyone arriving from Rome thinking they're in a Lazio town realizes after 10 minutes that Lazio, here, is a recent administrative label.

I'll add a second little-known fact. In 1850 Cittareale acquired the village of Trimezzo, detaching it from the territory of Cascia: a 19th-century border adjustment that moved a piece of Umbria into what would become Lazio. And the municipal coat of arms and banner, which many assume to be ancient, were formally granted only by decree of the President of the Republic of July 10, 2000. The identity of this municipality, in short, has been redrawn at a desk more than once. The real continuity is not administrative: it is that of pastures, water and passes.

The advice I give you for visiting Cittareale (RI)

The main advice is not to treat Cittareale as a 20-minute stop. It works as a base, not as a pause. And here is how to build a full day.

Early morning at the Rocca, when the light is raking and the valley is still in shadow: half an hour of walkways and reading the masonry. Next, down to the Museo Civico, after calling the Comune the day before about opening. Midmorning by car toward San Lorenzo, with Suetonius on your phone, for the villa of the Flavians: 30 or 40 minutes on the site is enough if you know what you're looking for. Lunch in town or in a hamlet, without hurry and without looking for the starred restaurant, which isn't here and isn't needed.

Afternoon at the sources of the Velino and the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Capodacqua: it is the most beautiful stretch of the municipality and the easiest to walk even for those who aren't trained. Finish at Vetozza, at the church of San Pietro, to close the circle on the temple of Vacuna. If light remains, go up to Selvarotonda for the view.

Two practical warnings worth more than any itinerary. First: fill up on gas down in the valley, because up here the gas stations are few and have limited hours. Second: always check the access status of buildings before leaving, because in the crater municipalities openings change with the progress of the construction sites and a call to the Comune saves you a wasted trip. I'll add a third point, less practical and more important: bring cash. Not all mountain businesses have a card terminal, and it's not a question of modernity but of signal.

Frequently asked questions about Cittareale (RI)

Where is Cittareale (RI)?

Cittareale (RI) is in the upper Velino valley, at the northeastern tip of the province of Rieti, with the municipal territory bordering Umbria to the north and Abruzzo to the south. The town occupies the position of a mountain pass, a point where Lazio narrows until it touches two regions within a few kilometers.

How many inhabitants does Cittareale (RI) have?

Cittareale (RI) has 377 inhabitants, one of the lowest numbers among the municipalities of the province of Rieti. The main town is small and uphill, laid out on the slope below the Rocca.

How do you get to Cittareale (RI) from Rome?

You get from Rome to Cittareale (RI) by car along the Salaria, State Road 4, up to the upper Rieti area, then continuing on the roads that climb toward the border with Umbria and Abruzzo.

Why is Cittareale (RI) famous in Roman history?

Cittareale (RI) is famous because in its territory, in the vicus Phalacrinae, Titus Flavius Vespasianus was born on November 17 of 9 AD, founder of the Flavian dynasty and the man who commissioned the Flavian Amphitheater, the Colosseum. His sons, the emperors Titus and Domitian, also descended from the same family.

What can you visit at Cittareale (RI)?

At Cittareale (RI) you visit the Rocca, a border fortress of Angevin origin attributed to Manfredi in 1261, and the Museo Civico, inaugurated in 2009 for the bimillennium of Vespasian's birth, which preserves the materials from the excavations of the nearby archaeological site of Falacrinae.

Is Cittareale (RI) suitable for a visit with kids?

Cittareale (RI) works well with kids if you choose the right things: the Rocca is a real castle with walkways that explains itself, while the sources of the Velino strike the little ones with the idea that a river of 90 kilometers begins from a vein of water you can step across.

When is the best time to go to Cittareale (RI)?

September is the best time to visit Cittareale (RI): the woods begin to change color, temperatures are still mild and the roads are empty. August, instead, is the month of the festivals and is the only period in which the town is full of life.

What to see near Cittareale (RI)?

Near Cittareale (RI), within a few kilometers you can reach Amatrice and Accumoli, the municipalities that paid the highest price in the 2016 earthquake, as well as the hamlet of Selvarotonda, home of the municipal ski area, one of the three reference points of Upper Lazio along with Terminillo and Leonessa.

Those traveling in a group or needing a professional to build a tailor-made itinerary between Rieti, the Laga and the Valnerina can turn to the tour guiding service of TourLeaderPro, which works throughout central Italy.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That the Velino rises from the territory of Cittareale is known by many. What almost nobody cites is the scale of the phenomenon, and it is the scale that makes it extraordinary. At the source, at 1,667 meters under Monte Pozzoni, the Velino has a flow of seven liters per second. At the mouth, where it plunges into the Nera, the average flow is 63.81 cubic meters per second. The ratio between the two values is about 9,000 to one.

The leap is explained by the contributions the river collects along the 90 kilometers of its course and by its basin of 2,338 square kilometers, equal to almost 15 percent of the Tiber basin. The decisive contribution comes from the Peschiera springs, which alone add more than 20 cubic meters per second on average: the same springs that feed an important share of Rome's drinking water. Put another way, anyone who opens a faucet in Rome drinks water that runs in the same hydrographic system that begins above Cittareale.

Then there is the most spectacular consequence, and this too is rarely told starting from upstream. The Cascata delle Marmore, 165 meters over three drops with the first of 86, is not a natural waterfall: it is the result of the artificial cut that the Romans opened in 271 BC to drain the stagnant waters of the Rieti basin into the Nera. The Velino that rises at Cittareale is therefore the protagonist of one of the oldest hydraulic engineering works in Europe still in operation. A vein of water you can step across, 2,200 years later, still powers a hydroelectric plant.

The right photo to take at Cittareale (RI)

The photograph to take away from Cittareale is not the close-up of the Rocca. It is the opposite: it is the Rocca within its landscape, shot from outside the town.

The best position is along the provincial road, on the side opposite the town, at one of the hairpin bends that climb toward the north. From there you frame the uphill village with the fortress on top and the crown of ridges behind: it's the only image that really explains why a fortress was built right there. A moderate telephoto, between 85 and 135 millimeters equivalent, compresses the planes and makes the mountains look closer than they are.

The right time is the first hour of the morning in winter and the last of the afternoon in summer, when the raking light carves out the masonry and distinguishes the building phases. At noon, with the sun straight overhead, the limestone flattens and the photograph becomes unreadable.

The other two framings I recommend are more intimate. The first: from the top of the walkways, with a wide angle, the valley opening toward the valley floor. The second, the most beautiful, at the sources of the Velino, where the thread of water comes out of the rock and begins its 90 kilometers: a long exposure time, a tripod, and the water becomes silk.

One last recommendation that isn't technical. In the crater municipalities you photograph the landscape, the architecture and the construction sites, not people's damaged houses as if they were a curiosity. It's a distinction that those who live there perceive at once, and that makes the difference between a visitor and a disaster tourist. If you want to line up a photographic route through the central Apennines, the English-language guides on the region are collected on ItalyPlanner.

Some important events that happened here in history

The first event is a birth, and it's the reason this name appears in the manuals of Roman history: on November 17 of 9 AD, in the vicus Phalacrinae, Vespasian was born. 60 years later, in 69, that man would emerge as the winner of the year of the four emperors and would found the Flavian dynasty.

The second is a founding, or perhaps two. According to the oldest historiographical tradition, in 1261 Manfredi built the village on the ruins of the settlement of Apolline, destroyed by the Saracens, and in 1268 Charles I of Anjou gave it its name and built the rocca there to control the trade routes between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Papal States. According to the most recent studies, instead, the Civitas Regalis was born in 1329 by the will of Robert of Anjou, who granted immunities and advantages so that the new free town, founded at the gates of the Kingdom to withstand enemy blows, could take in the inhabitants of the surrounding area. The families came from the terra Camponesca and from the valleys of Falacrine and Radeto.

The third chapter is that of the 15th-century disputes. In the 15th century Cittareale was contested among Norcia, Amatrice and L'Aquila for its pastures and for control of the crossings. It passed for a short period under L'Aquila, and then became part of the Medici-Farnese states. It wasn't about prestige: it was about grass and duties, the two items that made up the budget of a mountain municipality.

The fourth is military and architectural: in 1479 the Aragonese rebuilt the Rocca in the form still seen today, adapting it to artillery.

The fifth is administrative and recent: in 1850 the acquisition of Trimezzo from Cascia, in 1927 the passage from the province of L'Aquila to that of Rieti.

The last two chapters are seismic, and they are the ones the community carries on its back. On September 19, 1979 the Valnerina earthquake, magnitude 5.8 with epicenter at Maltignano di Cascia, devastated Trimezzo and put Santa Maria Assunta out of use. On August 24, 2016, at 3:36, the magnitude 6.0 shock with epicenter between Accumoli and Arquata opened the sequence that would mark the whole central Apennines, continued with the aftershocks of October 26 and with the magnitude 6.5 shock of October 30 between Norcia and Preci, the strongest in Italy since 1980. It is a story that at Cittareale is still going on.

Who has passed through Cittareale (RI)

The first name is Vespasian's, who didn't pass through here: he was born here. With him, the Flavian family, whose landholdings in this valley are the reason archaeologists looked for, and found, a villa in the San Lorenzo area. To the Flavians are added, by descent, the two emperor sons: Titus, who inaugurated the Colosseum in 80, and Domitian.

The second name is Suetonius, who didn't pass through Cittareale in person but who brought all of us here. Without his Life of Vespasian and without the precise indication of the vicus Phalacrinae, nobody would ever have looked for an imperial villa in a municipality of 377 inhabitants in the upper Rieti area. It is the rare case in which an ancient literary source guided the excavation, and the excavation proved it right.

Third: the Angevin sovereigns. Manfredi, according to tradition, and Charles I of Anjou, to whom the name of the village is attributed in 1268. And above all Robert of Anjou, who in 1329 granted the privilege of free town. These are chancery passages more than visits, but they weighed on the life of this place more than any stay.

Fourth: the Aragonese, who in 1479 put their hands back on the fortress, and the militias of Norcia, Amatrice and L'Aquila who throughout the 1400s contested the territory.

Fifth: the archaeologists of the British School at Rome and the University of Perugia, who since 2005 have been conducting excavation campaigns here. Theirs is the most recent passage and in a sense the most fruitful, because it gave back to the town a piece of identity that had remained only on paper.

Sixth, for sports fans: the Tirreno-Adriatico peloton. On March 15, 2014 the fourth stage of the race ended at Selvarotonda di Cittareale and the victory went to Alberto Contador. For an afternoon the hamlet had barriers, cameras and helicopters.

Seventh, and it's not a folkloric detail: the shepherds. For centuries flocks have passed through these valleys along the transhumance routes toward the Tavoliere. The wealth contested in the 1400s was them. Those who have really passed through Cittareale, in terms of numbers and continuity, are dozens of generations of men with sheep.

Festivals and sagre at Cittareale (RI)

The town's summer revolves around a sequence of events that coincide with the threshing festival and with the return of those who emigrated.

The sagra della braciola

Since the 1960s, on the first Sunday of August Cittareale hosts the sagra della braciola. Calling it a food festival is reductive: it's a festival of the mountain, and promotion of the territory is its declared purpose. You meet the inhabitants of the village, many in traditional dress of the last century, and you see the trades, customs and local products. The moment worth the trip is the saltarello contest to the sound of the diatonic organetto: real Apennine music, played by those who have always played it.

The historical reenactment

The second week of August continues with the historical reenactment, during which the old taverns are reopened, with local dances and songs. It's the period of greatest crowds of the year: if you want to sleep in the area, book well in advance.

The sagra della Panonta and Christmas

More recent and less known, the sagra della Panonta is held in December. The panonta is bread greased in fried oil, served with meat and red wine: poor mountain cooking, the kind you don't find on menus. The sagra coincides with the nativity scenes in the square set up by the different contrade and with the Christmas market, and it gives the measure of how this town lives even out of season.

The exact dates of all the events must be confirmed each year with the Comune, because the calendar adapts to circumstances.

What to eat at Cittareale (RI)

The cooking is Apennine and pastoral, and as already said it looks to Abruzzo more than to Rome. The raw material is mountain: mutton and pork, pecorino cheeses, high-altitude legumes, mushrooms and truffles from the beech woods, wild herbs.

The dishes of the area

The braciola of the sagra, that is, meat grilled over embers, is the emblem. The panonta of December is the other extreme, the peasant one. Around them revolve the homemade pastas of the upper Rieti area, legumes, soups. A few kilometers away begins the territory of Amatrice, and from there comes the recipe that went around the world: guanciale, pecorino, tomato, born among the shepherds and later spread by the Roman trattorias opened by Amatrice emigrants. On the other side of the border, toward Norcia, you enter the kingdom of norcineria and black truffle.

Where to eat

The restaurant businesses in a municipality of 377 inhabitants are few and with seasonal openings. Outside festival periods it's best to call first. The general advice holds all the more here: eat where the residents eat, order the dish of the day and don't ask for the tourist menu, which doesn't exist and shouldn't exist.

Cittareale (RI) with kids

The town works well with kids as long as you choose the right things. The Rocca is a magnet: a real castle, with walkways, explains itself and requires no patience. The sources of the Velino are the other ace up the sleeve, because the idea that a 90-kilometer river begins from a vein of water you can step across is exactly the kind of thing a child remembers for years.

The Museo Civico is small and is visited quickly, so it doesn't tire anyone. In winter Selvarotonda offers snow without the lines and without the prices of the larger resorts. What I advise against with the youngest is the San Lorenzo excavation area, which without an archaeological reading is hard to read and, as a result, boring.

Watch out for the construction sites: in a crater municipality there are barriers, scaffolding and moving vehicles, and kids need to be watched more than usual.

When to go to Cittareale (RI)

The best period, if I had to choose just one, is September. The woods begin to change color, temperatures are still mild, the roads are empty and the high-altitude meadows still have long light. June is the month of flowers and very long days, with the slopes still green.

August is the month of the festivals and is also the only period in which the town is full: if you're looking for community life, that's the moment. If you're looking for silence, avoid it. Winter is severe, with low temperatures and the possibility of snow, and the climate classification of the municipality, zone F with 3,061 degree days, is the most eloquent figure: we are in the coldest band of the national scale, with no time limits on turning on heating systems. If you come in winter, count on a mountain road, ice and short days.

The month I advise against is November: low fog, little light, many businesses closed.

What to see around Cittareale (RI)

The municipality lends itself well to a two- or three-day itinerary in the upper Rieti area and the neighboring valleys.

Toward Amatrice and Accumoli

Amatrice and Accumoli can be reached in a few kilometers. They are the two municipalities that paid the highest price in 2016 and the visit requires the same respect owed to Cittareale. Amatrice is also the reference agri-food center of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, and in its territory lies Monte Gorzano, the highest peak in Lazio at 2,458 meters.

Toward Umbria

To the north you descend to Norcia and Cascia, and in a little over an hour you reach the Marmore Falls, that is, the point where the river that rises at Cittareale ends. Doing the two things on the same day, the spring in the morning and the waterfall in the afternoon, is one of the smartest itineraries you can build in this part of Italy.

Toward Rieti and the holy valley

To the southwest you head back toward Rieti via Antrodoco, and from there the Rieti valley opens with the Franciscan sanctuaries: Greccio, Poggio Bustone, Fonte Colombo. On the mountain side there remain Terminillo and Leonessa, and farther south the lakes of Salto and Turano. Going down further, the Sabina with Paganico Sabino and the Abbey of Farfa, on which the church of San Pietro at Vetozza depended.

Toward Abruzzo

To the south you enter the L'Aquila area and in a bit under an hour and a half you reach L'Aquila, the city to which Cittareale belonged administratively until 1927. For those who want to understand Italian post-earthquake reconstruction as a whole, lining up L'Aquila of 2009 and Amatrice of 2016 in the same trip is an instructive exercise.

Those who prefer to entrust the building of the tour to a professional, especially if traveling with a large group, can consider the group trip organization service. For restricted and tailor-made formulas there is also the line of personalized experiences for small groups. Those traveling with foreign friends will find useful the English-language guides on day trips and the overview of things to do in Rome.

Quick questions about Cittareale (RI)

Where is Cittareale (RI)

In the upper Velino valley, at the northeastern tip of the province of Rieti, with the municipal territory bordering Umbria to the north and Abruzzo to the south.

How many inhabitants does Cittareale (RI) have

377 inhabitants. It is one of the least populous municipalities in the province of Rieti.

How do you get to Cittareale (RI) from Rome

By car along the Salaria, State Road 4, up to the upper Rieti area, then on Provincial Road 17 Umbra, first stretch. The travel time is about two hours.

Does Cittareale (RI) have a train station

No. The municipality is not served by any railway line. The project for the Salaria railway, which would have connected Rome, Rieti, Ascoli Piceno and San Benedetto del Tronto, was never carried out.

Can you visit the Rocca di Cittareale (RI)

The fortress has been restored and made partly open to visitors. It's best to check with the Comune the access status on your chosen date, because openings follow the progress of the work.

When was the Rocca di Cittareale (RI) built

The present layout is the Aragonese reconstruction of 1479. The founding of the fortress dates to the 13th or the 14th century according to the two different historiographical reconstructions.

Was Vespasian really born at Cittareale (RI)

According to Suetonius, Vespasian was born on November 17 of 9 AD in the vicus Phalacrinae, which was located in what is now the municipal territory of Cittareale.

What is Falacrinae

The Roman village of the Falacrina valley, in the territory of Cittareale, where Vespasian was born and where since 2005 the British School at Rome and the University of Perugia have been conducting excavation campaigns.

Can you visit Vespasian's villa

The villa area is in the San Lorenzo zone. Since it is a research area, the terms of access and visit must be verified with the Comune, also in relation to the excavation campaigns under way.

What do you see at the Museo Civico of Cittareale (RI)

The finds yielded by the excavations in the municipal territory, from the age of the Social Wars to the Middle Ages, passing through imperial Rome. The museum was inaugurated in 2009 for the bimillennium of Vespasian's birth.

Was Cittareale (RI) hit by the 2016 earthquake

Yes. The municipality falls within the Central Italy seismic crater area and the program of the Reconstruction Commissioner's Office.

Can you visit Cittareale (RI) today

Yes. The town can be visited, is inhabited and active. There are construction sites and some specific limits on internal roads, which don't prevent the visit.

Where does the Velino river rise

At the foot of Monte Pozzoni, in the municipality of Cittareale, at 1,667 meters of elevation, with an initial flow of seven liters per second.

How long is the Velino

90 kilometers, with a drainage basin of 2,338 square kilometers, almost 15 percent of the total Tiber basin.

Is Cittareale (RI) inside the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park

No. The municipal territory remains outside the park's perimeter, which in Lazio includes Amatrice and Accumoli. The park can nonetheless be reached in a few kilometers.

What is the highest mountain near Cittareale (RI)

In the municipal territory the highest elevation is that of Monte Pozzoni, 1,903 meters, whose summit however falls in Umbrian territory. In the area, the highest peak in Lazio is Monte Gorzano, 2,458 meters, in the Monti della Laga between Amatrice and Crognaleto.

Can you ski at Cittareale (RI)

Yes, in the hamlet of Selvarotonda, which together with Terminillo and Leonessa makes up one of the ski areas of Upper Lazio. It is a small resort suited to families.

When is the sagra della braciola at Cittareale (RI)

On the first Sunday of August, a tradition started in the 1960s. The dates must be confirmed each year with the Comune.

What is the panonta

Bread greased in fried oil, served with meat and red wine. It is the dish of the sagra held in December, at the same time as the nativity scenes in the contrade's square and the Christmas market.

Is Cittareale (RI) in Lazio or in Abruzzo

In Lazio, province of Rieti. But until 1927 the municipality belonged to the province of L'Aquila, in Abruzzo: the passage happened with the reorganization of the provincial districts.

How much time do you need to visit Cittareale (RI)

For the main town and the Rocca alone, two hours is enough. For the municipality as a whole, including the hamlets, the sources of the Velino and the archaeological area, you need a full day.

Is Cittareale (RI) suitable for kids

Yes, especially for the Rocca, the sources of the Velino and, in winter, the snow of Selvarotonda. Attention must be paid to the construction sites and the moving work vehicles.

Are there restaurants and lodging at Cittareale (RI)

The facilities are few and with seasonal openings, as is normal in a municipality of this size. Better to call first and, in festival periods, book in advance.

What is the best time to go to Cittareale (RI)

September for the color and the silence, June for the flowers and the long days, August for the festivals. Winter is harsh: the municipality is in climate zone F with 3,061 degree days.

What is the difference between Cittareale (RI) and Amatrice

Amatrice is a larger municipality, inside the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park and devastated in 2016 with 235 victims. Cittareale is a much smaller municipality, outside the park's perimeter, with an archaeological heritage tied to Vespasian that Amatrice does not have. They are complementary and can be visited on the same day.

If I had to give just one reason to come all the way up here, I would choose the least touristy one: Cittareale is one of the few places where you can see, within a 10-kilometer radius, the entire stratification of an Apennines that keeps rewriting itself. The source of a river that 2,000 years ago the Romans decided to divert, the village where the emperor who built the Colosseum was born, an Aragonese fortress that guarded a vanished border, and a town getting back on its feet after 2016. Go out of season, stay longer than planned, spend something. And call first: it's the most prosaic advice of all and it's the one that will spare you the only real disappointment, finding it closed.

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

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