Veio Park

Veio Park is a regional natural park of about 15,000 hectares that opens north of Rome, between Via Cassia and Via Flaminia, in the strip of countryside that the ancients called the Agro Veientano. The most convenient entrance for those looking for the archaeological part is at Isola Farnese, the tuff crag overlooking the ancient Etruscan city of Veio. For the Sorbo Valley and the Mola waterfall the reference point is Via del Sorbo, in Formello (00060 Formello RM), where one of the marked entrances is also located. The park is an open natural area: you walk it along a network of trails, and there is no ticket for access to the trails. The situation is different for the archaeological area of the Portonaccio sanctuary and for some painted tombs, which can be visited only on days and at times set by the Superintendency and the Authority. It's best to check the calendar on the official website of the Ente Regionale Parco di Veio (parcodiveio.it) before setting out, because the openings are periodic and not daily.

How to get there. By car you leave the Grande Raccordo Anulare toward the Cassia or the Flaminia and in a few kilometers you are inside the protected area. Isola Farnese, Formello, Sacrofano, Campagnano di Roma and the Baccano Valley are the most used gateways. Without a car, the FL3 regional rail line Rome-Viterbo stops at La Storta, the station closest to the Veio area and to Isola Farnese. From there you continue by local transport or on foot toward the entrances. Train and bus schedules should be checked on the service's official channels, because they change with the seasons. Bring hiking shoes with a lugged sole, enough water and, in the warm months, a hat. Here you walk on natural ground, often along the creeks, and the ground becomes slippery after rain.

If you are moving around the green areas north and east of the city, this guide goes alongside those on the other great lungs of the Roman territory, from Treja Valley Park, which borders Veio to the north, to the Marcigliana Reserve. You'll find the complete list of places to see on the page of tourist attractions.

What Veio Park is

The Veio Regional Natural Park was established by Lazio regional law number 29 of 1997, in the last season of the 1990s in which the Region placed the great countryside around Rome under protection. Its official extent is 14,984 hectares, a figure commonly rounded to 15,000 and which makes it one of the largest parks in Lazio. It is not a closed and fenced reserve: it is a mosaic of woods, farmland, tuff gorges, watercourses and inhabited villages, where the agricultural landscape coexists with major archaeological sites. The reason it's worth getting to know is precisely this double nature. Anyone who arrives thinking only of a walk discovers that every creek hides a necropolis, a mill, a stretch of Roman road. Anyone who arrives for the archaeology finds themselves immersed in a living environment, with the call of raptors above the ridges and wild boars crossing the trails.

The name says the most important thing. Veio, in Latin Veii, was the southernmost Etruscan city of Etruria and the great rival of Rome. The park holds its plateau, its walls, its sanctuaries and its tombs, and for this reason it is at once a natural area and an enormous open-air historical site. Anyone who walks here walks above a city that, when Rome was still a growing center, faced it as an equal.

The territory of Veio Park and its municipalities

Veio Park extends across the northern sector of the capital and touches nine municipalities: Campagnano di Roma, Castelnuovo di Porto, Formello, Magliano Romano, Mazzano Romano, Morlupo, Riano, Sacrofano and Municipio XV of the Municipality of Rome. The latter alone, with an area of about 7,000 hectares, covers almost half of the protected area: this means that an enormous slice of the park falls within the administrative boundaries of Rome itself, a few minutes from the northern neighborhoods. To the west the park borders the Bracciano and Martignano Regional Natural Park, to the north the Treja Valley Park, and it touches the edge of the Insugherata Nature Reserve, which brings the green almost into the built-up area. This continuity is not a detail: the belt of protected areas north of Rome works as an ecological corridor, where wildlife moves from one park to another without interruption.

The nature of Veio Park

Before telling the story of the Etruscans, it's worth dwelling on what you really see while walking: nature. Veio Park is a green belt that has a mitigating effect on the climate of the Roman outskirts and guarantees continuity to the natural environment, protecting biodiversity. Although it has undergone pressures of urbanization in the past, on the whole the territory remains intact and has kept a high landscape value. This is the premise that an attentive visitor must keep in mind: what looks like a simple rural backdrop is actually an ecosystem defended by a regional law.

The fauna of Veio Park

The undisputed king of Veio Park is the wild boar. I say it without rhetoric: its presence is so strong that by now it is spotted even outside the boundaries of the reserve, in the farmland and sometimes at the edges of inhabited centers. Anyone walking at dawn or dusk has good chances of running into one, and the rule is simple, keep your distance and never approach the young. Alongside the wild boar the park hosts varied fauna. Among the mammals, several mustelids stand out: the stone marten, the pine marten, the weasel and the badger. The fox is common, the porcupine rarer and shyer, moving at night and leaving its quills along the trails as the signature of its passage.

The herpetofauna, that is the population of reptiles and amphibians, is very rich. On the tuff ridges and in the wet zones live the green whip snake, the common viper, the Aesculapian snake and the four-lined snake. The very abundance of these animals justifies the presence of many raptors that nest on the ridges: the black kite, the common buzzard, which is seen above all in the open areas, the sparrowhawk, which hunts in the wooded areas, Montagu's harrier, which nests in the grassy and cultivated zones, and the kestrel, the most common of all, recognizable by its hovering flight, called the Holy Spirit, as it scans for prey. Anyone who brings binoculars turns a walk into a day of birdwatching. The Authority publishes on its official site pages dedicated to mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and insects for those who want to learn more before leaving.

The flora and woods of Veio Park

The vegetation of Veio Park changes depending on the area and the exposure. In the central-northern area, where mesophilic and meso-thermophilic woods prevail, that is, woods that like cool climates and average humidity, you can recognize the Turkey oak, the field maple, the hop hornbeam, the European nettle tree, the manna ash, the chestnut, the hornbeam, the holm oak and the downy oak. It is the classic wood of the inner Roman countryside, the one that turns copper and yellow in autumn and that in summer offers real shade along the creeks. In the understory the list is long and it's worth learning to recognize at least the most common species: the hawthorn, the cornelian cherry, the dogwood, the privet, the spindle, the bramble, the blackthorn, the St. John's rose, the primrose, the lemon balm, the large cuckoo-pint, the sweet violet, the wood spurge, the Apennine anemone, the ivy, the traveler's joy and the wild asparagus, which in spring local foragers look for along the edges of the trails. This variety is not a list from a herbarium: it is the reason why, as the seasons change, the park offers walks that are always different.

Veio, the Etruscan city inside Veio Park

Here the park stops being only nature and becomes one of the most important pages of ancient Italian history. The earliest human presence in this territory goes back to prehistory, between the 16th and 10th centuries BC, when the shores of the ancient lake basin of the Baccano Valley, near Campagnano di Roma, and the crag where the village of Isola Farnese now stands were inhabited. But it is with the Iron Age, the phase called Villanovan, between the 9th and 8th centuries BC, that history speeds up. At 17 kilometers from Rome, on the plateau bounded by the Piordo and Valchetta creeks, the latter the ancient Cremera, there already lived a dense community of farmers: they lived in huts and buried the dead outside the settlement, according to an order that archaeologists have reconstructed tomb by tomb.

Between the 8th and 5th centuries BC the great Etruscan city that the Romans called Veii grew on that plateau. It was the southernmost of Etruria and controlled a vast territory, the Agro Veientano, which bordered to the northeast the region of the Falisci and the Capenati toward the Sabina, to the northwest the area dominated by Caere, present-day Cerveteri, and to the south reached the right bank of the Tiber. Veio was not a village: it was an urban power, with walls, monumental sanctuaries, aqueducts and tunnels cut into the tuff by highly skilled engineers. Anyone who imagines it as a small settlement gets the scale wrong. At its height it could stand comparison with Rome demographically, and for centuries the two cities fought over dominion of the lower course of the Tiber.

Why Rome and Veio were enemies

The reason for the conflict wasn't pride, it was economics. At stake were control of the commercial landings along the Tiber and the salt pans at the mouth of the river. In antiquity salt wasn't just any seasoning: it served to preserve food and feed livestock, and it was a strategic resource as energy or water are today. Whoever controlled the salt pans and the fords controlled wealth. Rome and Veio stood on the two opposite banks of the Tiber, very close and rivals, and this closeness was the fuse of a long war with alternating fortunes.

The battle of the Fabii and the end of Veio

Among the best-known episodes is the battle undertaken in 477 BC by the Roman family of the Fabii against Veio, which broke out after the killing of Quintus Fabius by the Veientes. The clash ended with the massacre of 306 Fabii, who fell in an ambush organized by the enemy near the Cremera river, that is, along the Valchetta that still cuts through the park today. Tradition then tells of the killing of four Roman ambassadors by the Veientine king Lars Tolumnius, a vengeance later carried out by Aulus Cornelius Cossus, who managed to strike down the Etruscan king and brought his spoils in triumph to Rome: those spoils, the spolia opima, were one of the highest military honors of Republican Rome. The final chapter came after a very long siege, which legend has lasting 10 years on the model of the capture of Troy. In 396 BC the dictator Marcus Furius Camillus took and definitively destroyed the city. The fall of Veio was Rome's first great territorial expansion and, in a sense, the act that set off its expansion in Italy.

The Portonaccio sanctuary and the Apollo of Veio

If there is one place that by itself justifies a trip to Veio Park, it is the Portonaccio sanctuary. It stood at the foot of the city's plateau, outside the settlement, and was one of the most important religious centers of southern Etruria. The votive inscriptions found tell of it as dedicated first of all to the goddess Menerva, the Etruscan Minerva, with a significant cult of Aplu, that is Apollo, and the presence of other deities such as Rath, Aritimi, who corresponds to Diana, and Turan, the Etruscan Venus. The complex had a long history: its first structures date to the early 7th century BC and the final monumental form settled around the middle of the 5th century BC.

The centerpiece was the temple, considered among the first in Etruria built in the order called Tuscan, with a nearly square plan of about 18 meters per side and a deep pronaos with three cellae. Next to it ran a large water basin, fed by an underground spring, and a square altar with the pit for sacrifices. But what made Portonaccio famous worldwide is the decoration. On the ridge of the roof ran a group of large terracotta statues at almost life size, the acroteria, which staged a myth: the contest between Apollo and Hercules for the golden-horned hind sacred to Artemis. A spectacular way, for those arriving, of reading the sky of the temple as a theatrical scene suspended in the air.

The Apollo of Veio, Vulca's masterpiece

The most famous statue of that group is the Apollo of Veio. It came to light in 1916, during the excavations directed by Giulio Quirino Giglioli, and was found almost intact, something very rare for a terracotta of that age. It is about 1.80 meters tall and dates to the end of the 6th century BC, with the modeling placed by scholars between 510 and 490 BC. Tradition attributes it to Vulca, the only Etruscan sculptor whose name the ancient sources have handed down to us, the same craftsman Rome called to decorate the temple of Capitoline Jupiter: a probable attribution, not a documented fact, and it should be taken as such. Apollo strides with a step that seems pushed forward, his cloak clinging to his body, an archaic smile barely hinted at on his lips. It kept traces of color: black in the hair, violet-red in the skin, ochre in the garments. It was not a statue to look at up close: it was conceived to be seen from below, against the sky, along the edge of the roof.

The group also included a Hercules with the hind, pieces of which were recovered in later excavations up to the 1940s, a figure of Hermes and a group of Latona with the infant Apollo. A detail worth knowing: the original is not in the park today. The Apollo of Veio can be admired at the Villa Giulia National Etruscan Museum, in Rome, and anyone who wants to really understand Portonaccio should combine the two visits, the sanctuary area in the park and the statue at the museum. Seeing the empty spot on the roof and then the figure that inhabited it is the thing that stays most in the mind.

The necropolises and painted tombs of Veio Park

Around the city plateau extend the necropolises, that is, the cities of the dead, cut into the tuff along the creeks. It is here that Veio Park holds some surprises that few people know, because they are not monuments that are always open but treasures that show themselves at intervals. The Etruscan tombs of Veio have a particular value for the history of art, because they preserve some of the oldest funerary paintings ever found.

The Tomb of the Roaring Lions

The Tomb of the Roaring Lions is the most extraordinary. Its paintings date to around 690 BC, a figure that must be stated with emphasis because it places them among the oldest known Etruscan paintings, older than the famous painted tombs of Tarquinia by almost two centuries. On the walls runs a procession of stylized lions, traced with a black outline and a preparatory incision, arranged in a frieze. The chamber was recovered on May 31, 2006 by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, following the confessions of some tomb robbers: a story that says a lot about how much this territory has been looted and how important it is to defend it. The lions, in the Etruscan imagination, evoked the afterlife and the fear of death. Openings to the public are special and scheduled: anyone who wants to enter must follow the calendar of the Authority and the Superintendency.

The Tomb of the Ducks

Not far away, the Tomb of the Ducks belongs to the same very ancient horizon. On its walls you can make out rows of water birds painted in red ochre and black, arranged in alternating registers. Ducks, migratory birds, represented in Etruscan thought the passage from life to death, the flight of the soul to the beyond. Together, the Tomb of the Ducks and that of the Roaring Lions form a diptych that no other Italian site possesses: the birth of funerary painting in Italy is read here, in the tuff of Veio, nowhere else.

Ponte Sodo and the Etruscan tagliate

There is also a work that leaves anyone open-mouthed, and it is not a tomb but a work of engineering. Ponte Sodo is a tunnel cut by the Etruscans into the tuff bank to make the waters of the Valchetta creek, the ancient Cremera, pass under the rock. A tunnel tens of meters long, cut by hand more than 2,000 years ago to regulate floods and reclaim the plateau: walking at its mouth, with the creek disappearing under the hill, gives the measure of what those engineers knew how to do. In the same spirit should be read the tagliate, the roads dug as trenches in the tuff that connected the city to the necropolises and to the creek crossings: sunken roads between rock walls, shady and cool, which can still be walked today along some trails of the park.

Isola Farnese, the village of Veio Park

Overlooking the plateau of the Etruscan city stands the village of Isola Farnese, the historic gateway to Veio Park on the Rome side. It is a small settlement perched on a spur of tuff, documented as early as the 11th century, with a fortified enclosure, a castle and the church of San Pancrazio, which preserves frescoes from between the 15th and 16th centuries. The village has the suspended air of places left outside of time, and from here starts the most direct trail toward the archaeological area of Veio and toward the Portonaccio sanctuary. It is the right place to begin the visit: you leave the car, go down toward the creek and in a few minutes pass from the Middle Ages of the village to the Etruscan age of the plateau.

Around the village extend the places that the old account of the park lists among the monuments to see. The Roman villa of Campetti, archaeological ruins that extend over about 10,000 square meters, in which a cistern and a nymphaeum can be recognized: proof that, after the Roman conquest, the plateau was not abandoned entirely but hosted residential and productive installations. Not far away opens the funerary zone where the Tomb of the Ducks remains accessible. The picture is clear: in a tight radius live together the Etruscan city, its necropolises, a sanctuary and a Roman villa, that is, 1,000 years of history in a handful of hectares.

The Mola waterfall and the Sorbo Valley

Anyone looking for water and shade in Veio Park has a precise destination: the Sorbo Valley, in the territory of Formello, and its Mola waterfall. It is one of the most loved corners of the park and one of the most photographed. The waterfall takes its name from an old mill, the Mola di Isola Farnese, an installation from the early 1900s fed by the Fosso della Mola, and it is reached with a walk of medium difficulty along the valley. Near the mill the Fosso Piordo forms a small waterfall, and the combination of waters, drops and riparian woods makes this stretch the walk best suited to families, provided you wear suitable footwear because the rocks next to the water are slippery.

The sanctuary of the Madonna del Sorbo

The Sorbo Valley also holds a place of faith. On the hill that overlooks the valley stands the sanctuary of the Madonna del Sorbo, born from the transformation of an old castle into a place of pilgrimage following, according to tradition, a miraculous apparition. The sanctuary is reached from the same trail as the waterfall, so that a single walk combines water, woods and the religious history of the territory. It is the kind of itinerary I recommend to those who have half a day and want to understand the park without tackling the longer archaeological routes.

The other natural places of Veio Park

Besides the Sorbo Valley, Veio Park gathers a list of natural spots that deserve a detour. The Follettino biotope is a small wetland of great interest for amphibians and dragonflies. The Sacrofano volcano is a reminder that all this countryside comes from an ancient volcanic district, the Sabatino: the tuff that the Etruscans dug out for tombs and tunnels is the child of those eruptions. The Inferno Waterfall is another water drop hidden among the creeks, less frequented than the Mola and for that very reason precious for those seeking silence. These are destinations that don't appear in the quick guides and that repay those who are willing to walk a little more.

The tuff and landscape of Veio Park

To really understand Veio Park it's worth looking at the rock underfoot. All this countryside comes from an ancient volcanic district, the Sabatino volcanic complex, whose activity left a bank of soft, workable tuff. From this geology everything else follows. Tuff is cut with relative ease, and for this very reason the Etruscans could dig into it chamber tombs, tunnels, hydraulic galleries like Ponte Sodo and the trench roads that we call tagliate. The same material, later, supplied the building stone of the villages and farmhouses. The watercourses, cutting into the tuff, have shaped the gorges, that is, the narrow and deep valleys that characterize the landscape of the park: shady and cool furrows where water flows and vegetation thickens, in contrast with the open and cultivated plateaus that spread above. Walking from the edge of a plateau to the bottom of a gorge you cross, in a few minutes, two different worlds: above the sun and the fields, below the shade and the sound of water. The Sacrofano volcano is the visible memory of this origin, and the Baccano Valley, once occupied by a body of water and reclaimed only between the 19th and 20th centuries, is its hydraulic evidence. Anyone who learns to recognize tuff understands in an instant why a city like Veio was born right here: the rock offered natural defense on the ridges, material for digging and building, and water that could be channeled. The landscape is not a backdrop, it is the very reason for the history that took place there.

History of the territory after the Etruscans

The Roman conquest and the consular roads

After the conquest of 396 BC most of the Veientine population that had escaped the massacre was reduced to slavery, while the territory was divided up and granted to Roman citizens. Much later the emperor Augustus, to halt its decline, raised the ancient center to the rank of municipium. But already at the end of the 1st century AD the place was depopulating, and in less than a century it was abandoned altogether. Rome's most lasting imprint on the territory of the future Veio Park was the roads. At the end of the 3rd century BC Via Flaminia was opened to connect the Faliscan countryside, Umbria and Picenum. In the 2nd century BC came Via Cassia, to reach Chiusi, Arezzo and Florence. From the Cassia minor arteries branched off: near the so-called Tomb of Nero started Via Veientana heading to Veio, while from the ancient posting station of Vaccanae, near Campagnano, Via Amerina branched off toward Umbria.

The consular roads were not used only for marching and trading: they also had a funerary function, and were dotted with monumental tombs and necropolises, such as the vast necropolis of Grottarossa along the Flaminia and the mausoleum of the Veientes along the Veientana. The countryside filled with rustic and residential villas, some tied to leading figures of Roman politics, such as the villa of Lucius Verus on the Cassia and the Villa of Livia along the Flaminia, famous for the garden frescoes now preserved in Rome. The Christianization of the territory is attested by some catacombs, such as those of Monte Stallone and the catacomb ad vicesimum at Morlupo.

The Middle Ages, the castles and the brigands

In the 8th century AD, after the depopulation of the countryside that followed the end of the Empire and the invasions, the domuscultae were born in the Roman countryside, agricultural villages administered directly by the Church to revitalize the territory. Pope Hadrian I promoted the Domusculta Capracorum, with its administrative center a few kilometers northeast of Veio. They were short-lived experiences: already after the year 1000 they declined, replaced by a fortified system of castles and watchtowers created by the baronial families who fought over control of the territory. Then arose the Castello della Valchetta, the Castello della Crescenza, the Torre delle Cornacchie, the Torre del Bosco, the Torre Vergata, the Torre di Pietra Pertusa. The medieval villages at the origin of the municipalities were born, with the rival houses of the Orsini and the Colonna as protagonists.

The countryside was beset by brigands, who ran rampant there until the modern age: the deeds of Francesco Piccolomini and Francesco Marocco, nicknamed Tartaglia, remain famous. It was also a time of strong spirituality. Along the ancient Via Cassia ran Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route that crossed Europe to reach Rome, where pilgrims obtained plenary indulgence. Even today a stretch of the Francigena crosses the park and is marked among the trails. In the Sorbo Valleys, as we have seen, an old castle became the sanctuary of the Madonna del Sorbo.

The modern age, land reclamation and agrarian reform

With the end of the Middle Ages the territory was divided into large landed estates, a process that peaked in the 19th century with the concentration of the estates in few hands. The estates had rural farmhouses and sometimes residential villas, such as Villa Versaglia and the Castello della Crescenza. The spread of malaria and neglect impoverished agriculture, until the unified State, between the late 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, intervened with extensive reclamation works, like that of the Baccano marshes, returning the countryside to its agricultural vocation. For the care and literacy of the population, health posts and rural schools were created, for example in the village of Isola Farnese. The agrarian history continued with the struggles of the farm laborers, which ended with the great land reform carried out by the Ente Maremma in the 1950s: the expropriation of vast latifundia and their division into farms assigned to the former farm laborers. Along the two consular roads, meanwhile, the foreign artists and writers of the Grand Tour had passed for centuries, and in their pages they described posting stations and inns, many of which are still recognizable: Posta di Baccano, Osteria dell'Ellera, Osteria de La Storta, Osteria del Fosso on the Cassia, Osteria di Grottarossa, the osterie of Prima Porta, Casale di Malborghetto, Osteriola del Fico, Posta di Castelnuovo along the Flaminia.

Walking in Veio Park: trails and Via Francigena

Veio Park is visited on foot. The trail network reaches about 99 kilometers, including the local stretch of Via Francigena, and in recent years the Authority has expanded and reworked it. The routes are marked with CAI numbering, the Italian Alpine Club, which has included them in its national archive: this means that anyone who knows the symbols of mountain trails finds them identical here too, on the edge of Rome. The Authority makes available on its official site hiking maps of the north and south of the park, an interactive map and the track of the CAI trails: it's best to download them before leaving, because the phone signal inside the gorges isn't always reliable.

A recommendation that is not a formality. The Ente Regionale Parco di Veio is entrusted with environmental protection and biodiversity, is not the owner of the areas within the perimeter, and declines all responsibility for damage to property or persons that may occur inside the park. In practice: you walk at your own responsibility, in a real natural environment. Before setting out, always check the weather forecast, because the creeks swell quickly after storms and some fords become impassable. Bring water, don't trust the springs, and in the warm months leave early.

How to find your way around the entrances of Veio Park

There is no single entrance to Veio Park: being a park of 15,000 hectares, it has many marked gateways. The main ones correspond to the themes of the visit. Isola Farnese is the gateway to archaeology, toward the Etruscan city and Portonaccio. Formello, with Via del Sorbo, is the gateway to the Sorbo Valley, the Mola waterfall and the sanctuary. Sacrofano and Campagnano di Roma open toward the northern sector and the Baccano Valley. The Authority publishes a map of the marked entrances and a page dedicated to how to get there: these are the two documents to look at to choose which side to enter from, because the park is so large that moving from one entrance to another by car takes time. The calendar of guided routes and visits to the archaeological areas is published by the Authority during the year.

A curiosity about Veio Park

The curiosity that few people know concerns a statue that is not in the park and yet is its absolute symbol. The Apollo of Veio, the great terracotta found at Portonaccio in 1916, was not conceived as a sculpture to be viewed frontally in a museum: it was an acroterion, that is, a figure meant to be placed on the ridge of the temple roof, at a height of several meters, and seen from below against the sky. That is why its stride is so stretched forward and the modeling so powerful: it had to work at a distance, backlit, like an actor on a suspended stage. When you look at it today at Villa Giulia, at eye level, you see it in a way the ancients never did. There is more. The Apollo was part of a group of several statues that staged the myth of the contest between Apollo and Hercules for the hind sacred to Artemis: an entire sculpted tale to be unrolled by looking up, along the edge of the roof. Imagining Portonaccio as a building that at its height carried colored figures standing out against the sky completely changes the idea one has of an Etruscan sanctuary. It was not gray as we see it among the ruins: it was painted, theatrical, alive. And the fact that the only Etruscan sculptor's name handed down by the ancient sources, Vulca, is tied by tradition to precisely this statue makes the Apollo of Veio both a masterpiece and a signature.

Something nobody tells you about Veio Park

What almost nobody says is that in Veio Park there are some of the oldest funerary paintings in Italy, and that they predate the famous painted tombs of Tarquinia by almost two centuries. The Tomb of the Roaring Lions preserves paintings datable to around 690 BC: when those lions were drawn on the tuff, Rome, according to tradition, had not yet been founded. And yet this primacy is talked about very little, for a practical reason and for a bitter story. The practical reason is that these tombs are not monuments open every day: they can be visited only in special openings, scheduled by the Authority and the Superintendency, and so they escape the fast tourist circuit. The bitter story is how the Tomb of the Roaring Lions came back to light. Not from a scientific excavation, but from a recovery: it was identified on May 31, 2006 by the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit thanks to the confessions of some tomb robbers. The territory of Veio was for decades a land of clandestine digging, and much of what it contained ended up scattered. Knowing this changes the way you walk there: every tuff hillock may hide a painted chamber, and the reason not everything can be visited is also the defense against those who would like to loot it. The concrete advice I draw from it is to keep an eye on the Authority's calendar: when the Roaring Lions open, you book and you go, because they are rare occasions.

The advice I give you for visiting Veio Park

The advice is not to treat Veio Park as a single place to see all at once, because it is as big as a small province and you would end up driving from one end to the other without seeing anything. Pick a theme and give it half a day. If you are interested in archaeology, start from Isola Farnese early in the morning, go down toward the plateau of the Etruscan city and toward the Portonaccio sanctuary, and then complete the visit, another day, with the Apollo at the Villa Giulia National Etruscan Museum in Rome: the site and the statue explain each other. If instead you are looking for water, greenery and a walk suitable for children too, head for Formello and the Sorbo Valley, with the Mola waterfall and the Sorbo sanctuary along the same trail. The season makes the difference: spring is the best time, with the creeks full, the waterfalls generous and the understory in bloom. Autumn gives the colors of the woods. Summer must be tackled at dawn, because at noon the heat of the clearings is heavy and the shade is not everywhere. One last thing that is worth gold: download the CAI maps from the Authority's site beforehand and check the weather, because inside the gorges the phone often gets no signal and the fords after rain become serious. Those who arrive prepared bring the day home, those who improvise risk going in circles among dirt roads.

Another well-known fact, and yet seldom cited

We know the Etruscans were great builders, but few people connect that fame with a concrete work you can still touch today in Veio Park: Ponte Sodo. It isn't a bridge in the sense we imagine. It's the opposite: a tunnel dug by hand into the tuff bedrock to carry the waters of the Fosso della Valchetta, the ancient Crèmera, under the hill. The engineers of Veii drilled through the rock for tens of meters in order to control floods, prevent the plateau from flooding and gain farmland. It's applied hydraulics from more than 2,000 years ago, and it's still there, working in essence. The same know-how shows in the tagliate, the roads dug like trenches into the tuff that linked the city to the necropolises and to the stream crossings: deep corridors between rock walls, cool even in summer, which you can still walk along some trails. The little-mentioned fact is this: before being a city of temples and painted tombs, Veii was a city of water engineers, able to bend the geography of the tuff to the needs of agriculture. When you walk in the gorges of the park and come across a cut too regular to be natural, it was almost always made by human hands, many centuries ago.

The Best Photo to Take at Veio Park

The photo I recommend at Veio Park is the Mola waterfall in the Valle del Sorbo, but with a tip on timing and light. The waterfall looks best in spring or after a few days of rain, when the stream is running full. In summer, in dry periods, it shrinks and loses force. The best light is in the morning or late afternoon, when the low sun comes in through the trees and lights up the green of the moss on the rocks. At midday the contrast is too harsh and the water burns out to white. If you have a tripod and a long exposure, the water becomes a veil of silk, but even handheld, bracing yourself against a rock, you'll bring home a good picture. A second shot worth the effort is the one from the top of the Isola Farnese cliff toward the plateau of the Etruscan city. At sunset the tuff warms to orange and you understand at a glance why a city able to stand up to Rome rose right there. A rule of respect: never leave the trails to look for the perfect frame, both for your own safety on slippery rocks and because you're walking inside a protected area and over fragile archaeological sites.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

Veio Park is a territory that some of the founding episodes of Roman history passed over. The first is the Battle of the Crèmera in 477 BC: the Roman family of the Fabii went to war against Veii and ended up wiped out in an ambush near the river, with the massacre of 306 of its men. Tradition says that of the whole gens only one boy survived, left behind in Rome because he was too young, and the lineage would have restarted from him. The second episode is the duel between Aulus Cornelius Cossus and the Veientine king Lars Tolumnius, which followed the killing of four Roman ambassadors. Cossus struck the king down and brought his arms to Rome, earning the spolia opima, one of the highest and rarest military honors in Republican history. The third, the most famous, is the fall of Veii in 396 BC after a siege that legend says lasted 10 years, on the model of Troy. The dictator Marcus Furius Camillus took and destroyed the city, and with that victory Rome made its first great territorial leap. Linked to the story is the traditional account of the transfer to Rome of the cult of Juno Regina, the protector goddess of Veii, according to the rite of the evocatio, with which the Romans called to themselves the gods of enemy cities. Many centuries later, in a completely different time, History passed over the same places in a more modest but real form: the drainage works of the unified State against malaria between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the land reform of the Ente Maremma in the 1950s, which broke up the large estates and assigned farms to former farmhands. From the war between two ancient cities to modern land reform, this strip of countryside has seen almost 3,000 years of Italian history go by.

Who Passed Through Veio Park

Many people who matter in history have passed through this territory. The dictator Marcus Furius Camillus, one of the great military leaders of early Rome, built his fame here by taking Veio in 396 BC. The emperor Augustus, many centuries later, took care of the ancient town by raising it to the rank of municipium in an attempt to halt its decline. Along the consular roads that cut through the park, prominent figures had villas and properties: the emperor Lucius Verus, with a villa on the Cassia, and the imperial family with the famous Villa of Livia along the Flaminia, wife of Augustus, whose garden frescoes are among the masterpieces of Roman painting. In the Middle Ages the great Roman houses of the Orsini and the Colonna fought over these places, and Pope Hadrian I promoted the Domusculta Capracorum here. Along Via Francigena pilgrims bound for Rome passed for centuries, and along the Cassia and the Flaminia passed the foreign artists and writers of the Grand Tour, who described in their diaries the taverns and the post stations of the territory. And, in a certain sense, Vulca also passed through here, the only Etruscan sculptor whose name we know: tradition ties the Apollo of Portonaccio to him, and it was precisely from Veio that Rome, according to the sources, called him to model the terracottas of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. Few areas on the outskirts of Rome can match such a list of presences, from emperors to bandits, from popes to pilgrims.

Veio Park with Kids

Veio Park is suitable for children, as long as you choose the right route. The Sorbo Valley with the Mola waterfall is the ideal itinerary: relatively short, rich in water and animals to observe, with the concrete goal of the waterfall as a final prize. The older ones like the idea of walking over an Etruscan city and of entering, when possible, a hand-dug tunnel like Ponte Sodo. A few precautions are needed, though: closed shoes with a lugged sole because near the water it's slippery, water and a snack with you because along the trails there are no refreshment points, and watch out for wild boars, which should be observed from a distance and never approached, especially when young are around. With these precautions it is a complete nature outing, where children learn to recognize tracks, birds and trees by really walking, not by looking at a screen.

What's Around Veio Park

Veio Park fits into a network of protected areas north and east of Rome that is worth exploring on different days. To the north it borders the Valle del Treja Park, famous for its gorges and the Monte Gelato waterfalls. Toward the city you meet the Marcigliana Reserve and the Pineto Park, while to the east open the great historic and archaeological parks such as the Appia Antica Park, the Caffarella Valley and the Aqueducts Park. Those looking for smaller green areas closer to the neighborhoods will find useful the pages on Aguzzano Park, on Valli Park, on Cervelletta Park, on Cellulosa Park and on Mistica Park. For those traveling with children and looking for animals, the Rome Bioparco, inside Villa Borghese, remains a classic. A practical reference for the park environment is also the regional portal of the protected areas of Lazio, where you find the official sheets of the routes (parchilazio.it).

When to Go to Veio Park

The best time for Veio Park is spring, between March and May: the waterfalls are at full flow, the undergrowth blooms and the temperatures allow long walks. Autumn is good too, with the colors of the woods and the streams flowing again after the summer. Summer is the hardest season: the clearings are hot and sunny, and it pays to start at dawn and look for the shaded stretches along the streams. Winter gives clear and quiet days, but after the rains some fords become impassable and the trails muddy. In every season the rule doesn't change: you check the weather forecast before leaving, because here the water rules the trails.

Quick Questions about Veio Park

How Much Does It Cost to Enter Veio Park

Veio Park is a natural area with free access: walking the trails requires no ticket. Access to some archaeological areas and to the painted tombs, on the other hand, happens only at scheduled openings by the managing body and the Superintendency, with arrangements that must be checked each time on the body's official website.

Where Is Veio Park

It extends north of Rome, between Via Cassia and Via Flaminia, in the area of the Agro Veientano. The address of one of the main entrances, in the Valle del Sorbo, is Via del Sorbo in Formello (00060 Formello RM). The gateway to the archaeological area is instead the village of Isola Farnese.

How to Get to Veio Park Without a Car

The FL3 Rome-Viterbo regional railway stops at La Storta, the station closest to the Veii area and to Isola Farnese. From there you continue by local transport or on foot. Train and bus schedules should be checked on the service's official channels, because they change with the seasons.

Can You See the Apollo of Veii in the Park

No. The original Apollo of Veii is kept at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, in Rome. In the park you visit the place where it was found, the sanctuary of Portonaccio, when the archaeological area is open.

How Big Is Veio Park

The official area is 14,984 hectares, which is commonly rounded to 15,000. It's one of the largest parks in Lazio and includes the territory of nine municipalities, as well as Municipio XV of Rome.

How Many Kilometers of Trails Does Veio Park Have

The network reaches about 99 kilometers of trails, including a stretch of Via Francigena. The routes are marked with CAI numbering, from the Club Alpino Italiano.

Is Veio Park Suitable for Children

Yes, if you choose short routes like the Valle del Sorbo with the Mola waterfall. You need closed shoes with treaded soles, water and a snack with you, and watch out for wild boar, to be always observed from a distance.

Can You See the Painted Etruscan Tombs

The Tomb of the Roaring Lions and the Tomb of the Ducks can be visited only during extraordinary openings scheduled by the park authority and the Soprintendenza. It's best to follow the official calendar, because they aren't accessible every day.

What Is the Mola Waterfall in Veio Park

It's the waterfall of the Valle del Sorbo, in Formello, named after an old mill from the early 1900s powered by the Fosso della Mola. You reach it with a walk of moderate difficulty along the valley.

What Animals Can You See in Veio Park

The most common animal is the wild boar. Then there are fox, badger, stone marten, pine marten, weasel, porcupine and many birds of prey such as the kestrel, the buzzard, the black kite and the sparrowhawk, as well as many reptiles and amphibians.

Do You Need a Guide to Visit Veio Park

For nature walks it isn't required, but for the archaeological area of Veii and for the painted tombs, a guided visit or a scheduled opening is the simplest way, because the sites aren't always accessible on your own.

Can You Visit Veio Park in Half a Day

Yes, as long as you choose a single theme. Since it's a park of 15,000 hectares, you can't see everything at once: in half a day you can do well either the Valle del Sorbo itinerary or the archaeological one at Isola Farnese, not both.

Are There Refreshment Points Inside Veio Park

Along the trails there are no bars or reliable fountains: it's best to bring enough water and a packed lunch. The villages on the edge of the park, like Formello and Isola Farnese, offer a few places to eat and drink.

What's the Difference Between Veio Park and Cerveteri

Veii was the southernmost Etruscan city and the direct rival of Rome, with sanctuaries and very ancient painted tombs. Cerveteri, the ancient Caere, is famous above all for its great monumental tumulus necropolises. They're two different Etruscan centers, far from each other, and visiting both gives an idea of the variety of southern Etruria.

Is Veio Park Accessible with a Stroller or Wheelchair

Most of the trails run on natural ground, unpaved and sometimes steep along the streams, so it isn't suitable for strollers or wheelchairs. Some flat stretches near the entrances are easier: it's best to find out about the specific route before leaving.

When Is the Best Time to Go to Veio Park

Spring is the best season, with full waterfalls and the blooming undergrowth. Fall is good too. In summer it's best to start at dawn because of the heat, and in every season you check the weather forecast, because after rain the fords can become impassable.

Are There Dangerous Wild Boar in Veio Park

The wild boar are many and are often spotted even outside the boundaries. They aren't aggressive unless provoked, but they must be kept at a distance, the young must never be approached and food must not be left unattended. With these precautions, encounters remain chances to observe, not a risk.

One last thought: Veio Park rewards those who take it seriously. It isn't an urban park to cross absentmindedly, it's a territory where an Etruscan city, some of the oldest funerary paintings in Italy, waterfalls, woods and millennia of farming history live side by side. Choose one part, walk it slowly, bring water and curiosity, and come back another time for a different theme. That's how this strip of countryside north of Rome truly tells its story.

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

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