A Murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor

For the Appia specifically, the itineraries available online-gratis and in English-at the archeological park’s website are well worth having on hand as you walk ( ). Both are available in paperback, and both are helpful in an “on your left you will see…, and then on your right…” sort of way. The two best English-language guides to the archaeological sites in and around the capital are Rome, also from Oxford University Press, in a second edition (2010) by Amanda Claridge, Judith Toms, and Tony Cubberley and Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide, by Filippo Coarelli (Berkeley, 2008). The essays are informative, if impersonal and a bit stiff, and though the book is not intended to be a field guide-other considerations aside, its hardcover, 8.5″× 10.5″ format makes it a bit unwieldy for that sort of use-each essay contains an “itinerary” that can be photocopied and carried for reference.

It is by far the best of the very few books in English that treat the whole length of the road for a general audience, with a marvelous collection of photographs and a series of essays on the successive segments of the route.

That general suggestion aside, the notes that follow concentrate on the experience of the via Appia itself.Įxcellent preparation for traveling the Appia can be found in The Appian Way: From Its Foundation to the Middle Ages, a sumptuous production edited by Ivana Della Portella and published by Oxford University Press for the Getty Museum. This is not the place for that sort of advice, though I do have one practical suggestion for the southern leg of the trip: use a travel agent who specializes in Italy, for it will save you many headaches and much hassle, at a cost that is truly negligible relative to the overall expense (we used Connoisseur’s Travel, an excellent agency based in Chicago). There are countless guides available, in print and online, for anyone planning travel to, in, and around Rome, and resources for traveling in the south, though skimpier, are not hard to come by (type “Basilicata Italy travel” into Google, and you’ll get about 600,000 results).

A Murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor