Beyond Rome: The Castelli Romani, Where Sundays Still Taste Like Wine and Roast Pork

Rome is half an hour by train, but this feels like another world entirely. The Castelli Romani — a crown of borghi scattered across the Alban Hills, the remnants of an ancient extinct volcano that left behind two lakes and fertile land — have been the Roman refuge from summer heat and city chaos for centuries.

Frascati is the gateway: famous for its white wine (Frascati DOC is the Castelli wine par excellence), for its Renaissance Tusculan villas, and for the fraschette — the rustic taverns where you bring your own food and pay only for the wine. Some authentic fraschette still survive, and the experience is unlike anything else: you sit at a wooden table, order a litre of cold white, and pull out the porchetta you bought at the village bakery.

Lake Nemi — the smaller of the two volcanic lakes — is a hidden gem: a perfectly circular crater ringed by chestnut forests, with a tiny borgo perched above the water. Nemi is famous for its wild strawberries (the June festival is a local event) and for the Museum of the Roman Ships, which houses the remains of the two enormous ceremonial vessels built for Caligula, recovered from the lake bed in the 1930s.

Castel Gandolfo — the papal summer residence — commands Lake Albano from above, with the pontifical gardens open to the public since 2016. The view from the terrace is breathtaking: the lake, the forests, Rome shimmering in the distance. The gardens are tended with the precision only the Vatican can muster — geometric hedges, fountains, and cypress-lined avenues.

Ariccia is the homeland of porchetta: the real thing, with crackling skin and soft, fennel-scented interior, eaten in crusty warm bread bought at the bakery. The town square — designed by Bernini — is an unexpected Baroque masterpiece, with the church and Palazzo Chigi facing each other in perfect balance.

The Castelli are reachable by regional train from Roma Termini (Frascati in twenty-five minutes, Albano in thirty) or by car along the Via Appia Nuova. They make the perfect day trip from Rome: set out in the morning, lunch in a fraschetta, stroll along the lake, and be back for dinner. But if you can, stay the night — when the Romans head back to the city, the Castelli return to their own people, and the silence is sweet.