Every design for Terracina

At the foot of the Pisco Montano the Romans cut straight down through the rock to let the Via Appia run along the shore, and the cliff face still carries their marks at intervals of ten Roman feet, the lowest reading CXX. Before that cut was made, early in Trajan's time, the road had to climb over the hill behind the promontory.

Terracina has always lived with that squeeze between mountain and sea. The Volscian Hills reach the coast here, leaving no room to pass, above the Pontine Marshes and a small harbour. The Volsci called the town Anxur, after the young Jupiter who protected it, and his temple, the Tempio di Giove Anxur, still crowns Monte Sant'Angelo. The Romans settled a colony of citizens here in 329 BC. There is a sense, walking the centro storico, of layers stacked one on another: the Foro Emiliano, the Teatro Romano di Terracina and the Castello Frangipane, in a town that has been lived in without a break since antiquity. Some even placed the home of Circe on this coast, or the harbour where Ulysses landed among the Laestrygonians.

If you have climbed up to the temple and looked down over the beaches to the Gulf of Gaeta, you already know why this place is worth carrying with you.