Priverno On the trail

Fossanova Abbey with a licensed guide

Priverno

An abbey reads differently with someone pointing at it: why the columns come in pairs, why there is no colour anywhere, and which room Thomas Aquinas died in on the road to a council he never reached.

How the day goes

  1. Met at the abbey, then into the church and what the Cistercian rules did to it.
  2. The cloister, with its paired columns, and the working buildings around it.
  3. The cell where Aquinas died, which is the reason pilgrims still come.
  4. The village that grew up against the walls afterwards and never left.

The abbey can also be walked into for nothing on any day: the guide is for people who want the building explained rather than looked at.

Where it is

Priverno at its real position from Rome, with everywhere else we list behind it — so you can see how far out this one is.

Priverno, and where it is from Rome Priverno drawn at its real position relative to Rome, about 91 minutes by car. The faint dots are the other places we list, so you can see how far out this one is. 91 min Rome Priverno

Open it where the roads are

Takes you to Priverno — the town, not the meeting point. Ask them where exactly to turn up; the number is on this page.

Getting there

Getting there, the comfortable way

  • 1 h 31drive from the middle of Rome
  • 108 kmeach way
  • Rent a car for the day

    The day stays yours: you leave when you want, stop where you want, and come back when the light goes.

    • You pick it up in Rome and drop it back in Rome
    • No timetable to build the day around
    • The stops on the way are the good part, and they need a car

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Localrent, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Localrent
  • Have a driver take you, door to door

    No parking to find, no wrong turns, and you leave when the day is done.

    • Picked up where you are staying, dropped back there
    • No parking to find and no ZTL to worry about
    • Nobody spends the day driving

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Welcome Pickups, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Welcome Pickups

Also around Priverno

Priverno On the trail

Fossanova Abbey

The Cistercian abbey where Thomas Aquinas died in 1274, with its Gothic church and cloister.

See the day
Priverno On the trail

Carlo Cicala archaeological museum, Priverno

Museum in the historic Palazzo Antonelli on the main square of Priverno, with over a thousand objects from the Roman colony of Privernum: mosaics, statues, portraits, inscriptio…

See the day
A forest track between bare trees On the trail

Medieval museum of Fossanova

Museum in the abbey village of Fossanova, part of the PrivernoMUSEI system, with medieval architectural sculpture: pillars, capitals and architraves from the Cistercian complex.

See the day
Snowshoers walking in single file across deep snow On the trail

Privernum archaeological park

Open-air archaeological park on the plain of the Amaseno, on the site of the Roman colony of Privernum: city walls, domus and the urban fabric of a town that stayed alive in the…

See the day

More on the trail

A stony ridge path across open highland On the trail

Monte Soratte from Sant'Oreste

6.8 km and 691 metres of climbing, with a guide and never more than ten of you.

€49 per person

Books on Nature of Sal — Salvatore Benintende

See the day
A child in a harness crossing a rope bridge between trees On the trail

A morning in the trees

Clip into a harness and cross the trees: from age four there is a course to do.

€5 per person

Books on ViviAvventura

See the day

We have not verified this one yet. Everything below comes from the operator and we have not checked it — treat it as a lead, not as a listing.

Photograph by pietro scerrato, Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 3.0. Not this place: it shows what the day looks like, and will be replaced with the operator's own photograph or ours from the field.

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