National Geographic - July 2022

On August 17, 2021,
the 76th anniversary
of Indonesia’s inde-
pendence from the
Netherlands, children
in Timbulsloko com-
pete in Panjat Pinang,
a traditional slippery-
pole-climbing event.
The team that reaches
the flag at the top
gets a prize. Before
the flooding, the
pole used to be
planted vertically in
dry ground.

JAVA’S SINKING CITIES

Land subsidence is worsening coastal
flooding on Java at a much faster
rate than sea-level rise. Worldwide
the problem of subsidence, which is
accelerated by population growth,
affects about a fifth of all major cities.

Global sea-level rise

0 0.1 inch per year

Land subsidence
average annual rate
for each city,
2016-2020

1

INCHES (ACTUAL SIZE) 2

Jakarta
2 inches
current rate

Pekalongan

3 2.8 inches

Semarang
3.1 inches

Depressing future
Should Semarang’s
current rate of
subsidence continue

4 for 30 more years,

parts of the city
will sink as much
as eight feet.

5 about 2,000 families. The water is stored in ele-
vated tanks and costs around 20 cents per cubic
Historic losses meter, cheaper than the public network.

In previous decades, “It’s been a good business, with good profit,”
says Munawir, the 41-year-old village leader, who
sections of Jakarta spends about $13 a month himself for water ser-
vice. The 49-foot-deep well his father drilled in
have seen rates of his backyard in the 1980s is unusable now, con-
taminated by seawater.
subsidence exceeding
“Of course we hope that the government can
seven inches a year. provide a tap water network to prevent the sink-
ing” of the land, Munawir says. “But it will also
6 From 1925 to 2015, kill the already established local water business.”
parts of the city
The local government says drilling deep wells
dropped 13 feet. requires official permits and that unregistered
wells will be shut down. But it hasn’t closed
7
RILEY D. CHAMPINE, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: TEGUH SIDIQ, IRWAN GUMILAR, AND
Jakarta IRWAN MEILANO, BANDUNG INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; DELTARES
7.1 inches
maximum
historic rate

Neighbors help the
Kaelani family of
Timbulsloko load their
furniture onto a boat
that will take it to
their new home on
drier ground. The
family, who first
came to the village
in 1983, have lost their
farmland. They now
make a living selling
fruit on the mainland.

any in recent years. Qomarul Huda, head of the and tides. The plan is to double that by 2023.
Demak water authority, blamed water shortages Meanwhile, environmental NGOs working
in the regency on farmers who draw too much
from rivers for irrigation. He declined to com- with local fisherfolk in Sayung District have
ment on groundwater extraction. built miles of bamboo fences just offshore. The
fences act as permeable breakwaters that trap
As Demak’s population and industry continue sediment stirred up by waves, especially during
to grow, groundwater extraction will too. No one monsoon storms. They’re cheap and meant to
is willing or able to invest the immense sums be temporary—the idea is to trap just enough
needed to build an alternative. sediment for mangroves to take root—but they
collapse easily and often have to be repaired.
F O R A D E C A D E , T H E C E N T R A L JAVA provincial
government and nongovernmental organiza- “We have yet to feel the impact of this coastal
tions have been struggling to protect the coast engineering,” says Fadholi, a 36-year-old fisher-
from erosion. The government claims to have man hired by an NGO to maintain a sediment
planted in excess of three million mangroves on trap in the village of Bedono. “We haven’t seen
more than 900 acres since 2011, to buffer waves sediment build up here because the current
keeps washing it away.” The fences do act as

S I N K I N G FA S T 111

In May 2021, a day
before celebrating the
Eid al-Fitr holiday at
the end of Ramadan,
Timbulsloko villagers
visit the flooded public
cemetery to pray and
pay their respects at
the graves of their rel-
atives. The loss of land
threatens their homes
and livelihoods—
but also their links to
people they love.



Last fall the Demak breeding grounds for mussels, however, which
government provided residents collect and sell.
funding that allowed
Timbulsloko to hire an Researchers at Diponegoro University in
excavator to scrape Semarang have tested other methods of coastal
mud from the seabed protection. At Timbulsloko in 2012 they built
and raise the ceme- a seawall of concrete cylinders along 500 feet
tery five feet. It’s now of former coastline. Within two years, enough
accessible on foot sediment had built up behind the wall to grow
even at high tide. Here mangroves—which today stand up to 10 feet tall.
Sundari, 48, prays at
her husband’s grave. But concrete is too expensive to be a large-
scale solution, says Denny Nugroho Sugianto, an
This story was produced oceanography professor at Diponegoro. Where
and published by National waves are low enough, he advocates permeable
Geographic through breakwaters of bamboo and PVC pipe, more
a reporting partnership durable than bamboo and still cheap.
with the United Nations
Development Programme. But, he adds, “we haven’t solved the problem

114 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

seawalls, as in the Netherlands, to protect more
of the coast. Huge pumping stations would be
needed to evacuate floodwaters from behind
the wall. The system would require mainte-
nance indefinitely. The government doesn’t
have the money, Pranowo says.

So what should people do in the flooding vil-
lages, the ones accessible only at low tide along
narrow footpaths, the ones where water laps at
the villagers’ feet in their living rooms?

“The last resort is to relocate to a safer place,”
says Pranowo, who’s expected to run for presi-
dent of Indonesia in 2024. “Or if they insist on
living there, they have to adapt to the environ-
ment by building stilt houses, for example. If
they want their land back just like the old times,
it’s impossible. It’s drowned now.”

of sinking land. So no matter how many break- I N C E N T R A L JAVA T H E M U S L I M T R A D I T I O N is
waters we build, they won’t be successful.” to visit the cemetery in the late afternoon on
Thursdays. One recent Thursday Khusnuma-
The national government, as part of a strategic rom, a 16-year-old high school student, made
effort to save vital assets and industrial zones, is his way to the cemetery in Timbulsloko.
building a combined highway and seawall from
Semarang to the town of Demak, a distance of Dressed in a traditional white shirt, black
17 miles. It’s expected to be finished in 2024 at songkok cap, and dark gray trousers, he walked
a cost of $532 million. But only small parts of barefoot on a narrow, six-foot-high boardwalk,
two villages will be protected. The move angers nearly two miles long, that residents built last
residents of villages outside the wall, such as year to replace the vanished roads. He made a
Timbulsloko and Sayung, who feel their com- right turn down wooden stairs and crossed
munities are being left to drown. a creek on the slippery, submerged road. The
tidal flood reached knee-deep, but his steps were
Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, a tall confident. On the other side he climbed back
53-year-old with graying hair and a boyish smile, onto the boardwalk and continued on.
acknowledges the plan’s limitations. He says the
government simply can’t afford to build bigger When he reached the underwater cemetery,
the shadows had begun to fall. The dead tree
and the headstones were silhouetted against
the deep-orange sky. Khusnumarom found the
grave of his grandmother, Mukminah. He raised
his hands and began to pray.

Khusnumarom knows from bedtime stories,
including the ones Mukminah told him, how his
village used to be. The memories will die with the
older generation, and sooner or later the stories
too will fade. Like many other youths, Khusnu-
marom doesn’t plan to stay in Timbulsloko.

“I know what this village looked like,” he says.
“But we see and experience what it has now
become.” He’ll look for a job in the city when he
graduates. He wants to be a software engineer. j

Indonesian multimedia journalist Adi Renaldi
writes for publications around the world. Photog-
rapher Aji Styawan lives just a few miles from the
flood-prone villages he shot for this article.

S I N K I N G FA S T 115



BY NINA STROCHLIC
PHOTOGRAPHS BY

ANDREA FRAZZETTA

REVIVING
THE ROAD

TO ROME

THE APPIAN WAY SYMBOLIZED THE
RO M A N E M P I R E ’ S M I G H T. N O W I TA LY I S R E STO R I N G

T H E A N C I E N T H I G H W AY, H O P I N G TO C R E AT E
A P I LG R I M AG E RO U T E T H RO U G H H I S TO RY.

117

T H E R E ’ S A M C D O N A L D ’ S on the outskirts of Rome In Roman times, the
where, after ordering a pancetta-laden Big Mac, Appian Way shuttled
you can peer through the glass floor and see—a goods, soldiers, live-
few yards below—flat, white paving stones of stock, and ideas across
an ancient Roman road and twisted skeletons southern Italy. Herders
embedded in a 2,300-year-old gutter. still take their flocks to
graze along the road in
These are remnants of Europe’s first major what is now the Appia
highway, the Appian Way. The route, begun in Antica Archaeological
312 B.C., meanders out of the city and across Park, in Rome.
southern Italy until it reaches the eastern port
PREVIOUS PHOTO
Tcity of Brindisi. It helped inspire the saying “All
roads lead to Rome,” and in Italy it is still called Rome’s third-century
Regina Viarum—the Queen of Roads. But Arch of Drusus marks
its legacy has been largely neglected, buried the start of a planned
with its stones under millennia of history. 360-mile walking
Now an Italian government project is under route along the Appian
way to transform the Appian Way (Via Appia) Way that will immerse
into a pilgrimage route from buzzing Rome travelers in less visited
to nautical Brindisi, a quiet city on the heel of parts of Italy. The road’s
Italy’s boot. In its roughly 360-mile span across original starting point
the country, the Appia takes many forms: a for- is still unknown.
ested dirt path, a town plaza, a highway. It’s not
always scenic or pleasant, but it is an immersion
into a slice of Italy few tourists see.
Before the crowds come, though, the Italian
government first must dig out the Appia and in
some cases, find it. That’s why, on a fall morn-
ing, I found myself looking down at the road
from an outpost of a hamburger empire. In
Rome, the Appia is an 11-mile-long stretch of
well-preserved archaeological park. The last leg
of this park is a woodsy uphill path. Then the
Appia vanishes under asphalt for 50 miles. Its
last appearance in the Eternal City is beneath
the McDonald’s.
There lies a small offshoot of the Appia, one of
the rare segments that have recently been exca-
vated and preserved. When I ask a restaurant
manager about the ancient cobblestones, he calls
to a woman in sneakers sitting at a corner table.
She introduces herself as Pamela Cerino, the
archaeologist who dug out the road in 2014. In
what I consider an earth-shattering coincidence,

118 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Cerino just happens to be visiting the workers I. THE ROUTE
she befriended during the two-year job.
T H E V I A A P P I A intersects cities, villages, moun-
We exit the restaurant and descend a staircase tains, and farmland as it crosses four regions
to the ancient cobblestones. “The project was and a hundred municipalities in Italy. Most of
made on purpose so if you want to look at the it has been paved into obscurity under Strada
road you don’t have to come into McDonald’s,” Statale 7, a busy road. But its original stones
Cerino tells me. Three skeletons lie in the gutter— sometimes appear—alongside a cocktail bar in
replicas of the bones she originally unearthed a village square, under heavy tarps in an over-
there. Above us, through the glass ceiling, we can grown field.
see families feasting on McNuggets.
The Appia, as envisioned by Roman admin-
When a piece of the Appia was initially dis- istrator Appius Claudius, was a tool for military
covered during construction, locals feared the domination. Enslaved people and laborers dug
fast-food franchise was buying up old Roman out an estimated 1.6 million cubic feet of dirt
treasures. Actually, Cerino says, archaeological and stone for each freshly paved mile (the mile
sites often are reburied for preservation because measurement itself was a Roman invention).
their upkeep is so expensive. As I come to learn, Claudius named it after himself—a rare practice
glimpses of the Appia are few and far between,
and it’s lucky this one ended up seen at all.

R E V I V I N G T H E R O A D T O R O M E 119

Ruins of ancient Rome’s
essential aqueduct
network are preserved
in the Appia Antica
park. While tourists
flood more famous
sites in the capital city,
not many find their
way a few miles south,
leaving locals to enjoy
this green space.



in those days that suggests its importance—but be marked on an app. The less-is-more approach
went blind and ultimately died before it was aims not to cover up the unpolished segments but
completed. The Appia barreled through the to offer an honest experience.
country in a nearly straight line, carrying the
Roman Army as the empire consumed south- “In the U.S., you have Route 66,” Costa says.
ern Italy and embarked east, via the sea, to “It’s not really about driving. It’s about the real
spread its dominion abroad. It was the first of America. We have Route 66—plus 2,000 years.”
29 bustling roads that shot out from Rome.
But it’s not America the Appia is competing
Accounts of travel along the Appia began with with. Costa isn’t the first of the Appia’s new
Latin poet Horace around 35 B.C., and it has had designers to reveal that a quiet rivalry is brewing:
no shortage of articulate admirers since. But The Camino de Santiago, Spain’s saintly route,
appreciation for the road as a feat of engineering typically attracts 300,000 walkers, and its des-
faded after the Roman Empire began to collapse tination, Santiago de Compostela, draws more
in A.D. 395, and the Appia gradually fell out of than two million tourists annually.
use. In an 1846 book, Charles Dickens described
“tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate.” From Rome to Brindisi, the Appia is a secular
journey through Italian history. But done the
Then, in 2015, Italian writer Paolo Rumiz other direction, it trails St. Paul as he traveled
decided to walk the Appia for La Repubblica to Rome from Jerusalem. Compared with the
newspaper. The only problem: There was no Camino de Santiago, Costa says, “the nature is
modern map of the route. He contacted Ric- even better, the history is 200 times better. And
cardo Carnovalini, a prominent hiker who has at the end, you reach the pope.”
spent nearly four decades traversing Italy. For
two months, Carnovalini overlaid military maps, II. THE START
ancient shepherd paths, and satellite imagery to
plot the Appia’s course. Then he loaded it into a T O F O L L O W T H E A P P I A , I’d hoped to start at
GPS and walked alongside Rumiz. its beginning. I soon discover it hasn’t been
unearthed yet.
Rumiz’s journey drew the attention of the Min-
istry of Cultural Heritage, and in 2015 the Italian The first cobblestones are likely buried near
government announced a plan to resurrect the what is now a traffic-clogged roundabout at the
route. Centuries of lawless development had left center of Rome. Today, in an effort to locate
archaeological treasures in private hands, and them without halting the busy city, the Ministry
ancient villas recklessly remodeled. Preservation of Cultural Heritage has been digging out small,
has begun, but without visitors, the Appia could deep strips of pavement—so far, unsuccessfully.
be forgotten again.
A few miles south is the Appia Antica Archaeo-
“Walking,” Carnovalini tells me when I later logical Park, the best preserved and most walkable
meet him on the Appia’s trail, “is the most polit- piece of the road. Its path meanders from cen-
ical act one can do to change the landscape.” tral Rome to the city’s outskirts, sprinkled on
But many obstacles are keeping walkers away, either side with some 400 archaeological sites:
namely a difficult-to-find route, few accommo- mosaic-filled Roman villas, a mazelike Chris-
dations, and little supportive infrastructure. tian catacomb with half a million dead, and
mausoleums of enslaved persons and ancient
Enter Angelo Costa, founder of Studio Costa, society girls alike. “Stop, stranger,” one grave-
one of the three architectural firms tasked with stone implores, “and look at this little mound
turning the Appia into a walkable journey. His of earth on the left, where the bones of a good
proposal has a historical precedent: Ancient person are enclosed.”
Romans following the Appia encountered a
station to swap out their horses every 10 miles, Modern life scrolls past: elderly couples on
and a guesthouse every 20 miles. Costa envisions sunset strolls and birthday partygoers on horse-
an updated version, with 29 walking segments, back tours. Shepherds in small cars herd goats
each about six hours. and sheep. Diners fork into platters of roasted
meats outside Qui Nun Se More Mai—“Here you
Travelers will explore the theaters of famed never die”—a cozy trattoria atop the Appia. The
gladiator battles, sleep in simple guesthouses, and stones dip where two millennia of horse-drawn
taste regional delicacies. Rest areas, lodging— carts carved deep grooves.
some existing, some new—and attractions will

122 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C



But the typical tourist to Rome is on a sightsee-
ing blitz, staying only a few days before leaving
for Florence or Venice. Before COVID-19, the
archaeological park saw 100,000 visitors a year.
Two miles north, the Colosseum drew over seven
million. A new park director has installed an
alluring schedule of concerts, festivals, and her-
itage days. It appeared to be working on a warm
fall day: Parents picnicked in fields around a
crumbled Roman stadium while children charged
each other with fake gladiator swords.

There’s a peacefulness to this park that makes
it unlike any of Rome’s other ancient attractions.
As the Appia’s stones stretch away from the city,
the archaeological sites thin until only a lone
column or statue stands among lush fields.
Stone pines with flat, leafy tops offer shade,
and there are occasional historical markers
and water fountains. But once the path hits the
McDonald’s, the Appia disappears.

III. WALK THROUGH TIME

TO D E C I P H E R T H E A P P I A’ S RO U T E beyond Rome, The next day we pass by overburdened trac-
I enlist the help of Riccardo Carnovalini, the tors chugging through tobacco fields, hills of
trekker who mapped it in 2015. We meet in spinning windmills, and fields being devoured
the small city of Benevento, at a restaurant in the by controlled fires. Carnovalini strolls effort-
plaza. Carnovalini, who is 64, wears zip-off lessly, cracking hazelnuts and picking wine
hiking pants, a fleece, and new boots that grapes from curling vines along the path.
already have clocked nearly 450 miles. We fill
a table with deep-fried zucchini flowers and cod The Appia has literally been absorbed by these
stewed in tomato sauce. Over a minty aperitif, sleepy villages, its stones and columns embed-
he quotes Italian author Italo Calvino, who once ded in walls and doorways. On long stretches,
wrote that a visited country “must pass between the red line on Carnovalini’s GPS is the only
the lips and down the esophagus.” indication we’re still on the right track.

When Carnovalini and author Paolo Rumiz Short yellow paths indicate detours to keep
first walked the Appia in 2015, their course walkers off major roads. As an adviser to the
ended up about 50 miles longer than the orig- Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Carnovalini has
inal route. Modernity had consumed much of mapped out dozens of these, both to circumvent
the early path, forcing them to navigate around the route’s impassable segments and to lead
highways and industrial zones. walkers to existing accommodations. Walking
the Appia, I learn, doesn’t always mean walking on
We are already 140 miles from Rome, but Car- the Appia. Carnovalini takes me on one detour
novalini describes this area as the start of the
many disagreements over the Appia’s original
path. To make the modern route, Carnovalini
has studied maps, street angles, and building
materials and chosen the most feasible option.
Even so, pink and blue lines plotted on his GPS
show the competing theories.

“There are other walks,” he says, as the waiters
begin closing the restaurant for the night, “but
they’re for tourism. This is not a walk; it’s history.”

124 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

LEFT

The Appia’s meaning
for couples is “the
path they have to walk
together,” says wed-
ding photographer
Angelo Corbi, who
has a studio along the
route’s stones in the
village of Terracina.
“What better than the
Via Appia for that?”
The town plaza has
become a popular des-
tination for weddings,
and Corbi ensures
the Appia provides
a historic backdrop.

BELOW

Niccolò Bassotti
practices with his
soccer team on
Gerini Quadraro,
a field—famously fea-
tured in the opening
scene of filmmaker
Federico Fellini’s La
Dolce Vita—just a few
yards from the ancient
aqueducts in Rome.

R E V I V I N G T H E R O A D T O R O M E 125

James Bond fans may
recognize the Ponte
dell’Acquedotto, near
the Appia’s path in
Gravina in Puglia,
from 007’s leap in No
Time to Die. Attract-
ing film productions
is one way southern
Italy hopes to raise its
economic prospects.



ABOVE

At Italy’s Central
Institute for Res-
toration, specialist
Adriano Casagrande
repairs a bust known
as the Philosopher’s
Head. It was found
during excavations
of Rome’s grand Villa
dei Quintili, at the fifth
mile of the Via Appia.

RIGHT

Ilaria Cavaterra, a
conservation student,
restores mosaic floors
at the Villa dei Quintili.
The residence was so
coveted that Emperor
Commodus is said to
have killed its owners
and moved in himself
in the second century.
“This palace, if it’s well
preserved, can give to
the tourists and all the
people the full experi-
ence of life in ancient
Rome,” says Serena di
Gaetano, a mosaic con-
servation expert who
oversees the project.

128

through the charming hilltop village of Frigento, to cut the cultural heritage budget every year
where we descend into a Roman cistern and greet for the past decade—leading to the reburying
the town’s free-roaming resident peacocks. of discovered sites. The cash injection along
the Appia’s path is welcome, but it’s going to
IV. HONEST TOURISM require sustained upkeep. These regions tend
to be overlooked, archaeologists tell me. When
T H E M I N I S T RY O F C U LT U R A L H E R I TAG E has ear- there’s money, one says, it usually ends up in
marked 20 million euros ($22 million) to develop Pompeii and Herculaneum.
the Appia for tourism, but as I visit archaeolog-
ical sites along the route, it’s clear more funds Carnovalini had cautioned that a journey
are being eagerly awaited. Archaeologists spent along the Appia is unique for its honesty. “The
2020 excavating a 50-yard stretch of Appian cob- Appian experience is up and down,” he said. “In
blestones in a town called Passo di Mirabella. one moment you’re saying, ‘Wow, that’s beau-
Today it’s hidden under a large protective sheet. tiful,’ then you turn your head and say, ‘Wow,
Another phase of funding is necessary for the that’s horrible.’
team to continue preserving their finds.
“Italy,” he added, “is not a postcard.”
It’s the same story across Italy, where an eco- That truth crystallizes as I approach Taranto,
nomic dip has forced the national government a port city roughly 40 miles from the Appia’s
end. This is the only place where Carnovalini
and Rumiz were forced to hail a taxi during their
trek. Before me is a six-square-mile expanse of
industrial production. This pollution-belching
steel plant, the largest in Europe, has turned
Taranto into “the trenches of Italy,” an Italian
journalist warned me before I arrived.
The Appia runs alongside the factory and
into an island that holds Taranto’s old town. It
feels time has rewound 60 years. In tiny store-
fronts, old men paint religious figurines to sell
to the few tourists. Fishing boats jostle for space
along the boardwalk; I am told that dolphins and
whales are sometimes visible on the horizon.
Winding alleys lead to a cathedral dripping with
marble. Taranto instantly becomes my favorite
spot along the Appia. But above this mirage of
old Italy, black plumes billow from smokestacks.
Taranto was the only city founded by the Spar-
tans outside Greece, and a row of Greek columns
still stands near the water. This is where I meet
Massimo Castellana, a member of an activist
coalition fighting to close the factory. On windy
days, when steel particles blow into town, res-
idents shut their windows and keep their kids
home from school. Studies have shown high
levels of cancer here compared with the rest
of Italy, particularly among children. Taranto
should be known for its beauty, Castellana says,
not its industry. But despite years of protests, the
factory remains open.
Among the many hopes embedded in the
revival of the Appia by people like Castellana is
that harnessing history for tourism can reverse
the fortunes of southern Italy, which has long
been stereotyped as old-fashioned and crime

R E V I V I N G T H E R O A D T O R O M E 129

To make an Appian
journey appealing to
tourists, planners have
designed nearly a hun-
dred small detours
to scenic lookouts,
charming villages, and
archaeological sites
along the route. The
Castle of Monteserico,
which sits just off the
Appia, is one of those.



ridden. As I head from Taranto to Brindisi, the
Appia’s end, I stop in the once walled city of
Mesagne where I meet Simonetta Dellomonaco,
head of the regional film commission, who tells
me her guiding adage: “Culture is the only fuel
that doesn’t pollute the more you consume.”

When Dellomonaco was growing up, Mesagne
was known as the birthplace of Italy’s fourth
Mafia family, the Sacra Corona Unita. Today
that image is being replaced by scenic Holly-
wood cameos, including in the latest James
Bond film.

As we speak, actors playing Native Americans
are riding through a nearby park that’s posing
as the American West. And just outside town,
archaeologists have unearthed the last visible
stretch of the Appia’s original cobblestones.
Investing in its heritage landed Mesagne as a
finalist for Italy’s 2024 Capital of Culture. “They
used to say every road leads to Rome,” Dellomo-
naco says. “But here the most important ends.”

V. END OF THE ROAD

“ U N D E R T H E RO M A N S , Brindisi reached its big- What’s important is that the Appia turned
gest splendor,” a local guide is telling a small Brindisi into a global powerhouse, from which the
crowd gathered on the boardwalk in Brindisi. Roman Army set off to expand its empire east to
“They understood the importance of the port. cities like Alexandria and Jerusalem. Eventually,
From Brindisi you could take off for the East.” the Roman Empire ruled a quarter of the human
It’s Via Appia Day, an annual celebration, and population across three continents.
the group is touring the route’s end point on a
sunny October afternoon. Around 266 B.C., the Brindisi became a destination for Holy Land
Romans arrived here, defeated the Messapian pilgrims, who waited for weeks to board the
civilization, and completed the Appian Way. next boat to Jerusalem. Now, a couple hundred
travelers show up each year via various hiking
The guide is climbing a tall set of stairs, toward routes that lead to the city. Restoring Brindisi’s
the columns that famously mark the end of the reputation as a destination is the personal cru-
route. The group gathers for a photo around a sade of Rosy Barretta. Barretta privately funds
towering column and the base of its twin (the an organization that arranges visits for pilgrims,
rest was gifted to a neighboring city centuries called Brindisi and the Ancient Roads, and her
ago). “These columns are commonly considered family runs a large tugboat company. “It was a
the end of the Appian Way,” she is saying. “But waste that no one was taking care of this piece
not everyone agrees.” of engineering and inventiveness,” she says. She

Hold on. The Appia’s starting point was
uncertain, but the finale was always clear: two
columns framing the Adriatic Sea in Brindisi.
But analysis of the marble has revealed they
were built two centuries later.

An archaeologist on the Appia’s excavation
warns me not to get too consumed with finding
its end. The Appia is chameleon-like, changing
from street to route to highway—more a system
than a line. “We’re chasing a myth,” he says.

132 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

The Appia would have
run to—and perhaps
through—the gate to
Brindisi before likely
becoming the main
street, known in Roman
times as the decumanus.
Two ornately carved
columns were erected
above the port of
Brindisi and thought
to mark the end of the
Appian Way. Today only
one remains; its mate
was given to a neighbor-
ing city centuries ago.

imagines Brindisi once again filled with travelers back to its departure point in Mozambique.
tracing the Appia’s path. It carries raw sugar, he says, which will be
unloaded and processed locally.
The morning after the tour, she invites me
to join her on a tugboat to see the port. Skinny The water is calm as two of Barretta’s tugboats
roads stretch out from the city into the sea, rush to greet the ship and begin to pull it into
creating a sheltering circle around Brindisi port. Di Giulio tells me he recently moved back
and giving it the appearance of having ant- home after a decade abroad working for Carni-
lers. The Alfonsino Castle sits on one of these val Cruises. He saw the Middle East, Africa, and
“horns,” surrounded by the Adriatic, its stone the Caribbean but always dreamed of returning
walls glimmering in the sun. Barretta dreams of to the port of Brindisi, where ships have been
transforming it into a national Appia museum. unloading goods and passengers for thousands
She envisions its restored lighthouse beaming of years. “From my professional point of view,”
a spotlight 60 miles over the water, drawing in he says, “it’s the center of the world.” j
cruise ships and destination weddings.
Staff writer Nina Strochlic last wrote about Maya
We watch as a hulking ship approaches the beekeepers in Mexico. Italian photographer
port of Brindisi. Our tugboat’s captain, a young Andrea Frazzetta explored a sulfur mine inside
Brindisi native named Alessandro di Giulio, a volcano for the August 2018 issue. His family
opens an app on his phone and tracks the boat roots are at the end of the Via Appia—in Brindisi.

R E V I V I N G T H E R O A D T O R O M E 133

INSTAGRAM BEVERLY JOUBERT

FROM OUR PHOTOGRAPHERS

WHO When Joubert and her husband, Dereck—National
Geographic Explorers at Large—were filming their TV
A conservation filmmaker series Okavango: River of Dreams, they got a good look
and photographer special- at hippo behavior. And an earful. Hippos communicate
izing in African wildlife with lots of sounds: grunts, squeals, deafening honks.
Unfamiliar voices may spark aggression; familiar
WHERE ones tend to elicit calmer reactions. Challenged for
his territory by a more dominant male, the hippo
The Okavango Delta, in above honked and thrashed, but it was futile. He was
northwestern Botswana pushed out of his pod and had to move on.

W H AT

Canon EOS-1D X with a
28-300mm lens

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134 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

BURN THE MYTH

VIKINGS
THE RISE & FALL
BRAND NEW SERIES

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