GTL 17 Lazio From Bracciano to Anguillara

 BRACCIANO / ANGUILLARA

A spectacular stage all around Lake Bracciano, to discover its treasures scattered around the villages that overlook it, almost entirely on roads without traffic, bridleways and dirt paths but easy to follow. From Bracciano we exit northwards following the railway line along dirt roads or dirt roads, in the thick of the woods that hide the panorama of the lake and then make it appear suddenly from time to time: we thus arrive in Manziana, a beautiful village near the centuries-old forest of the same name, and then via a bridleway in the countryside to the Antica Monterano, ghost town that knew various eras, each of which has left a mark of its passage: from the Etruscan tombs to the Roman walls, passing through the papal aqueduct and a couple of sculptures by Bernini and the evocative ruins of the seventeenth-century Church of San Bonaventura, which remained so since the town was abandoned following the Napoleonic invasion. Still passing through dirt roads and dirt roads we arrive in Oriolo Romano, another charming village on the northern side of the lake, and from here we take the cycle path of the woods, which crosses the chestnut groves of Calandrina and then descends to Trevignano Romano, right on the shores of Bracciano. To avoid the busy lakeside promenade up to Anguillara, we use a suggestive detour always traced on dirt roads, the cycle path of the lakes, which cuts the ridge between Lake Bracciano and that – smaller but equally fascinating – of Martignano.