La Maranella
The Search for an Ancient Stream
Today’s goal was to find one Rome’s ancient streams, La Marenalla. It orginates from the Colli Albani hills - located about 30 km southeast of Rome - where volcanic activity created lakes like lake Nemi and lake Albano eons ago.
The stream makes a relatively straight path from the Colli Albani hills, to the Parco del Applia Antica, then shoots to the Torpignatara / Prenestina area of Rome where it feeds a small Lago Bullicante lake. It continues north, crosses an old Roman bridge near the Pietralata street and finally ends up in the Aniene river.
The Aniene river illustrated by the thick white line. The first blue marker (left) indictes where the Maranella can be seen under an old Roman bridge. The blue marker on the right is where these lovely homemade villas with gardens are located.
Like many of Rome’s water sources, it’s been divided, diverted, covered up and blocked off. The earliest records I could find of folks tinkering with it were from the 1100s.
Given it’s length, it’s surprisingly difficult to actually see the flowing waters of the mythic stream. Guided by the Stalker collective, I arrived in the northeast of Rome at the Bologna metro stop. I crossed a very small bridge and walked about thirty minutes to Pietralata street. That’s where the magic happened.
I ducked into an opening where homemade villas with large gardens dotted the landscape. Urban to rural in an instant. This part of Rome isn’t what most tourists or even locals would even think to wander. The landscape is fantastic. It’s wild and overgrown and near the Aniene river, it’s a wild jungle. Yet, some folks have made their homes there, large quite nice homes at that. Full with large gardens with fruit trees. Some even had farm animals like chickens and goats. The group soon learned that many of the residents were from Calabria.
Just over the Pietralata exists a rural landscape dotted with homemade villas with gardens. The Aniene is just beyond the canes behind the blue right arrow road sign.
Thanks to these curious crusaders, these exploratory walks have made living through the pandemic in ITaly much more bearable.
This exploration of Rome’s water sources is part of a program called Spontaneamente organized by the Stalker collective.
La Maranella’s Approximate Path
Since the 1100s, the Maranella stream was continuolsy toyed with. It was split, diverted, totally blocked off and covered up but it’s still flowing. The blue line in the image (left) approximates its original path.
