The name of Terracina is layered like its history: Trachna to the Etruscans, Tarracina to the Greeks, Anxur to the Volsci — and it is the Volscian name that the temple on the summit still carries. The town already appears in the first treaty between Rome and Carthage, of 509 BC. Myth added its share: some identified it with the dwelling of Circe and some with the harbour of the Laestrygonians where Odysseus put in, and the place does look the part, with its port squeezed between rocks and the town perched above.
The temple of Jupiter Anxur stands on Monte Sant'Angelo like a loggia over the Tyrrhenian, two hundred and twenty-six metres up: its arches, lit at night, are the symbol of Terracina and one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Lazio. The theatrical form it has today was given it by Sulla, who thus rewarded the town for staying loyal to him against Marius. Below, Terracina lives on two registers: the high Roman-medieval centre with the Emiliano forum — where the ancient paving surfaces — and the marina with kilometres of beach. The Appian Way, which arrived in 312 BC, enters the town as a decumanus: here the Pisco Montano, the limestone crag almost a hundred and thirty metres high, was cut sheer by the Romans to let the road through. The port reaches Ponza in an hour; the vineyards of Moscato di Terracina sweeten the farewell.
Temple of Jupiter Anxur · duomo di Terracina · castello Frangipane and 6 more
Carbonara
24 places to stay · top rated: Ivory Dimora di Charme 10.0 · Hotel Casa Yvorio 9.5
Next up: Feast of Saint Caesarius, Saturday 7 November
Nearest airport: Roma Ciampino, 79 km away
Terracina is part of 🏖️ Seaside
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📅 Every year, on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday after 5 November
The patron's date would be 5 November, but the feast always moves to the following Saturday, Sunday and Monday, so that the Triduum does not fall over the commemoration of the dead.
Temple of Jupiter Anxur A monumental Roman sanctuary from the 1st century BC dominating the Tyrrhenian Sea from Mount Sant'Angelo. 
duomo di Terracina The cathedral built inside a Roman temple, on the paving of the forum. 
castello Frangipane The Frangipane fortress in Terracina's upper town, built on a Roman base. Monumento naturale Campo Soriano The karst basin between Terracina and Sonnino, with limestone monoliths and the eighteen-metre Cathedral. parco naturale regionale monti Ausoni e lago di Fondi The regional park between the Monti Ausoni and Lake Fondi, from limestone crags to Mediterranean scrub. chiesa del Santissimo Salvatore The great neoclassical church of Terracina's Borgo Pio, by Antonio Sarti, wanted by Pius VI. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Terracina, but an easy day trip away.
