In the Aeneid it is the capital of Turnus, the Rutulian king who defied Aeneas: Ardea is among Lazio's oldest towns, its tuff acropolis keeping traces of that legendary season. The twentieth century left it a modern treasure: sculptor Giacomo Manzù chose to live here, and the collection devoted to him — now a state museum — holds his bronze doors, cardinals and drawings.
The shoreline, with the dunes of Tor San Lorenzo, extends Rome's beach southward. Between Virgilian myth and contemporary sculpture, Ardea is a cultured stop half an hour from the Colosseum.
Near Ardea
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
