Subiaco attractions

Subiaco's sights are stacked up a single road above the town, and they are best taken in order of age rather than of distance.

The ruins of Nero's villa lie lowest, along the road towards the monasteries in the gorge the Aniene cut. Above them Santa Scolastica, the one survivor of Benedict's thirteen, holds three cloisters and the library where Italy's first printing was done. Highest is the Sacro Speco, built onto the cliff over the cave itself.

Beyond the monasteries the territory runs up into the Monti Simbruini regional park, which takes in a beech forest of some three thousand hectares on a plateau and peaks including Monte Calvo at 1,591 metres.