He was not alone. Sabina was the Gloucestershire of ancient Rome. On Friday afternoons, the Via Tiburtina was choked with chariots. Strabo waxed lyrical, and Pausanias bored his friends with how marvellous it was. Horace had a farm here that he endlessly eulogised. “Never would I exchange my Sabine farm for riches,” he wrote, presumably referring to rising property values.
Which makes it surprising that Sabina has fallen into obscurity. If you mention the region to a modern Roman, it might produce a shrug. They are unlikely to have been there. For foreigners, it is almost unknown. Guidebooks pass over Sabina with a line or two, and tourist itineraries leave it almost untouched.
Yet this is one of the loveliest areas of Italy. Back roads wind through olive groves and pastures of sheep, beneath medieval hilltop towns and old abbeys and vine-draped farmhouses. Famous for the quality of its oil, Sabina is famous, too, for the greenness of its hills in months when the rest of Italy is often dry and brown. Sabina is as beautiful as Umbria, which it borders, without the drone of tour buses or the shrill ring of English voices.
But most remarkable of all is its location, the location that recommended it to Hadrian. We expect our hidden gems to be remote, difficult of access, off the beaten track. Sabina is just over half an hour from Rome, just off the autostrada. On a clear day, from some of its hill towns, you can see the dome of St Peter’s.
Among those who know and love Sabina, there is considerable debate about why it has been so overlooked. Some claim it is due to the character of the locals, who are modest, unassuming types, unlike their more vociferous neighbours just to the north in Umbria and Tuscany. But the real reason probably lies in what it lacks.
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For foreigners, it lacks famous sights. Sabina has no cities, and thus no great museums, no cathedrals. This is a region of villages and secondary roads. This is slumbering rural Italy. There is nothing to see in Sabina, in the way that there is nothing to see in the Cotswolds.
Yet even this explanation is too simple, for people are waking up to the fact that Sabina is the ideal base from which to see Rome and its surroundings. Sabina offers Rome as Hadrian liked to see it: with the benefit of a little distance. From Poggio Mirteto, you can catch a train into the city in the morning, spend the day exploring the sights, have dinner in Trastevere and be back in the hills in time to watch the moonlight sidle through the olive groves while sipping a digestivo on the terrace.
It is also an ideal base for touring much of central Italy. It is less than an hour to Viterbo and Orvieto. The Umbrian towns of Todi and Spoleto are a similar distance, while Perugia and Assisi are only 90 minutes away. The only problem with Sabina is that, once there, you don’t want to leave.
I stayed at Borgo Paraelios, a beautiful retreat with an old-fashioned country-house feel. Breakfast was on a trellised terrace surrounded by bird song and climbing greenery. I knew I should be out exploring, but actually
I just wanted to curl up in a hammock with Hadrian’s memoirs and the drone of cicadas. It had a spa with pampering treatments, a sauna and Turkish bath, and one of the most beautiful indoor pools in Italy.
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When I finally did tear myself away, I drove over to Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s retreat at Tivoli, which was 45 minutes away. In classical times, Tivoli was very much part of Sabina. But the boundaries of the region have shrunk since Hadrian’s day, as if, in trying to keep the secret of itself, Sabina has lopped off any bits that became famous, anywhere that might attract tourists.
Being emperor, the big man needed to create a country retreat that would pack a little punch. The buildings alone cover 100 acres; the gardens extend to another 200. At the time, it was said to be the grandest villa in the Roman empire, presumably in the known world, though the term villa hardly does it justice. It would make Versailles look cramped.
It had three libraries, three bathhouses, two theatres, two stadiums, a gladiator’s arena, a gymnasium, countless fountains, statues and pools, a year-round beach with under-sand heating pipes and enough guesthouses to accommodate half of Asia Minor. Hadrian was a considerable traveller, and he brought back buildings, or at least the plans for them, the way modern-day tourists might bring back souvenir ashtrays. There was a replica of Canopus, an Egyptian temple near Alexandria, a replica of the Grove of Academe, where Plato lectured to his students, and a replica of Stoa Poikile, an Athenian colonnade. Below ground, the emperor even built a fanciful re-creation of Hades, though it is unclear what he got up to down there.
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If Hadrian’s villa sounds a little overwhelming, a little nouveau imperial, it probably was. But in ruin, Villa Adriana is more evocative and more romantic than Rome itself. It’s the kind of antiquity that tourists of the 18th century enjoyed. Once you are inside the grounds, the modern world of roads, of traffic, of guidebook sellers, falls away. In these sprawling remains, it’s possible to be alone with the ancient world.
Back in Sabina proper, I took to exploring the many hill towns. One of the best is Casperia, a town of snakes and ladders. Narrow pedestrian lanes climb upwards between geranium-framed doorways and grilled windows, then tumble down again past an old palazzo and the severely plain facade of the church. Such is the domestic intimacy of the town, such is the uniformity of its ochre-coloured walls and its red-tiled roofs, that it feels, at moments, like one great rambling house. Its streets, joined by shallow stairways, are labyrinthine hallways, its piazzas are courtyards and balconies. From the endless doorways drift mysterious snatches of conversation.
Pinned to the door of the church, I found an exasperated notice from the priest, a warning to prospective wedding couples: “After waiting for half an hour, the priest will celebrate the wedding even if the bride and groom have not arrived.” For the benefit of brides who do turn up on time, it adds peevishly: “The bride’s dress should not be too low-cut at the bosom, nor should it be excessively transparent.”
In the Via Mazzini, I found La Torretta, a delightful B&B run by Maureen Scheda, who came to Italy 30 years ago from Wales. Sitting on her terrace, looking across a ravishing view of farmhouses and olive groves to the wooded Mount Pizzuto, we discussed the curious isolation of Sabina, so close to Rome, yet so far from fame.
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“When I first came here,” Maureen said, “I can remember my baby-sitter, a local woman, asking me what Rome was like. She had never been there. It’s a region that’s kept itself to itself.”
Down the street at Geco 107, a newly opened wine bar, I found Johnny Madge, sculptor and gourmand, another expatriate who fell in love with Sabina years ago. He was enthusing about the local olive oil. “Many Italians feel it is the best oil in Italy. And that means the best in the world.”
The great presiding presence of Sabina is the Abbey of Farfa. In the early Middle Ages, it was one of the most famous monasteries of Europe, and controlled most of central Italy. These days, it seems to be in semi-retirement — a great ecclesiastical institution reduced to provincial obscurity — though monks still float through the cloisters.
But my favourite place in Sabina is the Church of Santa Maria in Vescovio. I love its humility. Remarkably, it was the cathedral of Sabina until the late 15th century, though it would make an English village church look grand. It stands alone at the end of a lane of cypresses. It is built from the remains of the ancient Roman town that litter the nearby fields. Among the stones of its bell tower are bits of ancient sculpture and marble tablets.
Inside, the nave is tall and narrow. On the unadorned white walls are a few fading frescoes from the early 1300s. The influence is Byzantine and the range of colours limited — earth reds and lichen-pale greens. Parts have been lost. They are as incomplete as memory, and as haunting.
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Santa Maria seems the essence of Sabina — beautiful, empty, and so little known that it allows you the illusion that you have discovered it yourself.
Stanley Stewart travelled as a guest of Italian Expressions
Getting there: British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) and Alitalia (0870 544 8259, www.alitalia.co.uk) fly from Heathrow to Rome’s Fiumicino airport. EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies to Ciampino from Belfast, Bristol, Gatwick, Nottingham and Newcastle; Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies from Durham, Glasgow, Luton, Nottingham and Stansted, as well as Dublin and Shannon. Or try Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com).
Where to stay: Italian Expressions (020 7433 2675, www.expressionsholidays.co.uk) has seven nights, B&B, at the five-star Hotel Borgo Paraelios from £1,033pp, based on two sharing and including flights with BA and car hire.
Or try Citalia (0870 909 7555, www.citalia.co.uk) or Long Travel (01694 722193, www.long-travel.co.uk). An independent option is La Torretta (00 39-0765 63202, www.latorrettabandb.com), a 15th-century town house in Casperia; doubles from £60.
Restaurants: Il Campanile (0765 63498), in Roccantica, offers home-cooked perfection — don’t miss the fettucine ai funghi porcini; dinner from £10. Angeli (0744 91377), in Magliano, offers sophisticated food at a fraction of city prices; dinner from £15. A Casa di Anna is on the main square in Casperia; set menus from £12. La Vecchia Quercia (0765 519207), in the hills above Selci, is a great country family restaurant; dinner from £15.
Geco 107 (0765 63518; www.geco107.com) is an art gallery and wine bar off the main square in Casperia.
Sights: Villa Adriana (063 9967 9000, www.villa-adriana.net) is open daily from 9am to an hour and a half before sunset. Abbey of Farfa (0765 277315) is open Tue-Sat, 9.30am-1pm and 3.30pm-6.30pm; and Sun, 10am-1pm and 3pm-7.30pm.