Just fifty kilometres northwest of Rome, where the Via Aurelia traces the curve of the Tyrrhenian coast through the seaside town of Santa Marinella, an extraordinary medieval village rises directly from the sand. The Castle of Santa Severa, often described in Italian as the castello baciato dal mare, the castle kissed by the sea, occupies a fortified promontory between beach and pine forest where some two and a half thousand years of continuous human occupation have left their layered traces. Few sites in central Italy combine quite so vividly the antiquity of the Etruscans, the bustle of Imperial Rome, the piety of early Christianity, and the elegance of the late medieval village into a single, accessible monument.
The castle, fronting Lazio's regional administration since 1980, reopened comprehensively to the public in April 2017 after a decade of careful restoration. Today it forms one of the most important cultural complexes on the coast north of Rome, hosting three museums, a youth hostel, an elegant Mediterranean café, and a calendar of weddings, concerts, and cultural events year-round.
