'The Roman roads and the Camino de Santiago'

[sillydoll]

http://www.gentedigital.es/vitoria/noti ... ora-alava/

A conference, taking place at the Casa del Cordón de Vitoria, will discuss the relevance of the route between Vitoria and Burgos Aquitana as pilgrimage route and means of communication during the Roman period.
Via Aquitana is considered the main route to Santiago de Compostela and the oldest existing in Spain. Even so, it will suffer the same way of most Roman roads, a serious problem of recognition. Failure retained their primitive paths or they are found buried beneath the roads and existing roads, have played down a large burden of visibility.

The rapporteur, Isaac Moreno, is a technical engineer of public works and devotes his time to projects and studies related to the Roman roads. He is a founding member and coordinator of the 'Collective TRAIANVS', and is also designer of the website on Roman engineering, which presents the best research in this area.

 

[newfydog]

Here's a nice article on the Via Aurelia. The new Voie Aurelienne, GR653A, from Italy to Arles uses some of this old road.

Hard to imagine there was a high quality road which allowed travel from Rome to Arles in eight days! The early pilgrims undoubtedly used the remnants of it, as we will be doing in a few weeks.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-a ... rrior.html

 

[Peter Robins]

Hard to imagine there was a high quality road which allowed travel from Rome to Arles in eight days!

that will have only been in special circumstances. The normal rate is reckoned at around 50 miles a day, which is not that much, tho if the message were especially urgent they could relay the messengers as well as the horses. The system was not that dissimilar to the system of post inns in England or Pony Express in the US 1500 years later
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_pub ... f_the_Post

The main road between Rome and the Rhone delta was the Via Domitia not the Via Aurelia. The latter was (and remains) problematic because the hills rise steeply from the coast. The rare pilgrim accounts I've come across that describe using it were at least partly by sea which was much easier/faster.

 

[newfydog]

The article agrees with your description. They only went that fast when they were on the military budget:

"The Via Julia Augusta, as the highway was initially called, greatly improved overland travel in the empire. Roman legions could shuttle long distances along it at an average speed of almost four miles per hour. Messengers could travel between Arles and Rome, a distance of about 550 miles, in a mere eight days. "The highway was a means for Rome to assert its power," curator Martin told me. "Its real purpose was to move troops and public couriers at the fastest rate possible." "

It doesn't mention how long the trip was if one took the luxury option:

Via Aurelia travelers could water their horses, repair their chariots and lodge for the night. "Some rest houses had prostitutes as well," Tassan said. "Everything you could want for your journey." (The Table of Peutinger, which functioned as a kind of Michelin Guide of its time, graded guesthouses according to three classifications, basic, moderate and luxury, using a different illustration for each; the cushiest was represented by a rectangular villa with a pool in the middle.)

 

[Peter Robins]

(The Table of Peutinger, which functioned as a kind of Michelin Guide of its time, graded guesthouses according to three classifications, basic, moderate and luxury, using a different illustration for each; the cushiest was represented by a rectangular villa with a pool in the middle.)

That's not correct. The symbols represent the type of town, not mansio. It was the town that had a baths (Aquae ...) not the mansio.
Clearest online version of the Peutinger Table is at http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chron ... _pe00.html Segment 3 has Arelato (Arles) with the roads to the Alpe Maritima (La Turbie) and Alpe Cottia (Montgenevre)