Walks on the Bridge 2025

Special openings Sept. 13-Nov. 2, 2025
Archaeological Park of Minturnae and Ponte Real Ferdinando (Minturno, LT)

Also returning in 2025 are the Walks on the Bridge, the enhancement project of the Lazio National Museums Regional Directorate, which aims to open to the public a place of culture that is not normally accessible.

Special openings are planned for the Real Ferdinando Bridge in Minturno placed on the Garigliano River, which marks the border between Lazio and Campania. Not just a walk, then, but a real journey through space, in which one starts in Lazio and arrives in Campania, and through time, with the many stories the bridge has to tell.

The Royal Ferdinand Bridge will be open to the public according to the following schedule:

-Saturday, September 13 from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
-Saturday, Sept. 20 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
-Saturday, Sept. 27 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. -on the occasion of GEP 2025, guided tour at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. included in the entrance fee
-Saturday, Oct. 4 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
-Saturday, October 11 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
-Saturday, Oct. 18 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
-Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
-Sunday, November 2 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. - free admission on the occasion of Sunday at the Museum

Historical background:
The Bourbon Bridge over the Garigliano Real Ferdinando is the first suspension bridge over iron catenaries in continental Europe, built between 1828 and 1832 and designed by engineer Luigi Giura.
A multifaceted and distinguished example of the modernity of the Bourbon government from an engineering, architectural and artistic point of view (with its Egypt-esque columns and sphinxes, evidence of Egyptomania related to the first excavations in Egypt), it is also a product of the industrial policy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In the first half of the 19th century the Bridge was built to provide a direct crossing of the river, replacing the ancient scafa (river barge connected by a rope between the two banks), to allow easy continuation of travel on the Appian Way, and reunion with the site of the Roman city of Minturnae where the Bourbons themselves had begun archaeological excavations in the late 18th century.
The Bridge in its case as a road work is also the mute witness to the last act of the unification of Italy under the new Savoy Kingdom (Battle of Garigliano October 29-November 2, 1860), before the siege of Gaeta and its dramatic end on February 13, 1861, and the hard battles along the Gustav Line at the end of World War II, which saw the destruction of the scaffold on October 14, 1943.

Archaeological Park of Minturnae and Ponte Real Ferdinando (Minturno, LT)
Via Ferdinando Borbone snc
+39 0771 680093
drm-laz.minturno@cultura.gov.it