If you love aircraft, or simply want to spend a pleasant day with your family and children, I recommend a visit to the Italian Air Force Historical Museum.
Inside the museum you will find a bar and a shop selling gadgets, model aircraft, T-shirts, watches and bags of the Italian Air Force.
The historical museum is located in Vigna di Valle (south of Lake Bracciano), just a one-hour drive from the Romeforguest holiday apartments in Ostia, by the sea of Rome. You will find all the information about our apartments here.
The Vigna di Valle historical museum is the oldest in Italy and began life as the first experimental aviation yard. It was here, in 1908, that the first Italian military airship flew. Later, and until 1945, it became the Experimental Centre for seaplanes and naval armament. After the war it housed the Air Rescue Command with the 84th Seaplane Group.
The museum covers more than 16,000 square metres, with six exhibition pavilions (five of them hangars with aircraft). Besides the aircraft and engines that tell the story of Italian aviation, it holds important collections of photographic equipment, radio equipment, weapons and on-board equipment.
Among the aircraft are the Caproni Ca.36 bomber, the Ansaldo S.V.A.5, the SPAD S.VII, the Hanriot HD.1 and the Savoia Marchetti S.M.82.
The museum also displays works by Pietro Annigoni and by the Futurist painters Giacomo Balla and Guglielmo Sansoni.
The museum’s activities include the recovery and restoration of historic aircraft, also in cooperation with external bodies and associations, in order to preserve Italy’s aviation heritage.
Address of the Vigna di Valle Historical Museum: Strada Circumlacuale, 00062 Vigna di Valle, Bracciano RM
Admission: paid, with reductions and free entry for some categories. Current opening times and prices are on the museum’s official page.
Closed: on Mondays (unless a public holiday), New Year’s Day, Easter, 25, 26 and 31 December.
Phone: +39 06 99887519.