Roma travel guide

Roma is 31 km east of Maseru along the road to Semonkong. It is the last place to buy fuel if you are driving to Semonkong, a further 85 km away. It is the principal centre of the Roman Catholic Church in Lesotho, hence the Italian sounding name, and was founded in 1862 when Mosheshwe granted the land to Father Joseph Gerard, a French pioneer missionary. It is the site of the National University of Lesotho and a large number of churches, presbyteries and schools. The town itself is little more than a few houses scattered around these institutions in a pretty, wooded valley at the foothills of the Maluti. The University was founded in 1945 by the Catholic Church. It became part of the combined university of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland in the 1960s until that institution collapsed and it was brought under the sole control of the Lesotho Ministry of Education. The entrance to the University is on the left as you enter the town from Maseru. Few of the University buildings are of any historical interest but the campus is green and well maintained and visitors are welcome to wander around.

W Pope John Paul II visited Roma in 1988 to posthumously beatify Father Joseph Gerard, who died in Roma in 1914.