Sunday, the second full day of our visit with Walter and Luise was bright and sunny. They decided over breakfast that they could see interesting architecture and old historical buildings in Germany, so we opted to explore something unique to this area and visit the Etruscan necropolis at Cerveteri. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the Etruscans were essentially contemporaries of the early Romans, centered in what is now northern Lazio and Tuscany. In other words, we are right in the heart of their former world. We have little first-hand knowledge about them and don’t even completely understand their language since only small fragments of their non-Indo European writing remain. They were gradually assimilated into the Roman world and did have a lasting impact. Several of the kings of Rome (yes, Rome had kings at one point) were Etruscan and gladiatorial games were derived from an Etruscan funeral ritual.
Cerveteri is a 75 minute drive by winding back roads from Viterbo. The town is relatively close to the coast. We bypassed the museum and headed straight for the archeological site. Well, almost directly there. We stopped for an early lunch at the little restaurant on the Via di Necropolis, a few hundred meters from the entrance.
After a luscious lunch of antipasti and pasta, we continued on to the archaeological site. There is a new, short 3D film about the history of the area. It was in Italian, so I didn’t get as much out of it as I might have, but some of the 3D effects were nifty. Amy has been to the necropolis at least 7 times, yet she always sees something new to attract her eye and never tires of it. This year we caught a glimpse of cyclamen growing everywhere and even a couple of clumps of wild arugula.
The tombs were interactive, as always. One that I found interesting had interior rooms with windows. Remember, what you are looking at here is an entire room carved from stone with a relatively narrow entrance to the outside world.
Amy refused to lie down on the stone beds, but I did catch a glimpse of her through the window. While many of the tombs are dug into huge mounds, there are several other types.
These take on the appearance of a row of houses and give a clear indication that the necropolis really was meant to be a city of the dead since the layout of these streets of tombs mirrors that of Etruscan city sites.
We took a different route home, heading up the coast on the Autostrade, past Civitavecchia and on to Tuscania. There we explored the abandoned old church outside the city walls. We also attempted a visit of the Etruscan ruins there, but they were closed in spite of the fact that we arrived 15 minutes before the official end of hours. They don’t look like they get many visitors and are likely closed for a good portion of the posted hours.
On Monday Walter and Luise explored the area by themselves, taking a bus to Bagnaia in a failed attempt to visit the Villa Lante. That evening we had a cookout dinner under the stars and a good soak at the hot springs outside of town with our friends the H-P’s where we were also treated to a beautiful sunset.
Walter and Luise made their way back to the airport by train and on to their home on Tuesday. We greatly enjoyed their visit. Arrivederci.
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