Pitigliano, Tuscany's Little Jerusalem

Pitigliano in Southern Tuscany is not perched upon the tufa rock, it IS the tufa rock!  Carved from Tufaceous or volcanic rock, the village of Pitigliano is part of the area of towns that make up the "Borghi del Tufo"...

Heading from out from Cortona, which had been our home base for the past week, we drive further south through Southern Tuscany to the province of Grossetto.  Grosetto is known for its beautiful beaches, Chianina cattle and cowboys.  Grossetto also is home to excellent thermal springs and some off-the-beaten-path hill towns.  Three of these spectacular hill towns are in the Fiora River Valley; Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano.  
Driving to Pitigliano is half the adventure!  Taking the local roads, we traversed mountains, drove down cypress-lined lanes and through cattle ranches dotted with white Chianina cows.

Pitigliano From The View Point

The countryside of Southern Tuscany in late September was the colour of gold, and the forests were random patches of dark green, creating a patchwork effect.  We drove small roads winding up the rounded mountains and then riding the ridge for a few moments before suddenly plunging down the other side again. Forests of Oak and Maple with little vineyards and pastures cut into the mountainside dotted with castles and church spires off in the distance. 

If you are driving from Rome to Pitigliano, you most likely arrive via the SR74, which cuts through the modern part of Pitigliano.  The road makes a sudden hairpin turn, and there is a scenic viewpoint along Via San Michele that has free public parking. 

Pitigliano was founded by the Etruscans in the 7th-6th century BCE, but little is know of its ancient past.  Historians believe the city may have been wiped out by the Etruscan King of Chiusi, Lars Porsenna, in 500 BCE.  The tufa rock outcropping in the middle of a vast canyon is a natural form of defence, which is a typical Etruscan building strategy.  The outcropping that the city sits upon used to be connected by a footbridge.

Nowadays, there is a street that bridges the canyon, and the entrance to the city is through the medieval wall to the 14th century Orsini fortress.  The fortified palace now holds the Civic Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Holy Art.€3 entry fee for each.  






Once past the Palace complex, you are on Via Cavour, and the impressive Medicean Aquaduct appears on your left side.  This was built not by the Romans but in 1639 by the Medici  Family, who ruled Pitigliano after the Orsini.

Following Via Cavour between the aqueduct and the fortress, you arrive at Piazza Republica, an elegant Renaissance square that's fountain frames the forested canyon below.   

Once past Piazza Republica Via Cavour turns into Via Roma, the main Corso, which forms an oval-shaped circuit through town.  Pitigliano transforms from an elegant Renaissance hill town into a medieval maze of staircases, underpasses and narrow alleyways.  Following Via Roma, you arrive at Piazza San Giorgio and the Baroque Cathedral of St Peter and Paul.  It was actually built in 1061 but given a facelift in the 18th century by one of the Orsini family.  The 35-foot belltower standing next to the church looks awkwardly underdressed! 




Further along the street, the road changes name again to Via Generale Orsini, and we come to San Rocco, Pitigliano's oldest church.  Constructed in the 12th-13th century, the church is worth popping inside. The centuries worth of rulers' coat of arms are on display behind the altar, and beautiful frescos and paintings adorn this romantic church.  There is a little side chapel to Saint Apollonia (the patron Saint of dentistry) complete with a portrait of a bucktooth woman in medieval garb holding a big pair of pliers and a bloody tooth.  My son thought it was the Italian Tooth Fairy!  




Once past the church of San Rocco, the street changes name again and becomes Via Aldobrandeschi.  This is the oldest part of Pitigliano with many medieval buildings and streets. Follow the road to the end, and you will find a viewpoint with stunning views of the valley below.
  
A little laneway on the right called Via Porta di Sovana takes you down an alleyway to the mysterious Via Cava.  The Vie Cave are hand-cut trenches that became an interconnected road network between Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano.  Nobody knows for sure what their real function was, but they date back to the early Etruscan era.  If you have time for a leisurely walk, I recommend exploring the Vie Cave.





















Eating in Pitigliano is a treat!  Of course, just like every Italian hill town, there is a regional specialty.  We ate at the Locanda del Pozzo Antico, which is a family-run trattoria and pizzeria.  Ravioli stuffed with sheep milk cheese is a specialty here, and the Pitigliano white wine Bianco di Pitigliano made from Trebbiano Toscano grapes is a crisp and fruity treat!  Red wine drinkers should be on the lookout for Sovana DOC wines made in the closeby region of the hill town of Sovana.  Just be aware that the pizza ovens do not fire up until the evenings in Pitigliano.  If you are craving a sweet treat after your meal, try the local cookies called sfratti made from walnuts, honey, nutmeg and orange peel all wrapped up in a delicious dough.  A great place to pick up sfratti is at Panifico del Ghetto (167 Via Zuccarelli) near the synagogue.


Pitigliano is known as Tuscany's Little Jerusalem.  From 1555 to 1569, the Pope issued a papal bull that evicted all Jews from the Holy Lands.  Crossing the border from Lazio into Tuscany, many Jewish people made Pitigliano their home when fleeing the State of the Church.  By 1600 Jewish people settled into the Borghi di Tuffo; Sorano, Sovana and Pitigliano being confined to live only in the ghettos provided.  The peaceful coexistence of the Jewish people in Pitigliano resulted in a synagogue being built in the Jewish quarter of Pitigliano.  This synagogue is still the only one in existence in the Grosetto Province of Tuscany.  A walk in the Jewish quarter along Via Zuccarelle is an evocative peek into Jewish life 400 years ago.  For more tourist information on Pitigliano, go to pitigliano.org.

Pitigliano is a romantic town to explore. The history, the culture, the mystery ... and you must see it lit up at night!

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Chiusi, Tuscany~Under The Etruscan Sun

A small Tuscan hill town built on a massive tufa foundation; Chiusi's attractions are all below ground!  This charming country village holds a secret under its streets...

For Tuscan adventure seekers, this small somewhat off the beaten path hill town, Chiusi (pronounced choosy) is a troglodyte's dream. At one time, this hilltown was an ancient Etruscan hub and one of the most important cities in Etruria.  Building upon a broad tufa rock foundation allowed the Etruscan people to easily dig a network of tunnels used to store wine, collect rainwater or to escape when under attack.   The Etruscan name for Chiusi was Clevsin, and it was constructed and settled by pre-Etruscan people dating back to the 8th century BCE.  Clevsin was built upon an Etruscan trade route to Rome, later becoming the Via Cassia.  The Via Cassia branched off from the Via Flaminia that lead to Umbria, and Clevsin became a Roman town called Clusium.

Chiusi is located close to the border of Umbria and Lazio in the south of Tuscany. It is located along the A1 autostrada between Florence and Rome, and many trains stop or change in Chiusi, making it a transportation hub.  If you are driving your own car, parking lots near the historic centre are plentiful, and many are free.  Try the convenient parking lot off of Via della Pietriccia just behind the town's main square.  TIP: If you are planning to see several sights in Chiusi, I would recommend purchasing the Chiusi Museum Card to save on entrance fees.  The pass costs €10 and allows admittance to all 3 Chiusi museums.

There is an excellent archeological National Etruscan Museum just off the piazza.  There is an extensive collection of Etruscan artifacts and funerary urns.  You can also arrange visits to the local Etruscan tombs such as Tomb Of The Pilgram and Tomb Of The Monkey. These tombs are located just outside the town, which requires a guide to tour.  The museum entrance fee is €6, and visiting the tombs is €2 and requires advanced reservations.

While this quaint village is pleasant enough to wander around for the day, the real attraction is Chuisi's underground caverns.  The Chiusi Civic Museum "The Underground City" on Via II Ciminia offers tours several times a day of the City UNDER the City.  Knowledgeable guides take you on a one-hour underground Etruscan city tour of the tunnels, subterranean wells and lakes that were the Etruscan water system network for the large city of the time.  Your guide either takes you to the underground lake or the hand-carved well, both were vital water sources to the ancient city with 25,000 residents.

If you don't manage to visit the museum, the Underground City tour has an extensive collection of Etruscan ossuaries. An ossuary is a carved stone box or funerary urn where human remains are placed.   The ossuaries were found in the nearby necropolis located out of town.  A necropolis is literally a city of the dead where all the ornately carved ossuaries are placed.  When someone died, an enormous banquet was held, and many of the ossuaries depicted the dead feasting.  The Etruscans used to cremate their dead, but then as Roman culture became popular, inhumation became the fashion.  







So fascinating! We were shown how to read the Etruscan names on the ossuaries, from right to left.  It was interesting that the most popular female Etruscan first name was Tania!  Many of the wealthy Etruscans had depictions of themselves carved on top of the ossuary.   The departed loved-one appears propped up on one elbow as if eating during a banquet feast,  a tradition that the Romans later adopted.
The Greeks, who were at war with the Etruscans and settled in this part of Italy, also had a high impact on the Etruscan culture.  The Greek God Dionysus was reflected by the Etruscan wine God named Fuflun, who is depicted on many of the ossuaries.



The Cathedral of Chiusi offers another underground tour.  The Cathedral of Saint Secondiano or Chiusi's Duomo was built in 560 CE over a Roman Temple, which was converted from an Etruscan Temple.  The Duomo's bell tower, which stands separately, was built over a Roman swimming pool that was in use in the first century BCE.

To sign up for this tour, you must go with a registered guide.  Buy the tickets at the Duomo museum. The Museum entry fee is €2, the underground tour is €3, a combo ticket is €4.  The tour was in Italian, and our guide didn't speak much English, but he was accommodating.  We followed the guide outside to access the underground labyrinth through a secret door at the back of the cathedral.  Once again we travelled deep underground through a maze of tunnels.  If you are claustrophobic, this tour IS NOT the right choice for you.  Also, some of the passageways are very narrow, and the robust Italian family that was taking the tour with us had to turn back because one person in their party could not fit through the thin tunnel.  




The guide expertly leads you through a literal maze of passageways that were carved out of tuff stone over 2000 years ago.  The underground tunnels are dark, cold and eerily quiet.  After about 20 minutes, you arrive
at an enormous cistern located directly under the courtyard of the church.  This was once a Roman swimming pool. I learned one of my favourite Italian words, "pipistrello," which means bat!  There was a colony of bats living in the cistern. A few of them were flying around, disturbed by the flashlights and our voices.  






The guided tour ended by having the chance to climb all the way up the bell tower of the church.  It must have been hundreds of stairs!  Climbing the spiral staircase from the still, dark, cold of the cistern into the bright, searing heat of the afternoon felt like a metaphor of some sort.  The views from the belltower are expansive, and one can see all the way to Lake Chiusi nestled amongst the rolling hills.

We definitely earned our gelato today!

I felt the need to find out more about the Etruscan civilization after exploring Chiusi above and under the ground.  Maybe a visit to the Etruscan museum in Cortona is to find out more about these mysterious ancient peoples and their fascinating customs that seemed to have disappeared into the mists of time.  

Chiusi sparks my curiosity about ancient Italian civilizations and beckons me to explore deeper ...underground!

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10 Tips For Beating JETLAG In Rome!

The first visit to Rome can be overwhelming, especially when you have just had a long-haul flight with one or more connections. Here's how to hit the ground running, without jetlag or burnout...

The Eternal City has so much to experience, with ruins, museums, churches, parks and galleries.  Rome is also a starting point for many travellers to explore other Italian regions such as  Tuscany, Umbria and Venice, leaving only a few days to experience the capital city.  Here are some tips & tricks I use to make the most of my time in Rome and to hit the ancient bricks running, so to speak.  Tip 1:  Try and get an overnight flight.  If you can, get an overnight flight from North America with no stop-overs.  If you must transfer planes, try to have the last leg to Rome be the longest flight of 5+ hours.  This way, you can sleep, even if you sleep in small, half-hour cat naps.  This will make give you some regularity and make you think you've had a whole night's sleep.  Take a sleeping pill if you have to, and don't worry too much about being groggy-excellent espresso awaits you in Italy.

Tip 2: Set your clock to the destination time as you board the plane.  This will help your brain get used to the new time before you even arrive, and resist the temptation to convert time backwards to your home time.  Nothing is worse than thinking, "Ugh, it's 4 am right now at home!"  It's a sure-fire way to become tired.

Breezing through Leonardo da Vinci (Fiumicino) airport terminal in Rome is surprisingly simple. What a vast improvement from my trip to Italy! In 2013 the new terminal renovation was not yet complete, so passengers had to deplane on the tarmac and take a bus to the main arrivals terminal.  Now the new international arrival terminal is finished, and the building is gorgeous, bright, and, most importantly: efficient.  I try to get flights that land in the early afternoon, so the Rome rush hour traffic is light.

Enjoying The Train

The Leonardo Express train connects Fiumicino Airport with Termini Station, the central train station in Rome.  The ride is 30 minutes, and trains depart every 15 mins to half-hour (depending on the time of day) from 6am - 11pm. Follow the signs in the airport to Stazione/Railway Station" it's about an 8-minute walk from the main arrivals gate.  Buy your ticket from the machine or a biglietteria or "ticket office" and don't forget to validate it in a yellow machine near the track or you could get fined! Make sure you board the train going to "Roma Termini" there are many other stations in Rome!  The one-way ticket price is €14. There is also a bus option.  Tip 3: If 3 or more people are travelling together, catch a cab.  We took a taxi from the airport rather than the bus or train to downtown Rome.  It is not that much more in cost (with the three of us) and makes a lot of sense because we had more bags this time. Plus, we would have to take a bus or taxi from the train station to our flat anyway; it just seemed like an extra hassle at this point. Tip 4: There is a FLAT FEE for taxis from the airport to Rome center.  The 32km trip in March 2017 costs €48.  It is the law.  Make sure you use an official taxi (white cab with a taxi number on the side) and ALWAYS agree on the price before getting into the cab.  Our taxi driver wanted to charge us more, and I said: "No; it's 48 Euro".  He said it was 2 Euro extra for each bag he handled (???).   I told him I will put our bags in his taxi myself then, and started to walk away.  He came after me and said, "Fine lady, you are the boss."  I gave him €50  in the end anyway because he was a great driver and got us really close to our flat.  Tip 5:  The many pedestrian-only streets in Rome make it impossible for taxi drivers to deliver their fares straight to the doors.  This is especially true in the historical centre of Rome. Our flat in Campo di Fiore was one of those neighbourhoods, so make sure you can schlep your luggage a short distance on your own.

Our Sweet AirBnB Kitchen

Tip 6: finding street addresses in Italy is very confusing and also illogical. We learned our lesson from our last trip to Italy.  This time our Airbnb flat was not hard to find because we had the "Maps.Me" App for our phone (and I also stalked around on Goggle Earth from home and found the address image, so I knew what the front door looked like).  The apartment owner Maurizio was there to meet us and show us around and was just so lovely. The top floor flat is just perfect for us- complete with a kitchen, a balcony in the bedroom, a bathroom with a claw foot tub, and a private loft with a water closet (2 piece bathroom) for the teenager.  Maurizio had bought coffee and a box of brioche for us, so we could make a little snack or keep it for breakfast.

Map.Me App

A coffee and a snack, once you arrive at your hotel or lodgings, is a good idea.  In Italy, dinner does not start until 7pm, and it is difficult to find restaurants that open up for the evening meal before then.  Tip 7: Unpack, freshen-up, have a coffee, BUT DO NOT LIE DOWN! FRESH AIR, SUNSHINE & EXERCISE IS THE ENEMY OF JETLAG.  Trust me on this one, I have made a mistake by "resting on the bed" and fell asleep only to wake up at 2 am Rome time and messed up my sleep schedule for DAYS! Get outside for a walk in your neighbourhood to get acclimatized to where the taxi stand, grocery store, tobacco shops that sell bus tickets are.  Become familiar with local street names and find a local landmark.   

Tip 8: It is easy to get lost in the complicated laneways of Rome, so I use the "Maps.Me" App on my phone.  The App uses satellite GPS to find where you are, without using data. Download the maps at home before you go, place a "pin" where your hotel is and use the offline Map to guide you back to your lodgings after exploring.  Try a lovely meal of traditional Roman pasta: spaghetti carbonara (spaghetti with smoked bacon) or cacio é peppe, which is pasta with cheese and pepper or homemade large hollow pasta called rigatoni in tomato sauce.   Tip 9: Eat a heavy meal to last you through the night.  The last thing you want is your stomach growling you awake at 4 am!   

Tip 10:  This is the time to do your after-dinner evening walk through Rome.  This is also called the passeggiata, where all of Rome's citizens are out strolling and socializing.  One thing I like to do is use the Map.Me App to link all the famous monuments of Rome together. To create a scenic night walk of Rome: Piazza Navona, Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain, you can connect the attractions together on the App. This exercise is what grounds me in Rome and the feeling of returning to my favourite city.  It is like running into old friends!

Usually, by this point, the miles are starting to catch up on you.  I try to stay up as late as possible on my night of arrival.   Sometimes I grab a gelato to go for a mobile dessert hoping the sugar will give me a bit more energy. Also, I usually grab a bottle of Tuscan red wine and some breakfast supplies for the next morning from a convenience store. A nice glass of wine and a super comfy bed at the end of a great day of travel usually put me to sleep before my head hits the pillow.  BONUS TIP: I always carry a bottle of Melatonin, which is an all-natural supplement to restore your natural sleep patterns.  I get the dual-action timed release to help me get to sleep and then STAY asleep until morning.   Following these ten "rules" almost religiously helps me to feel refreshed and ready to explore Rome, and I hope they help you cope with jetlag too. 



Do you have any jetlag secrets?  Let me know about them in the comments below!

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This post first appeared in March 2017 as Home Sweet Rome!