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The valley of
secrets
Don’t follow the
crowds to Tuscany, dig the beauty of Etruria, says Patrick
Kidd
 Mary
Jane Cryan and Fulvio love the gentle pace of life around
the Tuscania valley where the search for pre-Roman
achaeology will keep an army of workers busy for years
IT WAS early evening in
Blera, a small town in the hills north of Rome, and the wine
was flowing. Sitting in a dusty stone chamber round a
rickety hand-made table, we listened to the old man tell the
history of his hideaway. His grandfather had dug it out of
the rock as a place to keep his wine at a good temperature
and escape from his family — Italian mammas being just as
fearsome a hundred years ago as they are now.
Lodged against the wall
were three huge casks, from which he occasionally drained
another cup of rough vino rosso. Cronies dropped by to see
if he wanted a game of cards or just to talk politics. It
seemed the perfect refuge from the modern world. “Does your
wife know about this place?” I asked. “She knows it exists .
. .” he admitted, “but I won’t tell her where it is.”
Blera is typical of many
hill towns in northern Lazio, also known as Etruria. This
slice of Italy, between Rome and Florence, goes out of its
way not to court tourists. I spent two months there once on
an archaeological dig; the Italians we worked with were
friendly, but the locals viewed us with some suspicion.
Initial attempts at Italian were met with the same sort of
reaction as a Home Counties accent in rural France. It was a
good way to learn the language.
The area is quite unlike
Tuscany or Umbria; there are no political freeloaders
sipping chianti here. Etruria is a relic of an older age,
once home to the Etruscans, a race, that “the Romans, in
their usual neighbourly fashion, wiped out entirely in order
to make room for Rome with a very big R”, wrote D. H.
Lawrence.
Today little remains of
Etruscan civilisation; they built almost exclusively of wood
and clay and their cities vanished. What evidence we have
comes from the magnificent tombs, which spatter the
landscape like salami on a pizza and have made a lucrative
hunting ground for the tombaroli, or grave-robbers.
Lawrence was fascinated by
the Etruscans, writing in Sketches of Etruscan Places that
they were filled with “ease, naturalness and an abundance of
life”. He was particularly taken by the exquisite, often
erotic, paintings inside their tombs — well, he would be.
The area has been shaped
by rivers cutting through the soft porous rock, the tufo,
forming hills, lakes and deep-sided ravines such as at
Norcia, a hauntingly beautiful tomb site where dozens of
graves cut into the wall rise above you. There are still
volcanic springs in the middle of nowhere, such as the
fields outside Viterbo, the area’s historic capital, where
you can go bathing in sulphurous pools at midnight.
The fertile soil brings
splashes of colour, too, with green and gold fields of wheat
in summer, red poppies, and acres of olive trees and grape
vines. Every town has fascinating churches, frescoed palaces
or a fortress, and the property prices are far cheaper than
in Umbria or Tuscany.
Vetralla was once under
the governorship of Henry VIII’s ambassador to Rome, and the
area has a strong British connection, but Etruria remains
Italy’s undiscovered campagna. Those who visit want
discretion and to escape the public gaze. Camilla Parker
Bowles comes often because it is excellent riding country,
and the Prince of Wales sponsored a school of architecture
in Viterbo.
The proximity to Rome is
an attraction for some — the train takes about an hour and a
quarter from Viterbo. Christina Thompson and her husband,
Richard, bought a flat in an 18th-century building in the
city simply because it was convenient for her husband’s job
with the UN in Rome. Mrs Thompson, a garden designer, keeps
her fingers green by creating typically English country
gardens for expatriates.
“Expats expect a proper
garden with their house, but it’s not yet caught on with the
Italians. I hope it’s one small thing we can teach them,”
she says.
To the west of Viterbo is
the Tuscania valley — not to be confused with Tuscany —
which Lawrence called “the most beautiful view in all
Italy”. John Ferro Sims, a photographer, plans to build a
traditional-style home on land he has bought there. The one
stumbling block could be the rich archaeology beneath. “If
you unearth anything, then the authorities can stop you
building,” he says.
From my own experience,
housebuilders and archaeologists don’t mix. We would arrive
on site in the morning to find reminders that the developers
who wanted to build on our Etruscan temple site were getting
impatient — such as the bottoms of our wheelbarrows riddled
with bullet holes.
Another reason why Etruria
has escaped the Tuscan hordes could be the language barrier.
Mary Jane Cryan, a writer and travel consultant who promotes
the area through her website www.elegantetruria.com,
explains: “You won’t find an estate agent who speaks
English. Those who want to live here tend to rent for a
while or stay with friends, looking for the ideal place.”
LOCAL WRITER
REVEALS MAGIC OF “SECRET” ITALY
“After living in Italy for 36
years, Mary Jane Cryan, author of “AFFRESCHI-EXPORING
ETRURIA” , knows just about all there is to know about
Etruria, a quiet part of Italy tucked between more touristy
Rome and the bustling Tuscany region near Florence.
Out-of-the-way and hilly Etruria has tiny villages, ancient
architecture, scenic lakes, therapeutic hot springs,
abundant olive groves, year-round festas, friendly people
and healthy, delicious food…”
The Lowell Sun, July 2002
“This collection of
travel essays
(Affreschi-Exploring
Etruria) guides you on a journey through northern Lazio, in
central Italy, visiting small towns, many of them founded
by the ancient Etruscans, but unfamiliar to the average
tourist. The authors give a short history of each town
including such important sights as Etruscan and Roman
tombs, Byzantine churches and festivals that date from the
Renaissance. In addition, the authors offer tips on the best
restaurants, cafes, panoramas and gardens in each locale as
well as photographs, drawings and a map of the region.”
NIAF News- Spring 2002
“The authors
of this enjoyable collection of travel essays (Affreschi-Exploring
Etruria) give a perceptive insiders’ view of a fascinating
corner of Lazio that is still relatively unknown. Roberson
guides readers along the Etruscan trail to out-of-the-way
sites including Blera, Corchiano and Falerii Nova and Cryan
gives us an informative account of typical feasts and local
characters, as well as a peep at the hedonistic delights of
mud baths …The list of tips and practical information
including “the best place to relax”, “best views”, are
especially helpful for would-be explorers.”
Wanted in Rome, Nov. 2001
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What did the
Etruscans ever do for us?
They painted, carved, and
built, creating amazing decor with themes that were wildly
erotic. And they did it all hundreds of years before the
Romans got their act together. Michael Church's eyes are
opened as he ventures into deepest Etruria
04 April 2004
It's a hot summer night in
Marta and the dark streets by the waterfront are full of
expectant chatter. Any time now, the patron saint will
arrive on the waves and the whole town is ready to receive
her. Correction: we should have said half the town, not the
whole of it, because in this corner of peasant Etruria the
Catholic-Communist divide still cuts like a knife.
Little girls with white wings
sprouting from their shoulders are escorted by middle-aged
nuns in uncharacteristically expansive mood; small boys try
their strength hoisting their fathers' giant lanterns; the
band tunes up with a tremendous din.
"Precisely when and where will
she hit land?" we ask three old men at their café table.
Three contemptuous shrugs - they have no idea. Finally a
boat covered with fairy lights appears in the blackness, and
to ecstatic cries of "Che bellezza!" the saint is shouldered
ashore. Then, with the Catholic half of town - including
young dads pushing empty prams in the hope of their being
filled by divine intervention - we follow her stately
progress through the streets, endlessly repeating the same
devotional chant to the strains of the band. And strain is
the word, because though it keeps the rhythm, the band has a
problem with pitch. When the bishop has given his blessing
and the ritual is over, the band plays us home with "My
Way", each player defiantly doing just that.
Marta is one of the medieval
towns ringing Lake Bolsena, the inland sea - replete with
fish - which is the focus for this blissful region untouched
by tourism. Tuscania may be another of those towns, but
Tuscany - as we now understand the word - lies 50 miles to
the north: Etruria, home of the Etruscans, is a world apart.
Etruscan Places was the encomium D H Lawrence was busy
writing when he died: for him, the Romans were the Prussians
of antiquity, who ground underfoot the ancient flower of
Etruria. He loved the shining muscularity of the Etruscans'
paintings, and the amoral innocence of their "obscene"
sexual images: from 700-300BC, these settlers from Asia
Minor had lived as he thought we all should live. Their
civilisation was closer to the Greek than the Roman, but
from the evidence of their tombs, which is all we have to go
on, it had a gutsy vitality all its own.
And everywhere you stumble on
their tracks. Visiting medieval Tuscania with its
magnificent Romanesque churches, we meet a young farmer
called Lorenzo Caponetti who insists that we refer to this
as the New Town. The old one is to be found on his farm in a
nearby valley, as he shows us: when the eye gets used to
decoding the scrubby contours, every mound and hillock is
revealed as a tomb, and of the 2,000 in this necropolis,
1,850 are still to be excavated. He shows us shards left by
medieval inhabitants who adapted these dead-houses for
living use; he points out the stones of the Via Clodia along
which passed Charlemagne, Francis of Assisi, and Dante. The
universities of Rome and Oregon are soon to do a dig, but
the larger question of how to open it all to the public, as
opposed to Caponetti's bed-and-breakfast guests, remains
unanswered. His family owns the surface, but the subsoil
belongs to us all. One thing leads to another: go down the
road and talk to Walter Maioli, says Caponetti, and suddenly
we're magically close to those Etruscans. For Maioli is an
ethno- musicologist who has recreated the Etruscans' musical
instruments - their lyres, flutes, tambourines and drums. He
and his daughter, Luce, perform on these as though they've
stepped out of the paintings and carvings which are their
source-material. Moreover, they've just released a CD,
The Etruscan Flutes.
The sound-world it evokes is haunting.
Time now to get a fix on the
pristine beauty of these vaults hewn out of the rock: time
to visit Tarquinia. Overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, this
city with its square defensive towers looks like a medieval
New York, and the hill above is dotted with military-style
bunkers. In each of these a flight of steps leads down to a
tomb. Each tomb's decoration is thrillingly intact, and
every decorator had his own style. But the biggest buzz in
Tarquinia is the museum, to which six of the most celebrated
tombs have been transplanted and where, under conditions of
perfect atmosphere and vandal-control, you can savour the
free-flowing grace with which the musicians, dancers,
animals, and fish are depicted. You can also gawp at the
Etruscans' erotic table-ware: the knowledge that at the
bottom of your cup lurked a penetration in close-up complete
with expressions of consternation or delight might have been
an additional incentive to drink up quickly.
In craggy Pitigliano, we
follow a different trail. The Etruscans nested in caves in
its vertiginous cliffs, but later came something unique - a
Jewish ghetto with a university attached. Tolerant laws
lured Jews here from Rome's Trastevere district and, until
unification encouraged them to disperse and assimilate, they
comprised a third of the population. Mussolini finished the
ghetto off, but the synagogue, with its butchers', bakery
and baths, is once more open to visitors bringing Jews from
all over the globe. We wander round with a guidebook
entitled The Roaming Hebrew in hand.
It's a testimony to the
historical richness of Etruria that my compendious Rough
Guide does not even mention Vetralla, yet this medieval
city, too, is stuffed with an interesting past. Taken in
hand by an expat historian, Mary Jane Cryan, the boss of the
travel consultancy elegantetruria.com, we are introduced to
a potter named Checco Lallo, who is the last in an unbroken
line of craftsmen turning out jugs and tureens in the
ancient peasant style. His chaotic workshop is a hole in the
rock, his materials are dirt and wood, but the pots he
throws - working in intense silence - have a rough and
appealing grace.
Cryan then reveals a weird
English connection. First she shows us a stone plaque in the
town hall, indicating that Vetralla enjoyed the official
protection of Henry VIII; then she shows us a bust of the
Duke of York who visited the town in 1774, and who confirmed
the relationship (which she insists has never been revoked).
Then she shows us the prison-camp where shot-down British
airmen were penned in 1944, and finally she introduces us to
three Italian air-force veterans sipping coffee in the main
square who point to the bullet-holes in a venerable old
building with one explanatory word: "Spitfire!" Royal
protection clearly has its limits.
What's striking about these
lovely hill towns is how few tourists visit them, and Brits
least of all. Romans come for the beaches and the lake, but
nearby Viterbo attracts them like a magnet. Hot springs are
the reason: either in the palatial Terme dei Papi spa, or
simply in the wild. We stumble on one of these in the middle
of a field, where near-boiling water gushes out of the
ground, runs along a chalk duct, and collects in a still
green pool. Everybody clustered round it looks like an extra
from a Fellini film - bikini-clad beauties, busty matrons,
long-haired old men with faces suggesting interesting
histories. The air is thick with sulphur.
We have, in short, a splendid
fortnight, and on our way to the airport decide to stop off
at the pretty resort of Santa Marinella for a leisurely
lunch by the sea. What happened next still casts a shadow
today. Returning to our car, we found a door had been forced,
and every piece of luggage removed. It took a while for it
to sink in: we had never realised how many essential bits of
our lives we routinely take on holiday. Not everyone in our
party had the right sort of insurance, and you lose things
for which no insurance can ever compensate.
Reporting the robbery at the
police station, we found a bemused American family ahead of
us, reporting an identical crime. The police were
sympathetic, but not surprised. It's clear that this too is
part of the magical Etrurian experience, so be warned.
How to get there
Elegant
Etruria also arranges accommodation, itineraries and
cultural tours throughout the region. For more details see
www.elegantetruria.com
Where to find out more Contact
The Italian State Tourist Board on 020-7408 1254 or visit
www.enit.it
Excerpts
from “The Lure of Lazio”, Richard DeMelim, The Sunday
Times, Feb. 15, 2004
It sounds
odd to say Rome is undiscovered. After all, people have been
talking about the Eternal City for, well, an eternity. And
yet, estate agents will tell you that Lazio, the region that
includes Rome and runs down the left-hand side of central
Italy, is an undiscovered joy, and bolt-hole bliss for Brits
looking for a prime second home at a bargain price.
Lazio prices
still compare favourably with established bolt-hole
locations such as Tuscany and Umbria.
“Prices in Lazio
could be as much as 50% lower” , Says Pietro Giella, of the
estate agency Global Property Newwork. “An incredible
example is the price difference between Bolsena and
Pitiglilano. They are 20 minutes drive apart, but prices in
Pitigliano are doubel those around Lake Bolsena. Vendors
have not been spoilt by decades of British buyers and people
are still happy that non-Italians are coming into the
area-especially the local administrations. The flip side of
this is that English is not widely spoken, so make sure you
find an agent that you can trust."
One of the few in the tourism
industry to have explored the Lazio region is the American
author of Buying a Home in Italy, Mary Jane Cryan, who runs
the travel consultancy Elegant Etruria.
“Lazio has it
all, “ she says. “The rolling countryside, historic and
artistic masterpieces, and its close to the capital and
airports. In 15 minutes you can be on a beach, at the lakes,
or at a Renaissance palace or garden.”
However ,
it’s worth bearing in mind that coastal areas can get very
busy on summer weekends with Romans escaping the city. |
