Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wines, including the town's signature Bianco di Pitigliano, a dry and lively white varietal,
are celebrated each year over the first weekend in September at
Settembre diVino - Festa
delle Cantine
(Festival of the Wine Cellars)
. At this time,
cantine
(cellars) in the town and sur-
rounding areas are open for tastings. Check
www.comune.pitigliano.gr.it
for details.
VIE CAVE
There are at least 15
vie cave
(sunken roads) hewn out of tufa in the valleys below Pitigliano. These
enormous - up to 20m deep and 3m wide - passages are popularly believed to be sacred routes linking
the necropolises and other sites associated with the Etruscan religious cult. A more mundane explana-
tion is that these strange megalithic corridors were used to move livestock or as some kind of defence,
allowing people to move from village to village unseen. Whatever the reason, every spring on the
night of the equinox (19 March) there is a torch-lit procession down the Via Cava di San Giuseppe,
which culminates in a huge bonfire in Pitigliano's Piazza Garibaldi. Known as the
Torciata di San
Giuseppe
,
the procession serves as a symbol of purification and renewal that marks the end of winter.
Two particularly good examples of
vie cave
- the Via Cava di Fratenuti and the Via Cava di San Gi-
useppe - are found 500m west of Pitigliano on the road to Sovana. Fratenuti has high vertical walls
and Etruscan markings, and San Giuseppe passes the Fontana dell'Olmo, a fountain carved out of sol-
id rock. From it stares the sculpted head of Bacchus, the Roman god of fruitfulness.
There's a fine walk from Pitigliano to Sovana (8km) that incorporates parts of the
vie cave.
For a
description and map, go to
www.trekking.it
and download the pdf in the Maremma section. There's
also an enjoyable 2km walk from the small stone bridge in the gorge below Sorano along the Via Cava
San Rocco (2km) to the
Necropoli di San Rocco
, another Etruscan burial site.
The open-air
Museo Archeologico all'Aperto 'Alberto Manzi'
(Alberto Manzi Open-Air Archae-
ology Museum; Via Cava del Gradone, off SS74; adult/reduced €4/2; 10am-5pm Wed-Mon Jun-
Aug, 10am-5pm Sat & Sun Easter-Jun & Sep-Oct), south of Pitigliano on the road to Saturnia, con-
tains sections of
vie cave
and several necropolises.
Sleeping
Il Tufo Rosa
( 05 6461 7019;
www.iltuforosa.com
;
Piazza Petruccioli 97-101; s €42-48, d €55-75; )
The
owner of this old-fashioned
pensione
is very proud of her spick-and-span rooms, each of
which is individually decorated and named after an Aldobrandeschi, Orsini or Medici
countess. The rooms are located in an old bastion of the fortress on Piazza Petruccioli,
conveniently near the town's main bus stop. No breakfast is offered, and air-con is only
available in a few rooms.
PENSION
€
Le Camere del Ceccottino
PENSION
€€
