Day 2: Tuscania
It is a bit overcast when we get up (we are able to sleep through the night without difficulty) but while we are eating breakfast, the rain begins to fall.
Breakfast is served in the restaurant at the Hotel Al Gallo, which is done up in a rustic rooster theme (il gallo)--there are pictures of roosters, statues of roosters and much rooster paraphenalia along with red checked tableclothes and curtains.
The rain continues as we drive to Tarquinia. We change the language on the GPS to Italian because the American voice was painfully mispronouncing the Italian place names. The screen still reads in English but you are told to turn in Italian- and I also changed miles to kilometers - it makes more sense and is much pleasanter. During the drive, we take a detour on a side road and we have a disagreement with the GPS about the right way to go. After a ten minute drive on our choice--with the GPS continuing to "recalcola"--we reach a dead end. The GPS takes us back to the correct road (we had decided against it previously because it was quite narrow and rutted) and we eventually get back to the main road.
As we reach Tarquinia, the rain stops and the sun comes out. We can't enter the town because it is market day so we park in the lot just outside. The archaelogical museum is located in the very imposing Palazzo Vitelleschi--a large medieval building--with pointed arches and lots of crenellation.
The Etruscan collection in the museum is quite extensive and beautifully displayed. The rooms have explanatory material (in Italian) on the walls and display cases in the middle of the rooms with an extensive assortment of Etruscan artifacts recovered from the tombs located in the area. The collection mostly covers the period between the 9th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. The vases, urns, mirrors, hairpins, kitchen utensils, combs are all things that the dead people will need in the afterlife - but now reveal much to us about their daily lives. There are many Greek items as well as Etruscan ones that show Greek and Egyptian influences.
I was particularly taken with the frame of an umbrella that was in the collection.
There are also many wonderfully decorated sarcophagi, topped with a statue of the dead person reclining on the lid and sometimes decorated with mythological scenes on the sides.
The museum is very impressive and also very crowded...there is a tour group off a cruise ship as well as two or three school groups so we try and go through the museum either a step ahead or a step behind the groups.
The most prized piece in the museum is a terracotta statue of two winged horses that was found near Tarquinia, which is very impressive and nicely displayed.
After we finish at the museum, it is time for lunch so we get sandwiches at a grocery store and eat them on a bench in a park at the top of town. Sandwiches are good, it is sunny and warm and the view over the very green rolling countryside is beautiful.
The other big Etruscan attraction in Tarquinia is the extensive necropolis located just on the edge of town. Most of the Etruscan tombs in this area were excavated fairly recently.....during the middle of the 20th century. Most of the artifacts have been removed to museums but the very striking wall paintings are preserved in the actual tombs. The tombs themselves are protected by windows and the lights are only turned on when there are people viewing the paintings. They have built little buildings to cover the entrance, and stairs (very dimly lit) take you down to the windows. There are about 60 tombs in this necropolis (not all of them are open on any given day), spread out in a large field. Some of the wall paintings are in better shape than others but they show many different scenes of everyday life, sporting events, myths, dancing--all to make the dead feel connected in the afterlife. It is easy to see where the inspiration came for the wall paintings found in Pompeii after viewing the paintings in these Etruscan tombs.
We make our way back to Tuscania with a couple of stops....one at the ancient Etruscan site of Vulci to see the famous old Roman bridge at Ponte d'Abbadia where we also come across a small field of poppies
and in the old Farnese built town of Canino, which is a major producer of olive oil and has a very nice "centro storico" and fountain in the main piazza.
Back in Tuscania, I take a walk around the town before dinner. Tonight we eat at the hotel and have a very good meal. We both have the same pasta dish--strozzapreti with a ragu of sausage--which is very tasty. Diana has a filet of branzino and a salad of fennel, artichokes and blood oranges and I have a "torta rustica"....a cabbage filling inside an excellent baked crust. The chocolate dessert is not as good as the rest of the meal. The very drinkable wine is a sangiovese from an Umbrian producer, La Carraraia. The service iss very attentive and we enjoy our meal.
Tomorrow we move on to Orbetello in the far southwestern corner of Tuscany, only about an hour from Tuscania.
Breakfast is served in the restaurant at the Hotel Al Gallo, which is done up in a rustic rooster theme (il gallo)--there are pictures of roosters, statues of roosters and much rooster paraphenalia along with red checked tableclothes and curtains.
The rain continues as we drive to Tarquinia. We change the language on the GPS to Italian because the American voice was painfully mispronouncing the Italian place names. The screen still reads in English but you are told to turn in Italian- and I also changed miles to kilometers - it makes more sense and is much pleasanter. During the drive, we take a detour on a side road and we have a disagreement with the GPS about the right way to go. After a ten minute drive on our choice--with the GPS continuing to "recalcola"--we reach a dead end. The GPS takes us back to the correct road (we had decided against it previously because it was quite narrow and rutted) and we eventually get back to the main road.
As we reach Tarquinia, the rain stops and the sun comes out. We can't enter the town because it is market day so we park in the lot just outside. The archaelogical museum is located in the very imposing Palazzo Vitelleschi--a large medieval building--with pointed arches and lots of crenellation.
The Etruscan collection in the museum is quite extensive and beautifully displayed. The rooms have explanatory material (in Italian) on the walls and display cases in the middle of the rooms with an extensive assortment of Etruscan artifacts recovered from the tombs located in the area. The collection mostly covers the period between the 9th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. The vases, urns, mirrors, hairpins, kitchen utensils, combs are all things that the dead people will need in the afterlife - but now reveal much to us about their daily lives. There are many Greek items as well as Etruscan ones that show Greek and Egyptian influences.
I was particularly taken with the frame of an umbrella that was in the collection.
There are also many wonderfully decorated sarcophagi, topped with a statue of the dead person reclining on the lid and sometimes decorated with mythological scenes on the sides.
The museum is very impressive and also very crowded...there is a tour group off a cruise ship as well as two or three school groups so we try and go through the museum either a step ahead or a step behind the groups.
The most prized piece in the museum is a terracotta statue of two winged horses that was found near Tarquinia, which is very impressive and nicely displayed.
After we finish at the museum, it is time for lunch so we get sandwiches at a grocery store and eat them on a bench in a park at the top of town. Sandwiches are good, it is sunny and warm and the view over the very green rolling countryside is beautiful.
The other big Etruscan attraction in Tarquinia is the extensive necropolis located just on the edge of town. Most of the Etruscan tombs in this area were excavated fairly recently.....during the middle of the 20th century. Most of the artifacts have been removed to museums but the very striking wall paintings are preserved in the actual tombs. The tombs themselves are protected by windows and the lights are only turned on when there are people viewing the paintings. They have built little buildings to cover the entrance, and stairs (very dimly lit) take you down to the windows. There are about 60 tombs in this necropolis (not all of them are open on any given day), spread out in a large field. Some of the wall paintings are in better shape than others but they show many different scenes of everyday life, sporting events, myths, dancing--all to make the dead feel connected in the afterlife. It is easy to see where the inspiration came for the wall paintings found in Pompeii after viewing the paintings in these Etruscan tombs.
We make our way back to Tuscania with a couple of stops....one at the ancient Etruscan site of Vulci to see the famous old Roman bridge at Ponte d'Abbadia where we also come across a small field of poppies
and in the old Farnese built town of Canino, which is a major producer of olive oil and has a very nice "centro storico" and fountain in the main piazza.
Back in Tuscania, I take a walk around the town before dinner. Tonight we eat at the hotel and have a very good meal. We both have the same pasta dish--strozzapreti with a ragu of sausage--which is very tasty. Diana has a filet of branzino and a salad of fennel, artichokes and blood oranges and I have a "torta rustica"....a cabbage filling inside an excellent baked crust. The chocolate dessert is not as good as the rest of the meal. The very drinkable wine is a sangiovese from an Umbrian producer, La Carraraia. The service iss very attentive and we enjoy our meal.
Tomorrow we move on to Orbetello in the far southwestern corner of Tuscany, only about an hour from Tuscania.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home