[image ALT: Much of my site will be useless to you if you've got the images turned off!]

Viterbo Province

A province of Italy: 3611 square kilometers. 1991 population: 288,000 in 60 comuni.

The parish church of S. Lorenzo Nuovo at the N edge of the province, near Lake Bolsena.

Viterbo is the northernmost of the 5 provinces in the autonomous region of Lazio. Geographically, much of it is on rather barren volcanic land, and the larger lakes in the area are volcano craters — extinct, I hope. Historically, we are often in Etruscan territory, so that many of the most interesting known Etruscan sites are found in Viterbo province: Tarquinia, Caere, Vulci, Tuscania, to name a few.

	Viterbo is an elegant, rich and lively small city, the most urban environment in the Lazio outside of Rome itself. It has always served as a retreat away from the capital: now filmmakers and writers, in the Middle Ages the Popes; not surprisingly then, it's one of the most consistently medieval towns in Italy. [ 1 page, 1 photo, 8 links ]
	Bomarzo, famous thruout Italy for a very odd 16c park inhabited principally by monsters. An extraordinary place. [ 1 page, 4 photos ]
	Civita Castellana, the city of Falerii, centuries older than Rome, that Camillus destroyed in the 4c B.C., now poses no threat, and is in an area very rich in Roman and pre-Roman remains, as you might expect. The star of the town is definitely the cathedral. [ 2 pages, 5 photos ]
	Everyone who travels around central Italy knows Orte: that's the big railroad station where you stop and wait a bit, or maybe change trains if you have to. In fact, there's a town attached to that station, positively decaying in its hoary antiquity. Not to everyone's taste, but of interest. [ 1 page, 2 photos ]
Viterbo province is often referred to as Tuscia, a name derived from "Etrusci", the Etruscans, and it's where most of the famous Etruscan tombs and cities can be seen; so the following link is in order:
	George Dennis's celebrated work, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1848), though only half of it is given over to the Latium, is a very good book and even today remains one of the best possible general resources for Etruscan monuments in the area; but it's also a fascinating glimpse into the beginnings of modern archaeology — and very useful to anyone with an interest in the entire countryside of the Northern Lazio, as for example if you're planning to cover it on foot, horseback or bicycle. [ 8/3/02: some slight construction still, but the text is all there: 107 engravings, 2 plans, 6 maps; 4 photos of my own ]

I do not know this part of Italy as well as I could; you will therefore often find yourself using offsite resources.

For the towns just listed, that I do know at least a bit, good photos, information and links to further specific sites are found on their own pages, above.
For the province as a whole, see the sites listed in the navigation bar below. They often have pages on individual towns, of course.
Finally, in the course of roaming the Web, I've happened to find some pages — in addition to whatever towns are represented, usually quite well, on the general sites in the navigation bar at the bottom of this page — for specific places I've never been to; I've collected them here. This list is almost random, by no means comprehensive:

Acquapendente (1 — 2 ) • Arlena di Castro • Bassano Romano (1 — 2 ) • Blera • Bolsena • Calcata • Capodimonte • Capranica • Carbognano • Castiglione in Teverina • Celleno • Graffignano • Montefiascone (1 — 2 ) • Mugnano in Teverina • Piansano • S. Lorenzo Nuovo • Soriano nel Cimino • Tarquinia (1 — 2) • Tuscania • Valentano • Vallerano • Vejano • Vetralla • Vitorchiano

Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

UP TO:

Lazio

Italy

Home

OFF
SITE:

Elenco Online
(official phonebook)

Zanetti
Trip Diary

Pegaso

A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer.