Our first necropolis!

Ciao!

Up this morning about 5:30 am to a lovely blue sky and lots of sunshine.  We made breakfast out of the cheese, cold cuts, fruit and juice we bought yesterday.  Also found that the laundry was basically dry from sitting overnighting indoors, except for our blue jeans, which definitely needed washing.  (I had somehow managed to put my purse into some chocolate gelato somewhere along the line, and found that it had made quite an impression on my blue jeans, hence, the wash!)  R has to make do.  As I’m the bath girl, I love it, but R not such a fan…)  

Beautiful day in the country!

The Mediterranean

Outside one of the first tombs

Wide road cutting through the necropolis

Carved pillar inside a tomb

A carved "bed" out of stone along the wall

Good example of a corralled roof

Door "lintel" carved in stone

Large tomb on the left

Tomb of reliefs -- note rope and other decorations all carved from stone

More relief carvings; I love the "pillows"

An Etruscan well

The tombs go on and on!

Cerveteri Museum

I've always loved Lions...

 

Another lion!!

Decided that we would leave the bath towels and both pairs of jeans out on the drying rack on the terrace, hoping that they would be completely dry by the time we got back.  (Note: We have a nice big bathtub to wash in, but not exactly a shower.  Instead, we have the long metal hose with the spray on the end, (and no bracket on the wall) with which

So, out the door about 8-ish and into the car in good time.  Now that we actually know how to get between the garage and the apartment, things are so much easier!  We’ve decided to go to Ceveterithis morning – museum in the city, and huge necropolis (city of the dead) right outside town, called Banditaccia.  Along the way, though, we did make two stops.  The first was at a Conad supermarket where we were able to pick up a few things we hadn’t found in the Tiger market downstairs – paper towels, TP, and laundry detergent.  What we couldn’t find, though, were BOXES of KLEENEX!  Don’t the Italians ever get colds???  So, as we cruised past a Carrefour, we pulled in – Carrefour is, I believe, a French store, at least it’s one of our favorites when we’re traveling in France.  And, seems odd, but it is open 24 hours a day!  Wow!  Who knew?! We were able to find Kleenex and a few other odds and ends, and back to the car to Banditaccia!

It took us probably a good hour + to get there, but it was a pleasant drive and a stunning day.  R took some photos from the car while I was driving; we saw so many beautiful red poppies.  Hard to describe!  Finally pulled in to the visitor center at the necropolis.  Paid our admission fees and picked up an iPhone audioguide with information and started out.  

To say that Banditaccia is a large necropolis is quite an understatement.  According to their own website, this has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.   The Necropolis stretches for more than two kilometers. (It is HUGE!)  This certainly makes it the most imposing in all Etruria and one of the most magnificent monuments of its kind anywhere in the Mediterranean basin. These monumental tombs are located inside tumuli, partly cut into the tufa rock and partly built over it. The purpose of these edifices was to illustrate the desire of a handful of aristocratic families to make a statement about their wealth and to perpetuate a lifestyle of the highest quality also after death.

From what can be pieced together about the Etruscans, the decoration and layout of Etruscan tombs reveals a great deal about their attitudes to death. They preserve details of funeral rites, including funeral feasts, processions, the gods of the underworld and the games used to commemorate the dead. Tomb paintings suggest that gladiatorial contests could have had their origin in these funeral games.   The interiors of tombs were often designed to replicate household features, providing a valuable source of information of domestic architecture otherwise lost from the archaeological record.

So, back to Banditaccia.  The interesting thing is that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of rock cut tombs in this particular valley.  From what we could see, many, many, many of them have not even been particularly excavated and explored yet!  They are everywhere!  I was wondering how I would feel walking along the “streets” between the tombs – sometimes narrow trails and sometimes wide avenues.  But I didn’t find it at all sobering or sad – rather, I was amazed at the construction techniques and determination of these folks!  I mean, quite literally, each tomb obviously required a tremendous amount of effort.  First, the inside of the tomb was hallowed out and “beds” were made along the walls, with amazing corbelled ceilings overhead, and finally, in many of the larger tomb complexes, the decoration was ornate.  

Unfortunately, rather like the contents from tombs excavated in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, everything that wasn’t nailed down was either plundered in the 1800’s by tomb robbers, or taken off to museums all over the world.  (And this also includes, quite specifically, the entire tombs themselves which have been moved into museums!)  In this case, there is a really lovely small museum in the town of Cerveteri filled with items from Banditaccia, and it was great being able to put the artifacts to the tombs we had seen.

We toured the necropolis for probably three hours before our feet gave out and we wanted to rest.  So, instead, we went to the museum.  Fortunately, parking wasn’t difficult to find (even on a Saturday!) and there was air conditioning in the museum – always nice on a warm day!  

From Cerveteri, we decided we had seen enough for one day, and would head back to Viterbo and hopefully find lunch.  The skies overhead were getting really dark as well, and I kept hoping we would get back to Viterbo and get the blue jeans in before they got all wet again!  (Managed to do it … but no real rain; just sprinkles!) Got back around 3, and to be honest, there wasn’t much open at that time at all!  Our idea of having one main meal in mid-afternoon has been scotched by the fact that most restaurants close after lunch and don’t re-open until 7:30 or 8:00.  I mean, seriously, most of the shops and stores were closed up as well so finding anything at all to eat was difficult!  We finally came upon a pizza/calzone place, that sold pizza by the slice.  I had ham and cheese (yes, on pizza!) and R had pizza margarita – tomato sauce and cheese. Considering that we were starving, it was the best we could do.  Obviously, dinner out tonight will hopefully be more substantial!

R now napping, and I’m blogging.  Want to get posted so that I can go to bed early tonight!  What an idea!

Much love,

m

xxx