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  • Day 33

    Civita di Bagnoregio

    October 1, 2018 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After one our delicious Italian breakfasts at our B&B we hit the road again. First up for today was a visit to Civita di Bagnoregio, a small town in the Province of Viterbo in central Italy. This whole area is beautiful and just what I imagined Italy to be. Green rolling hills covered with a patchwork of fields in different stages of harvesting, sun shining and another brilliant blue sky.

    And we are getting better at this driving on the wrong side of the road gig. We had a couple of lapses when we would realise we were driving Aussie style but thankfully that was on empty roads so no near misses. We made it in one piece again.

    Civita di Bagnoregio sits on top of a plateau, like an island, and is in constant danger of destruction as the edges of the plateau collapse due to erosion. It was founded by Etruscans more than 2,500 years ago but by the end of the 17th century the bishop and the municipal government were forced to move to Bagnoregio because of a major earthquake that accelerated the old town's decline.

    It is now known in Italian as La città che muore, The Dying Town. Civita has only recently been experiencing a tourist revival and is only accessible by walking a long and very steep walkway. It was a bit of a climb and the heights got a bit dizzying at times.

    Because of its isolation it is very much unaltered and still has the original charm of an old Italian town. The population today varies from about 7 people in winter to more than 100 in summer.

    The town was placed on the World Monuments Fund's 2006 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites, because of threats it faces from erosion and we could understany why. It was a lovely town to explore, very picturesque, and it was just amazing that where we stood at some of the look out points were right on the edge of the cliff face. A wee bit scary.

    The only negative to this site is that it is now on the tourist route for the Asian tourists, and unfortunately they are so focused on their selfie poses and photos they don't take time to appreciate where they are and who is around them. We found them to be very rude and obnoxious, so much so, they dampened our visit to this amzaing site. Which was a pity as the place is pretty amazing.
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