Viterbo and Villa Lante

Viterbo garden

Viterbo street

Yesterday we took a road trip to Viterbo, a town about an hour north of Rome. Everyone talks about the Tuscan hill towns but few people know that there are a number of just as interesting hill towns in Lazio. Viterbo’s claim to fame is that it was the Vatican before there was a Vatican. In other words, it was home to a number of Popes and, at one time, it was a more important center of commerce and culture than Rome.

We found it to be similar to Lucca—a medieval walled city with lots of churches, museums, piazzas and fountains. We spent about half the day there strolling around, looking in churches, visiting the Ceramics museum (a dud) and just meandering.

At one church we arrived just as a funeral was finishing. It was close to noon and apparently the church closed at that time. We were about to leave the church when an elderly friar (there were about half a dozen around) took me by the hand and showed us the cloister where there was a beautiful fresco cycle depicting the life of St. Augustine. The friar (not as tall as me!) explained the scenes to us and told us that the missing panels were due to American bombing during WWII. The bombs actually fell in the nearby vegetable garden but the concussion knocked the plaster off the walls and one of the pillars around the cloister fell over. He had been a teenager then and experienced the bombing first hand! He was so nice and just loved showing us around even though another friar (his superior!) basically told him to hurry us along and come to lunch. It was one of those serendipitous encounters that are priceless.

We walked back to our car looking for a bar where we could stop for lunch. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything to our liking so we headed for our next stop, the town of Bagnaia and Villa Lante. It was quite the challenge getting out of the Viterbo area. There were cars everywhere. School children of all ages, with and without parents, were milling about, often in the street. Scooters zipped between the cars like lightening bugs in a field. Dom commented that Viterbo must be where Roman drivers came to study. I allowed as how it was probably where they came for graduate school.

In Bagnaia we had panini at a bar before exploring Villa Lante. It has a FABULOUS garden complete with a number of water features. I just loved it. It is very much in the Italian style—water features combined with neatly trimmed hedges and lawns, not a lot of flowers and accented with statuary and architectural elements. I took a lot of pictures of which those shown here are only a few.


Villa Lante - lower gardens



Villa Lante - lower gardens from above



Villa Lante - water feature in middle part of gardens



Villa Lante - Pegasus fountain



Villa Lante - it's easy to see that the gardens are several hundred years old



Villa Lante - been lounging around for quite some time...



Villa Lante - fountains at top of gardens

As I write this I can hear the cheering, chanting and horn blowing from the A.S. Roma game at the nearby Stadio Olimpico. This evening when we were on the tram coming back from the Centro Storico there were a lot of young men dressed in the gold and maroon team colors. It was a lot like being on a bus headed for Safeco Field or Husky Stadium. In the last few minutes it has become very quiet so it could be that the team has fallen behind. Both of the major Rome teams (Roma and Lazio) play at the stadium so we have heard a lot of this in the last two weeks.