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# Tarquinia, Cerveteri and Tuscania: Etruscan Tombs and Necropolises, in Two Days from Rome
- URL: https://www.theslowarchitect.com/tarquinia-cerveteri-tuscania-etruscan-tombs/
- Published: 2026-11-04T10:23:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-05T09:21:38.000Z
- Description: The Etruscans built their cities in wood and their tombs in stone, and only the tombs are left. Two days from Rome: the hill of San Pietro at Tuscania, a night in a treehouse, the painted tombs of Tarquinia and the streets of tumuli at Cerveteri.
- Author: Giulio Romano
- Tags: Travel, Lazio, Day Trip From Rome

*A night in a treehouse in the middle of a lavender field. Then down from the hills towards the sea, to the painted rooms of Tarquinia and the tufa streets of Cerveteri: the city the Etruscans built for their dead, which outlived the one built for the living.*

## The journey

The journey began with a present. For our thirtieth birthdays our friends gave us a night in the treehouse at La Piantata, an agriturismo at Arlena di Castro, in the upper Tuscia, a few kilometres from Tuscania and Lake Bolsena.

We left the car at the entrance to the farm, which is a big one. From there on the track was all potholes and stones, and they took us up in a jeep. Then they left us there. Around us there was lavender, and for one night the world shrank to that: when you wanted to come down you said so, and they came and fetched you. They gave us an aperitivo up there, on the hills. It is a very romantic place, and I am glad to name it, because it deserves it.

The next morning we went down towards the sea, and the reason was a game. Kat and I have one: putting a flag on every place we have been, and above all on the UNESCO ones, because they are usually magnificent places. The necropolises of Tarquinia and Cerveteri have been on the list since 2004, together, as a single site. We were curious, and they were on the way back to Rome. Tarquinia first, then Cerveteri, which is closer to the city.

It was a quiet part of the world. Few people, a great calm, and you ate very well for very little. You looked at things with a different calm too, as if time there kept a slower pace than ours. The names of the tombs I have lost along the way. The calm, I haven't.

At Cerveteri, among the tombs, we were alone. It has an effect on you. It is like going to the cemetery to visit your own dead and finding nobody else there: you are there, among the graves, thinking about what our ancestors thought and built.

![A spider at the centre of its web, strung against the dark tufa of the Banditaccia necropolis in Cerveteri](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-01-banditaccia-spider-web-1.jpg)

A spider's web between the tombs of the Banditaccia. That afternoon, she was the only one about. Photo: The Slow Architect.

That cemetery, though, is something else as well. The Etruscans built the houses of the living in wood and mud brick, and the houses of the dead in tufa and rock. Time did what it always does with light things: it carried them away. Of their cities almost nothing is left. Caere stood where Cerveteri is today, and you can see almost nothing of it; of ancient Tarquinia, on the plateau of the Civita, there are fields and the foundations of a temple. What survived are the tombs, and the tombs were made like houses: the doors, the rooms, the beamed ceilings, the beds, the columns, all remade in stone for those who would never go out again. Of a whole civilisation, the cast survived and the original was lost. For UNESCO, the tombs of the Banditaccia are the only surviving evidence of what Etruscan houses were like.

So the silence turns into something else. Among the tumuli of Cerveteri you are not walking through a cemetery: you are walking through the only Etruscan city still standing, the one that was built to last.

After Cerveteri we drove back to Rome on the motorway. It is about fifty kilometres: from the city of the dead to the city of the living, in under an hour.

## In short

**Is it worth it?** Yes, if you want to understand how the Etruscans lived by looking at how they buried their dead, and if you like the idea of a UNESCO site without queues. If you are after a pretty village to photograph in an hour, look elsewhere.  
**How long?** You can do the two necropolises [in a day from Rome](https://www.theslowarchitect.com/day-trips-from-rome/), by car, in a rush. The trip in this guide takes two days: the first afternoon at Tuscania, the night in the hills, and on the second day down to the sea, Tarquinia, Cerveteri and home. In winter, with the necropolises closing at five, Tuscania works better on the afternoon of the first day.  
**If you have to choose?** Tarquinia for the colours, Cerveteri for the city. But do both, in the order the road takes you.  
**In winter?** You can, and with fewer people. But on Mondays everything is closed, the necropolises, the museums and the churches of Tuscania, apart from the visits the Park runs that day by booking, and until 27 March the necropolises close at five, with last entry at four. The clock decides the route.  
**And the food?** Good, and cheap: that is what I remember of the whole area.

## The route on a map

![Map of northern Lazio with north at the top, from Rome in the south-east to Lake Bolsena in the north. Five numbered stops: Tuscania and La Piantata in the hills inland, Tarquinia near the coast, Santa Severa on the sea and Cerveteri just inland, with the A12 motorway running along the coast back to Rome; Civitavecchia, Viterbo and Lake Bracciano for reference. Scale bar of 20 kilometres.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-map-of-the-route.jpg)

The route, in the order the road takes you: Tuscania, the night at La Piantata, down towards the sea to Tarquinia, Santa Severa, Cerveteri, and the motorway to Rome. Map from OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

## What to see, in the order of the road

### The first afternoon: Tuscania

You leave Rome after lunch and head north, inland, where the countryside opens out and the villages thin. Tuscania comes after the hills, a town of tufa held tight inside its walls. But it left its finest thing outside.

That is the hill of San Pietro, which was the Etruscan acropolis. At the top, alone on a lawn, stands the basilica of San Pietro. Lower down, at the foot of the hill, is Santa Maria Maggiore, the town's first cathedral, which still has its thirteenth-century font for baptism by immersion. Two Romanesque churches one above the other, and nothing around them: a piece of the Middle Ages left in the middle of the countryside. Both can be visited by booking, Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 to 5; the numbers are in the box at the end. In winter, aim to be there by four, so you don't have to rush.

![The hill of San Pietro at Tuscania seen from a distance: a Romanesque basilica with a tall square tower, a second medieval tower and a stone building beside it, and olive groves and terraces on the slope below](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-02-tuscania-hill-of-san-pietro-1.jpg)

The hill of San Pietro, once the Etruscan acropolis of Tuscania: the basilica with its tower, another medieval tower further along, and the countryside all around. Photo: The Slow Architect.

On the evening of 6 February 1971 a violent earthquake struck Tuscania. It damaged the old town and the two churches, and killed more than twenty people. What you see today is also the work of the people who put them back on their feet.

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![The façade of the basilica of San Pietro in Tuscania: a rose window set in a pale carved panel, a gallery of small columns beneath it, and a round-arched portal framed by slender columns](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-03-tuscania-san-pietro-facade-1.jpg)

![Inside San Pietro in Tuscania: round arches on columns with carved capitals, bare stone walls with narrow windows, a patterned stone floor, and in the foreground a reclining figure carved in stone](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-04-tuscania-san-pietro-nave-1.jpg)

San Pietro, outside and in: the rose window and the doorway between its slender columns, and the tufa nave with its arches. Photos: The Slow Architect.

![A faded daguerreotype in a pale mount on a black ground: the round apse and the long side of the basilica of San Pietro at Tuscania, with a square, broken-topped tower behind, standing above a grassy slope](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-04c-tuscania-san-pietro-morey-1834.jpg)

![An 1834 watercolour survey sheet titled Toscanella, Eglise St Pierre: a long section through the nave with its arcades and frescoed walls, a cross-section with the timber roof trusses and a painted figure of Christ in the apse, and a floor plan with two rows of columns](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-04c-tuscania-san-pietro-daguerreotype-1.jpg)

The apse of San Pietro in a daguerreotype by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, from the early 1840s. Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain (CC0). San Pietro in 1834, in Mathieu-Prosper Morey's survey, when Tuscania was still called Toscanella: the long section through the nave, the cross-section looking towards the painted apse, and the plan. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

![Map of Tuscania with north at the top. The walled old town sits in the middle; south-east of it, outside the walls, numbered points mark Santa Maria Maggiore at the foot of the hill and San Pietro at the top. Dotted red lines run from the Torre di Lavello park on the southern edge of the town to the two churches. The Fontana delle Sette Cannelle is on the southern side of the old town, just inside the walls, and the archaeological museum in Santa Maria del Riposo to the north. Scale bar of 200 metres.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-map-of-tuscania.jpg)

Tuscania: the town inside its walls and, outside on the hill, San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore; the dotted line is the view from the Torre di Lavello park. Map from OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

The churches are worth looking at from a distance too. In town, the Torre di Lavello park is a garden that ends at a low wall, and beyond the wall there is nothing but air: below you, San Pietro, Santa Maria Maggiore and the valley of the Marta. In the late afternoon the light comes in from the side and the tufa changes colour. In November that hour comes early, and that is the moment to be there. The tower takes its name from Tartaglia, Angelo Broglio, lord of Lavello, the condottiero who strengthened its defences.

In the little square that was the market at the end of the Middle Ages stands the Fontana delle Sette Cannelle, its water running from seven carved masks: its origins are Etruscan and Roman, and its present form dates from 1309\. If you have an extra hour, spend it at the national archaeological museum, in the former convent of Santa Maria del Riposo, among the sarcophagi from the tombs of the area. It is a good way to arrive at the next day's necropolises with the Etruscans already in your eyes.

![The Romanesque façade of Santa Maria Maggiore in Tuscania, in brown tufa: a large rose window with spoke-like columns and carved reliefs set around it, a small gallery of columns above the main doorway, three round-arched carved portals, and an iron gate on the right](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-04b-tuscania-santa-maria-maggiore.jpg)

Santa Maria Maggiore, at the foot of the hill: the tufa façade with its rose window, its little gallery and three doorways. Photo: K. Weise, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

### The night: La Piantata

Today the agriturismo has treehouses, rooms and flats. Which treehouses are let in winter, and at what price, is on its website. The lavender belongs to another season: it flowers at the beginning of summer, and if that is what you are after, ask them for the right time.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-04d-la-piantata-suite-bleue.jpg)

The Suite Bleue, one of La Piantata's treehouses, in the branches of an old oak above the rows of lavender. Photo: [La Piantata](https://www.lapiantata.it/la-casa-sullalbero-suite-bleue/?ref=theslowarchitect.com), used with permission. It is a very romantic place. I get nothing for recommending it, but I am glad to, because I had a genuinely wonderful time there.

### The morning: Tarquinia necropolis

From the hills you drop towards the sea, and the descent explains the geography of the Etruscans: the cities stood high up, on the plateaus, like sentinels defended by their cliffs, and the ports lay below, on the water. The first you meet is Tarquinia.

![Rolling farmland seen from the Monterozzi hill at Tarquinia: harvested fields, a pale dirt road winding through the valley, and strips of woodland under a grey sky](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-05-tarquinia-view-from-the-monterozzi-1.jpg)

The countryside seen from the Monterozzi hill: fields, a white road, woods in the folds of the land. Underneath, the tombs. Photo: The Slow Architect.

**The Monterozzi.** Get there when it opens, at nine. The necropolis lies on the Monterozzi hill, about six kilometres long, between the sea and the plateau of the Civita, where the Etruscan city stood, and from outside it promises nothing: fields and sky. The name comes from the little mounds of earth that once covered the tombs, almost all of them flattened by the plough. Underneath, there are more than six thousand tombs, and about two hundred of them are painted. That is not many, three per cent, but they are the reason you come.

Tarquinia put its colours underground, and that is why it saved them. You go down a passage cut into the rock, in steps or on a slope, and at the bottom there is a room, with a ceiling sloping down on two sides and the ridge beam painted, as in a house. Inside, there is a party going on. In the Tomb of the Leopards they are banqueting, with musicians and dancers. In the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing there is the sea you have just left up on the surface: a boy dives from a rock, others are fishing, and dolphins leap in the water. No other Etruscan city has left us so many rooms with their colours.

For the Italian Ministry of Culture, because of its paintings, this is the most important necropolis in the Mediterranean. Massimo Pallottino called it the first chapter in the history of Italian painting. And since Greek painting of those centuries is almost entirely lost, these walls are a mirror for that too: you look at one world, and glimpse another.

According to the Ministry, Michelangelo came to see them too. In the eighteenth century travellers and draughtsmen went down into them with torches, and some of the prints that came out of it are in Amsterdam today, at the Rijksmuseum. In 1829 a young French architect, Henri Labrouste, went down with a measuring rod and his watercolours: he measured them the way you measure a house, and copied their colours. Which tombs are open changes over time, with restoration work: the ticket office will tell you which ones you can see on the day.

![An eighteenth-century engraving of a wide underground Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia: square pillars hold up a coffered ceiling, a stone sarcophagus stands in the foreground, a painted frieze of small figures runs along the far wall, and on the left three men in eighteenth-century dress, one drawing by the light of a torch](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-05b-tarquinia-byres-cardinale-1.jpg)

![An eighteenth-century engraving of an Etruscan tomb chamber at Tarquinia, cut into the rock and partly open to the sky: a beamed gable, a frieze of lions carved in relief, standing figures in relief on the walls, and in the foreground a woman pointing to a low doorway while a man in a cloak sits on a ledge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-05c-tarquinia-byres-mercareccia-reliefs-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-05d-tarquinia-byres-mercareccia-procession-1.jpg)

Tarquinia through eighteenth-century eyes, in three plates engraved by Christopher Norton after drawings by Franciszek Smuglewicz for the antiquary James Byres, around 1762–1770: the Tomba del Cardinale, with the draughtsman working by torchlight, and the Tomba della Mercareccia, with its reliefs and with the procession painted on the back wall. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain.

![A watercolour sheet by Henri Labrouste with measured details of an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia: a coloured frieze of winged demons around a figure in a cart, painted mouldings, ceiling coffers with red, blue and yellow borders, and at the bottom a view of the dark interior with its square pillars](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-05e-tarquinia-labrouste-cardinale.jpg)

The Tomba del Cardinale in Henri Labrouste's survey sheets, dated Corneto 1829: the frieze of winged demons, the painted mouldings, the coffers of the ceiling and, below, the chamber with its pillars. Bibliothèque nationale de France, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-07-tarquinia-painted-door-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-06-tarquinia-tomb-of-the-leopards-1.jpg)

At the Monterozzi: the Tomb of the Leopards, with the banquet on the back wall, and a painted door between two winged demons, in another tomb. Photos: The Slow Architect.

![Plan of the visitable sector of the Monterozzi necropolis at Tarquinia, with north at the top. Paths cross a grassy field dotted with small red rectangles, the tombs. Numbered points mark the ticket office at the western edge, the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing near it, and the Tomb of the Leopards on the far side of the road to the south-east. Scale bar of 50 metres.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-plan-of-the-monterozzi.jpg)

The part of the Monterozzi open to visitors: the ticket office, the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing and, across the road, the Tomb of the Leopards. In red, the tombs as they are mapped. Plan from OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

**Palazzo Vitelleschi and the Winged Horses.** Then you climb up into the town. On Piazza Cavour the national archaeological museum is housed in Palazzo Vitelleschi, built between 1436 and 1439 for Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi. The thing to look for is the Winged Horses: a terracotta slab from the fourth century BC, two horses with wings at the very moment they leave the ground. They decorated the pediment of the temple of the Ara della Regina, the temple of the city of the living, the one that vanished: they are one of the few fragments of that city to have come down to us. The Ministry's page reports the second floor, the one with the paintings removed from the tombs, closed for works. The same page puts the Horses on the first floor, other sources on the second: before you go, ask the museum whether they are on show. The combined Tarquinia ticket covers the museum and the necropolis.

![A terracotta relief of two winged horses standing side by side, with bridles and collars, the nearer one spreading a large feathered wing, shown against a dark wall](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-07a-tarquinia-winged-horses.jpg)

The Winged Horses, from the pediment of the temple of the Ara della Regina, fourth century BC. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

**Corneto.** In the Middle Ages Tarquinia was called Corneto, and its towers still remember it. If you have half an hour left, spend it at Santa Maria in Castello, beyond Porta Castello, the Romanesque church begun in 1121\. In the nineteenth century French mounted chasseurs were quartered in it, and the ambo still carries the writing left by passing visitors.

![The plain Romanesque stone façade of Santa Maria in Castello at Tarquinia in evening light: a small bell gable with two bells, a twin-arched window above a carved central doorway, two smaller side doors, and a crenellated wall on the right, in front of an empty paved square](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-07b-tarquinia-santa-maria-in-castello.jpg)

Santa Maria in Castello, the Romanesque church begun in 1121, beyond Porta Castello. Photo: Mentnafunangann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

On the other side, on the plateau of the Civita, the foundations of the Ara della Regina survive, one of the largest Etruscan temples. It can be visited only on special openings, by booking. If you happen to be there on the right day, go: it is the one place on this trip where you stand inside the city of the living.

![The foundations of the Etruscan temple of the Ara della Regina: courses of large grey tufa blocks in the foreground, a wooden fence beyond, and dry rolling fields and wooded hills stretching away under a blue sky](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-07c-tarquinia-ara-della-regina.jpg)

The foundations of the temple of the Ara della Regina, on the plateau of the Civita: what remains of the city of the living. Photo: Paolo Villa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

### By the sea: Santa Severa Castle

From Tarquinia towards Rome the road runs close to the coast. At Santa Severa the castle stands on the sea, on the spot where Pyrgi was, the port of Caere, ancient Cerveteri: the same story seen from the water, where the ships of the city you are about to see buried set sail. The castle belongs to the Lazio Region, has been open to the public since 2017, and has a small medieval village behind it. The opening hours change with the seasons and are on the castle's website. In winter, with the necropolises closing at five, you look at the sea from the road, and keep the stop for the long days.

![The castle of Santa Severa seen from the sea: square towers with tiled roofs and crenellations, a slimmer round tower, and a tall round tower joined to the castle by a footbridge, with a few small figures walking along the rocky seafront below, under a clear blue sky](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-07d-santa-severa-castle.jpg)

The castle of Santa Severa seen from the sea, where Pyrgi, the port of Caere, once stood. Photo: Lorenot, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

### The afternoon: Cerveteri necropolis

Then the road turns inland again, and you reach Cerveteri. In winter, go in early: last entry is at four, and the Banditaccia is not something to rush.

**The Banditaccia.** You walk. You go in among the tumuli, great drums of tufa with grass on top, and you follow the road. These are the oldest, from the seventh century BC, the tombs of the important families: round, each one on its own, like villas in the country. The first great tumulus after the entrance, Tumulus II, holds four tombs. Then, from the sixth century, come the cube tombs, squared blocks all alike, lined up along the street like terraced houses: the best known stand along Via dei Monti Ceriti and Via dei Monti della Tolfa. They are set one after another, along parallel and crossing streets, like a neighbourhood. It is the moment the city of the dead starts to think like a real city, with plots and measured space. Walking from the tumuli to the cubes you cross a century of town planning, without needing to read a single sign.

Inside, the chambers are shaped like rooms. Within the enclosure is the Tomb of the Reliefs, the house carried into death: on the walls, modelled in stucco and painted, are the objects of every day, hung up as if in a kitchen. The burial road runs for more than two kilometres. Further on it takes the name of Via degli Inferi, the road to the underworld, and drops towards the valley floor between two walls of tufa: it was the road that joined the city of the living to this one, and much of it lies outside the visitors' route.

Today the enclosure can be visited from the entrance as far as the Tomb of the Reliefs. The streets of cube tombs, around Via dei Monti Ceriti, and the great tumuli of the Colonnello and Mengarelli are reached through gate C, from outside, along the tree-lined avenue: ask for directions at the ticket office.

![A row of square Etruscan tombs built of tufa blocks along a dirt path at the Banditaccia necropolis in Cerveteri, with low dark doorways at their base and trees overhead](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-08-banditaccia-cube-tombs-1.jpg)

The cube tombs, one beside the next along the street, each with its low door: the city of the dead falling into line. Photo: The Slow Architect.

![Inside the Tomb of the Reliefs at Cerveteri, seen through protective glass: two square pillars and walls covered with painted stucco reliefs of household objects, above stone funeral couches](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-09-banditaccia-tomb-of-the-reliefs-1.jpg)

![A narrow path cut deep into the tufa between two Etruscan burial mounds, overgrown with shrubs, with two tall cypresses beyond](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-10-banditaccia-sunken-path-1.jpg)

The Tomb of the Reliefs, behind the glass that protects it, with household objects modelled on the pillars and walls; and one of the roads cut into the tufa between the tumuli. Photos: The Slow Architect.

![Plan of the Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri, with north at the top. Round tumuli of different sizes are scattered along a road that runs from the entrance in the south-west towards the north-east: the main burial road, marked with a dotted red line, which further on becomes the Via degli Inferi. Numbered points mark the entrance and ticket office, Tumulus II with its four tombs, and the Tomb of the Reliefs. To the east, cube tombs stand along Via dei Monti Ceriti and Via dei Monti della Tolfa, next to the two largest mounds, the Tumulo del Colonnello and the Tumulo Mengarelli. Scale bar of 50 metres.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-plan-of-the-banditaccia.jpg)

The Banditaccia: the entrance, Tumulus II with its four tombs, the Tomb of the Reliefs, the cube tombs along Via dei Monti Ceriti and Via dei Monti della Tolfa, the tumuli of the Colonnello and Mengarelli and, dotted in red, the burial road that further on takes the name of Via degli Inferi. Plan from OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

**The Euphronios krater.** In the town, in the castle on Piazza Santa Maria, the national museum of Cerveteri keeps a vase with a story they know well in New York. It is the Euphronios krater, painted in Athens around 515 BC, showing the body of Sarpedon being carried from the battlefield. In 1971 tomb robbers dug it out in secret from a tomb in the area; it was exported illegally and sold to the Metropolitan Museum, where it stayed for decades. Then it came back to Italy, and since 2015 it has been here, together with the great cup signed by Euphronios as potter and painted by Onesimos, which the Getty returned in 1999\. After an afternoon among empty tombs, this is the right place to see what used to be inside them.

![A large red-figure Greek krater in a glass case: two winged figures lift the body of a fallen warrior, while Hermes stands between them, with a band of palmettes above and below](https://storage.ghost.io/c/23/76/23767679-13de-46d2-ac49-39625bb7ee95/content/images/2026/11/tuscia-11-cerveteri-euphronios-krater-A-1.jpg)

The Euphronios krater, with Hypnos and Thanatos carrying away the body of Sarpedon, today in the museum at Cerveteri. Photo: ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

## Without a car

Without a car this trip can't be done: La Piantata and the churches of Tuscania can only be reached by car. You can see one necropolis a day, with patience. For Cerveteri, take the regional train from Rome towards Civitavecchia as far as Ladispoli-Cerveteri, then a bus into town, or the Cotral coach from Rome. For Tarquinia, the train to Tarquinia station, then the bus to the town and the necropolis. Local buses are infrequent: check the timetables before you set off. Cerveteri is about fifty kilometres from Rome by road, Tarquinia about ninety.

From the port of Civitavecchia. Tarquinia is the easiest trip from a ship. The free port shuttle leaves you at Largo della Pace, the station is a kilometre and a half away, and the train to Tarquinia takes about twelve minutes; from Tarquinia station a bus goes up to the town and the necropolis. For Cerveteri, go back towards Rome as far as Ladispoli-Cerveteri, twenty to thirty minutes by train, then take the bus. Local buses are infrequent: check the times before you leave the ship.

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## When to go

Spring and autumn are the right seasons, when walking outdoors is a pleasure. In winter the trip still works, with fewer people and short days: from 25 October 2026 to 27 March 2027 the necropolises close at 5 pm, with last entry at 4 pm. On days of severe weather warnings they may close, and the Park announces it on its website and social media.

How to visit

Tuscania, Tarquinia and Cerveteri: two days, in the order of the road

From Rome

Cerveteri about 50 km by road, Tarquinia about 90

Time needed

Two days with Tuscania; one day for the two necropolises

Closed

Mondays: necropolises, museums and the churches of Tuscania

In winter

Necropolises 9 am–5 pm, last entry 4 pm, until 27 March

Getting there

*By car.* The only way to do the whole trip: La Piantata and the churches of Tuscania can only be reached by car.

*Without a car.* One necropolis a day, with patience. For Cerveteri, the regional train from Rome towards Civitavecchia as far as Ladispoli-Cerveteri, then a bus into town, or the Cotral coach from Rome. For Tarquinia, the train to Tarquinia station, then the bus to the town and the necropolis. Local buses are infrequent: check the timetables on [Trenitalia](https://www.trenitalia.com/?ref=theslowarchitect.com) and [Cotral](https://www.cotralspa.it/?ref=theslowarchitect.com) before you set off.

In this order

1. **Tuscania, San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore.** The two Romanesque churches on the hill outside the walls, by booking. In winter, be there by four.
2. **The Torre di Lavello park.** The view of the two churches from the town, in the late afternoon light.
3. **The night at La Piantata.** In the hills at Arlena di Castro.
4. **The Monterozzi necropolis at Tarquinia.** Get there when it opens, at nine. Which painted tombs are open changes with restoration work: ask at the ticket office.
5. **Palazzo Vitelleschi and the Winged Horses.** The national museum, on Piazza Cavour. The second floor is closed for works: ask whether the Horses are on show.
6. **Santa Maria in Castello.** The Romanesque church beyond Porta Castello, if you have half an hour.
7. **Santa Severa.** The castle on the sea, where Pyrgi stood. In winter, from the road; keep the stop for the long days.
8. **The Banditaccia at Cerveteri.** From the entrance as far as the Tomb of the Reliefs; the streets of cube tombs and the great tumuli through gate C, from outside. Directions at the ticket office.
9. **The Museo Nazionale Cerite and the Euphronios krater.** In the castle on Piazza Santa Maria, in the town.

Hours and tickets

*The necropolises* (Monterozzi at Tarquinia, Banditaccia at Cerveteri). Tuesday to Sunday. From 25 October 2026 to 27 March 2027, 9 am–5 pm, last entry 4 pm; summer hours from spring. They may close on days of severe weather warnings: Banditaccia +39 06 9940001, Monterozzi +39 0766 856308.

*The museums* (Palazzo Vitelleschi in Tarquinia, the Museo Nazionale Cerite in Cerveteri). Tuesday to Sunday, 9 am–7.30 pm, last entry 6.30 pm.

*Tickets.* Combined ticket for one town (museum and necropolis of Tarquinia, or of Cerveteri) €13, valid thirty days. The four sites €21, valid four months. Free under eighteen; €2 from 18 to 25 for citizens of the European Union. At the ticket office or online on [museiitaliani.it](https://www.museiitaliani.it/?ref=theslowarchitect.com). On Mondays the Park runs special visits by booking: details on the [Park's website](https://pact.cultura.gov.it/?ref=theslowarchitect.com).

*Tuscania.* San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore, Tuesday to Sunday 10 am–5 pm, by booking: San Pietro +39 347 8838069, Santa Maria Maggiore +39 328 2350218.

*Santa Severa.* The castle is on the Via Aurelia at km 52.6, in the comune of Santa Marinella; hours, which change with the seasons, on the [castle's website](https://www.castellodisantasevera.it/?ref=theslowarchitect.com).

Combine it with

Lake Bolsena, north of Tuscania, and further on [Orvieto](https://www.theslowarchitect.com/orvieto-day-trip-from-rome/).

Last checked: November 2026\. All the day trips from Rome, with the map and the times by train and car, are on [one page](https://www.theslowarchitect.com/day-trips-from-rome/). Hours, prices and notices change: always check the official sites before you travel.