The best small towns in Lazio — what to see when you escape Rome

Lazio beyond Rome is a secret garden. Volcanic lakes, Etruscan necropolises, Renaissance gardens, and borghi that Romans escape to on weekends.

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1. Civita di Bagnoregio

"The dying city" — a tufa plateau crumbling into the valley. 300m pedestrian bridge. 10 permanent residents. €5 entry. It will not exist forever.

2. Calcata

An abandoned medieval town repopulated by artists in the 1960s. Galleries, workshops, vegetarian restaurants. On a tufa cliff above the Treja valley. 50 min from Rome. Pop: ~100 in the old town.

3. Sermoneta

Caetani castle (€7, one of the best-preserved in Lazio), medieval centro, Giardino di Ninfa below — called "the most romantic garden in the world" (€15, open limited dates, book ahead). 1h from Rome.

4–7

4. Vitorchiano — peperino stone town, Easter Island moai replica (gifted by Rapa Nui). 5. Bolsena — volcanic lake, eucharistic miracle site, best eels in Italy. 6. Subiaco — St. Benedict's first monastery (Sacro Speco), built into a cliff. 7. Arpino — Cicero's birthplace, cyclopean walls (pre-Roman), wool tradition.

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