Sleep cures all ills – and we are up and at’em early (Ed earlier than I). On the road around 9ish, our plans are to visit the outdoor museum and hike a bit of the vie cave trails before lunch in Pitigliano. The vie cave are literally “cuts” through the tufa built by Etruscans, which always connect to a necropolis. They surround the town of Pitigliano and are reportedly great hikes, although some we researched were pretty steep. We’ve chosen one of the shorter ones to explore today.
Since we previewed the route out of our garage, the drive out of town is simple, and the GPS sets us on the correct course, which we’ve driven before. Out through the countryside, past farmland and the big lake, then into Pitigliano where we turn away from the town and wind our way down switch back roads toward the open air museum, stopping at a viewpoint for an excellent view of Pitigliano built up upon the tufa.
Driving on, we reach the open air museum right after 10am, which is their opening time. The parking lot is empty, save for one camper type van, which is a little worrisome. Upon finding the ticket office, we understand why – the museum is only open on the weekends now. Darn it! Their website said NOTHING about that – seriously! Ok, so one more epic fail in Pitigliano, but we still have le vie cave, so all is not lost. We retrace our steps and park in the little alcove above la via cave Madonna d. Grazie. It’s only 450 meters to the necropolis, and there are stairs from the parking area, so we begin our descent pretty easily. But once the stairs end, oh my! It’s it totally treacherous, walking down a steep path made completely out of concrete and rock, oh, and completely covered over in moss. Yeah, this is not what we expected, not to mention neither of us have really good hiking shoes. Ed has skater shoes (totally flat soles) and I have worn out Sauconies. Not ideal.
The scenery is amazing, great views of Pitigliano and fabulous rock formations that the Etruscans carved the road into, but still…it’s not all that fabulous. And while we’d love to see the necropolis, its certainly not worth a twisted, or worse, broken ankle. We’re normally quite adventurous, but we give up on this excursion halfway down, turning back – in the company of a little friend – to reach the car without incident and proceed into Pitigliano proper.
Back up the switch back road, hanging the treacherous u-turn at the city’s entrance, we find parking right away, and of course, we remember we don’t need to pay between 1 and 3, so we only buy a couple of hours time. Our new plans are to visit the Orsini Palace, since we weren’t able to visit on our last trip.
The palace dates back to the 12th century, the basic structure built by the Counts of Aldobrandeschi of Sovana. The daughter of one of the counts married Romano Orsini, came to live in Pitigliano and ordered the palace/fortress built to include 3 circular towers and walls closing in the courtyards, thus beginning the Orsini reign over Pitigliano. In the mid-1400’s, the fortress is demolished and the grand palace is built in its place as the resident for the counts. Over the years, the palace has been updated to accommodate new firearms protections, additional bastions and other fortress like protections. By the early 1600’s it is ceded to the Medici family and then to the Lorena family where halls were divided, false ceilings installed and new windows opened up the facade.
Eventually the a portion of the palace was given to the Bishop of Sovana as his residence, and slowly the entire palace became his abode. A restoration begun in the 1980s transferred the working offices of the Diocese to the northern side of the complex in order to turn the rest of the lodging into a museum. Even though we are only allowed into half the complex (with no photos allowed, I might add) it is still a staggeringly huge place. We first explore the Zodiac room with an incredible fresco painted ceiling representing the zodiac (that was just restored in 2012). Actually, all throughout the palace it is fascinating to see where restoration efforts have taken place – half the original art is still in place, half restored. Some of our favorite rooms were the Noble and Count rooms, with amazing wood painted ceilings and frescoes. A great example of redecorating is also found in the last room, the Sala P. Aldi, where you can see the original frescoed ceiling and wall decorations, covered over with the “new” style decorations (new meaning 1700’s!).
The most fascinating of the rooms though, was room 14, the no-name room where different instruments of torture were on display. Hmmmm…who was into this? This Orsini’s or the Bishops? We’ll leave you to ponder that question! At the bottom of the palace is the Oil production room, Olialia. Here are the original millstones and presses for the production of olive oil, plus a poster providing information on how it was all used. A pretty interesting journey back into time.
We’ve spent an hour or so inside, and now it is time to wander the little village lanes wasting time until finding lunch.
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