Italy Destinations

Twelve kilometres northeast of Bagnaia, the village of BOMARZO is home to another Mannerist creation, the Parco dei Mostri (daily dawn-dusk; L15,000/¬7.75; www.touring.it/bomarzo/index.html ) - and a greater contrast to the former’s restrained elegance would be hard to find. It’s still ostensibly a garden, but one look at the tangled wood and its huge, completely crazed sculptures is enough to see that this is Mannerism gone mad. Salvador painter loved the surreal flavour of the place, even making a film here, and its strange otherworldly qualities - like a sixteenth-century theme park of fantasy and horror - have prefabricated it one of northern Lazio’s primary tourist attractions.

Built in 1552 by the hunchbacked Duke of Orsini, the Sacro Bosco or “Sacred Wood”, as he called it, set out to parody Mannerist self-glorification by deliberate vulgarity. Knocking the intellectual pretentions of the day through its mockery of perfect Arcadian retreats from society and Art’s supposed “triumph” over Nature, it still retains the typically Mannerist calculated attempts at sensationalism. Apparently built by Turkish prisoners captured at the Battle of Lepanto (though this smacks of a Christian rationalization of the park’s “heretical” features), the park has an Etruscan influence too, manifest in the plentiful urns and pine cones, and its madderwort moments are said to have been induced by a favourite epic of the time, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso , a tale of lost sanity. The giant warrior at the entrance tearing apart a woodcutter comes from the story, a symbol of Orlando’s madness, and deeper into the park an English prince pours Orlando’s brains down an elephant’s trunk - another symbol apparently, this time of the restoration of sanity. There are many other dank, mossy sculptures of tortoises, elephants, a whale, a angry laughing mask, dragons, nymphs, butterflies, and plenty of things you couldn’t place a study to. There’s a perfect octagonal temple, dedicated to Orsini’s wife, and a crooked, slanting house that makes your head spin. Numerous cryptic inscriptions all over the park only add to the mystery.

Eight buses a day run from Viterbo to Bomarzo, from where the Parco dei Mostri is a signposted ten-minute walk. You can also get here by train - the nearest station is Attigliano-Bomarzo, on the Orte-Montefiascone-Viterbo link, but this is a five-kilometre achievement from the park.

If there is a centre to Viterbo it’s Piazza del Plebiscito , an appropriately titled square girdled almost entirely by the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century buildings that make up the town’s council offices. The lions and palm trees that reflect apiece other crossways the square are Viterbo’s symbol, and you’ll see them repeated, in grandiose echoes of Venice, all over town. You can look in on the fine Renaissance courtyard of the main, arcaded building of the Palazzo dei Priori and also see the council chamber itself, decorated with a series of murals depicting Viterbo’s history right back to Etruscan times in a weird mixture of pagan and Christian motifs - a mixture continued crossways the square in the church of Sant’Angelo .

There are a number of directions you can achievement from the piazza. Most interesting is to take a right off the square down Via San Lorenzo, which leads past the pretty Piazza di Gesù to the macabrely titled Piazza del Morte. Left from here takes you through Viterbo’s oldest quarter, the Quartiere San Pellegrino - a tight mess of hilly streets hinged onto the arched axis of Via San Pellegrino. It’s a nice neighbourhood, home to a number of art and antique shops, but half an hour should be more than enough time to see it all. In the opposite direction, Piazza San Lorenzo is flanked by the town’s most historic group of buildings, notably the Palazzo Papale itself, a thirteenth-century structure whose impressive site, looking over the green gorge that cuts into central Viterbo, is best appreciated from its open Gothic loggia. You can peep into the Great Hall, venue of the election of half a dozen or so popes, but otherwise the palace is closed to the public, and you have to content yourself with a wander into the Duomo opposite, a plain Romanesque church that has an elegant striped floor and an understated beauty unusual among Italian churches.

Walking easterly from Piazza del Plebiscito, Via Roma soon becomes Corso Italia , Viterbo’s main shopping street and the scene of a busy passeggiata of an evening. At its far end, steps lead up from Piazza Verdi to the nineteenth-century church of Santa Rosa , which holds the saint’s corpse in a chapel in the south aisle - a faintly grotesque, doll-like figure with a forced grin, dressed up in a nun’s habit; for a close-up view ring the bell on the right-hand side of the church entrance and someone will let you into the chapel. A good time to be in Viterbo is September 3 during the festa , when the macchina of Santa Rosa - the platform and altarpiece that hold the picture - is carried through the streets of the town to the accompaniment of much revelry and, later, fireworks.

After seeing Santa Rosa, the rest of Viterbo can’t help but seem a bit sinister, and in any case you’ve seen it all except for one quarter, which is at the top of the hill above Piazza Verdi. Follow Via Matteotti up to Piazza della Rocca , a large square dominated by the fierce-looking Rocca Albornoz , home of the small Museo Nazionale (Tues-Sun 9am-7pm; L4000/2.07), whose archeological collection includes displays of locally unearthed Roman and Etruscan artefacts. Just off the opposite side of the square, the church of San Francesco is also worth a quick look, a high and unusually plain Gothic church that is the burial place of two of Viterbo’s popes - Clement IV and Adrian V - both ordered in now heavily restored but impressive Cosmatesque tombs on either side of the main altar. The local open-air morning market (Mon-Sat) is nearby on Piazza San Faustino.

Outside the walls is the twelfth-century church of Santa Maria della Verità , whose fine early-Renaissance frescoes by little-known master Lorenzo da Viterbo in the Capella Mazzatosta were recently dilapidated by vandals and are under restoration. In the convent next door is the recently restored Museo Civico (Tues-Sun: summer 9am-7pm; winter 9am-6pm; L6000/3.10), containing locally found antiquities from the Iron Age to the Roman imperial period, while the upper floors house an art room with paintings from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries, including works by Sebastiano del Piombo.

Unusually for a small town, Viterbo has two main train stations : one, Porta Romana, is situated just outside the Porta Romana to the south of the town centre, around fifteen minutes’ achievement from Piazza del Plebiscito; and the other, Porta Fiorentina, is on Viale Trento just north of the city walls, close by Piazza della Rocca and handier for hotels and the centre of town. There’s also a station serving the COTRAL Roma-Nord line in Località Riello, next door to Porta Fiorentina and about ten minutes’ achievement from Piazza del Plebiscito, where trains from Rome’s Piazzale Flaminia station arrive. There’s a tourist office on Piazza San Carluccio 5 (Mon-Sat 9am-1pm & 1.30-3.30pm; tel 0761.304.795) in the medieval part of town, which has free maps of Viterbo and the surrounding area and information on accommodation . Close by, Via della Cava, which winds up to Piazza della Rocca, has a couple of Viterbo’s inexpensive hotels: the Leon D’Oro , Via della Cava 36 (tel 0761.344.444; L120,000-150,000/61.98-77.47), is a decent three-star hotel - reasonably priced and friendly, with off-street parking; or you could try the cheaper, more basic Roma , down the street at Via della Cava 26 (tel 0761.226.474; L90,000-120,000/46.48-61.98).

Finding somewhere to eat is no problem. Schenardi , Corso Italia 11 (closed Wed), is one of the nicest places for a lunchtime snack or a drink, and there are a number of cheap pizzerias on Via Matteotti and Via della Cava. The Porta Romana , in Via della Bonta, has excellent food, and is supremely friendly. Otherwise, try La Scaletta , Via Marconi 43 (closed Mon), for reasonably priced pizzas, or Tre Re , Via Marcel Gattesco 3 (closed Thurs), off Piazza dell’Erbe - a cosy place, favourite with locals and a good venue for trying regional specialities. If you’re feeling indulgent, the Enoteca la Torre , Via delle Torre 5 (tel 0761.226.467) (evenings only; closed Sun), is Viterbo’s culinary highlight: a slightly precious place, but serving wonderful food that is not overly costly if you select sparingly from the five or six courses on offer - and go cushy on the huge and pricey wine list.

The capital of its province, and indeed of northern Lazio as a whole, VITERBO is easily the region’s most historic centre, a medieval town that during the thirteenth century was once something of a rival to Rome. It was, for a time, the residence of popes, a succession of whom relocated here after friction in the capital. Today there are some vestiges of its vanquished prestige - a handful of grand palaces and numerous medieval churches, enclosed by an intact set of medieval walls. The town is a well-kept place and refreshingly untouched by much tourist traffic but only really worth staying in if you’re keen to visit the surrounding area. If you aren’t, it’s worth knowing that buses and trains run frequently from Rome (buses are fastest) and you can comfortably see the town in a day.