In Viterbo: the Tuscania loop

November 5, 2021

We were pleased this morning to wake up and find the weather forecast looking rosier than it had last night. This has been the pattern lately - at night the forecast is for daylong showers, but in the morning conditions have improved considerably. Today it looks to stay dry until about two - enough time for us both to get out.

For some reason Rachael has decided she’d prefer a hike to another spin along Viterbo’s enticing roads, so she does the research and finds a hike east into the hills that backstop the town on that side. We’ll look at her hike later in a separate post.

I want to see the countryside to the west though, and choose a loop through Tuscania and past Lake Bolsena - one I’ve been eyeing for a few days in the hopes that weather would permit. I’d mapped it counterclockwise, but in a strategic error at the last minute I create a copy of it in the reverse direction because if I run out of weather and have to cut the ride short I’d rather see Tuscania than the lake.

Why was this a strategic error? Because when you select the ‘reverse route’ option on RideWithGPS it creates an exact reversal of the original, ignoring such considerations as one way roads. It takes me about three miles and a half hour to escape Viterbo as I find myself walking down the sidewalk going the wrong way on traffic-clogged one way streets or striking out on side roads hoping to find a viable alternative out of town only to discover that they end up in dead ends in a field.

A very frustrating way to start a ride, especially one where it’s not clear how much time I have. The only positive aspect is that I’m alone and don’t feel guilty for hauling Rachael through this mess.

Lest you’re harboring any misconceptions, Viterbo is neither bike friendly nor car friendly. In our time here, the road skirting the east side of the walled city always looks like this. Ahead is the Porta Fiorintina, one of the nine gates through the walls. The cars aren’t streaming in though - the road bends left just in front of the gate.

Finally though I’m out; and after the first few miles on the minor highway to Tuscania the traffic lessens with every mile as the low contour countryside opens up and I cycle past small farms and agricultural estates with a different feel than anywhere else we’ve biked on this tour. Italy is so diverse!

A few miles out of town the traffic thins out quickly. It takes six or seven miles in this direction though before it’s really a relaxed ride.

The entrance to an agricultural estate, its long driveway lined with olive trees. As soon as I stopped to look the gate started swinging shut. There’s an electronic sensor up on the right keeping a suspicious eye on me.

I’m not the only biker out today, but almost. There’s this other guy on the road, the only one I’ll see all the way to Tuscania.

As I near Tuscania the terrain becomes more contoured and the land mostly forested.

I’m anxious to see Tuscania, a place Rachael and I have been before - but I’m not sure why any more because it’s been long enough that memories have faded and I have a poor record of the experience to refresh them. This is another of those unfortunate tours that I kept no journal of - this one was a specacular loop in 2011 that began and ended in Pisa. After about a ten day loop through Corsica and northeast Sardinia we caught the ferry back to the mainland and biked north through Lazio and Tuscany, ending up in Cinque Terre.

I didn’t keep a journal and I came home very disappointed with the photos. I was carrying a nearly brand new camera, an earlier version of the one that I use today, and one I had really loved so far. On only the second day of the tour though I was taking a photo of Rachael on the beach in northern Corsica at this stunning spot we remembered from our first tour of Corsica eight years earlier:

The Santa Maria tower, near Macinaggio on Cape Corse. Corsica is ringed with towers dating back to the Genoese occupation. Many of them are strikingly beautiful, but this must be the most spectacular of the lot.

Somehow the opened camera slipped from my hands and landed on the rocks, shattering the lens. As a result the entire tour was shot with my Android phone, with a camera that was way less than satisfactory. Crushing. It was a fantastic tour in spite of it though and I do have at least some photographs from it, poor though they are. Maybe this winter I’ll dredge them and a few memories up and cobble together a journal before I forget any more than I already have.

Anyway, back to today. I don’t really remember much from our pass through northern Lazio, when we visited all three of its large volcanic lakes - Bolsena, Bracciano and Vico - along with several important Etruscan towns. I remember being impressed by Tuscania in particular but I don’t really remember why. Once I bike up to it today though, it’s immediately familiar.

I think Rachael and I must have taken the same traverse through town ten years ago, but in reverse direction because we were traveling southeast from Tarquinia. Seeing it now reminds me of how amazed I was biking through it the first time, and now as I was then I’m arrested by the colorful sight of the Church of San Lorenzo. When I first bike up to it.

And, then as I do now, afterwards I read up on Tuscania and learned that this beautiful church is only a very minor sight in this ancient town, one not even included on its list of top attractions. If I’d kept a journal and referred back to it today I’d have known to make time to find the Church of San Pietro, dating back to 739 AD; and the fountain of the seven cannelle. Maybe next time? Is it realistic to think I could find myself in Tuscania a third time some year? Probably not.

Looking up at Tuscania, an ancient place. The Etruscan town was established by at least the 7th century BC, but the legend is that it was founded four centuries earlier by Aescanius, son of Aeneas. He allegedly named the town Tus-cana because he found 12 dog pups here.

Entering Tuscania along the Via Claudia.

The 18th century Church of San Lorenzo: one of the minor sights in the city, but one that attracts me for its weathered colors and the views from its small piazza.

Sarcophagi line the wall of the piazza beside the Church of San Lorenzo.

Even though I don’t find my way to the A-list sights I spend quite a bit of time in Tuscania, nearly exhausting my time budget for the day. When I finally leave it’s two o’clock and it’s still 20 miles if I want to include Lake Bolsena. The dry weather is holding up for me, so when it comes time to make a decision I opt to go for it. But I keep a good pace, hoping to make it back to the room by about four. No way do I want to find myself biking back into Viterbo in the dark again. If a car doesn’t kill me, Rocky will.

It’s eleven miles to Lake Bolsena from Tuscania, through beautiful country on very quiet roads the whole way. It’s the most attractive part of the ride.

Heading north from Tuscania, in the direction of Lake Bolsena.

North of Tuscania. I was surprised to see how many olives are grown here. I associate them with southern Italy, but not this far north.

Hoping to make it to the lake and then home before the weather turns, I take a shortcut on a side road to shave a few miles. With a surface like this most of the way though it’s about a wash.

Like Tuscania, I recognize Lake Bolsena the instant it comes into sight. Biking along the quiet crushed limestone road bordering the lake, it places for me a favorite memory from that earlier tour - one I’ve thought of many times since but couldn’t recall which of the three volcanic lakes it occurred at. It was here, on this crushed limestone path. It was earlier in the fall then - sometime in early October of a drought year - and this trail was dry and dusty. And made dustier by a small herd of hogs being driven down the road by a man walking behind, keeping them in line with a long, whiplike stick. Just a cameo snapshot memory that I love to think back on still.

The lake has a different feel today. Quieter, with almost no one else about other than a few fishermen lining the lakeshore - and very beautiful with the changing vegetation.

After that, I’m on a mission to get home safely before dark. The home stretch begins with a short but steep climb out away from the lake, one my Garmin registers as 22% - the steepest pitch of the entire five month tour, and one I’m just about to give up on when I suddenly round a bend and see the crest ahead just in time. And, like at earlier spots on today’s ride, this triggers a memory also. Rachael and I biked up this road ten years ago too, at least until we gave up with it on our loaded bikes and pushed the rest of the way.

The ride back to town is about what I expected - reasonably quiet at first, but busier and less comfortable with every mile. At least I get the navigation right this time and stay right side up on the one way streets, and arrive not long after four while there’s still plenty of light.

Leaving Lake Bolsena, following one final beckoning road of the tour - one that unfortunately climbs at 22% just around the bend.

Rachael was only lukewarm about her gnocchi serving and left some for me. Not much left to get excited about, but the plate was worth a photo.

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Ride stats today: 41 miles, 2,200’; for the tour: 2,827 miles, 103,800‘

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 2,727 miles (4,389 km)

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