Alice in wonderful Lazio

The combination of nature and art in Lazio create magic, sometimes mystical atmospheres, inspiring our heart and fascinating our eyes. Let us explore the fairy woods, where we will get lost and find ourselves again, just as it happened to Alice in Wonderland.

The “Parco Naturale Regionale Valle del Treja”, an enchanted forest between Mazzano Romano and Calcata. is a potpourri of slopes, hills, and cliffs, whose long geological history has been influenced by the eruptions of the Sabatino and Vicano Volcanoes (from which the Lakes of Bracciano and Vico originated), weather phenomena and the slow flow of surface waters.

Ancient dirt paths lead to the area of the Treja Waterfalls, which preserves Etruscan and Faliscan temples, and the remains of medieval churches. We also can admire the powerful Monte Gelato Cascade, whose charm inspired since the 1950s famous movies, such as “Francesco, giullare di Dio” by Rossellini, “Storia di una capinera” by Zeffirelli , “Wanted”, the spaghetti western with Giuliano Gemma, the adventurous “Treasure Island” and “Don Quixote” by Orson Welles, the unforgettable “Due mafiosi nel Far West” with Franco e Ciccio, and “Per grazia ricevuta” with Nino Manfredi.

Among majestic poplars, elms, alders, willows, and black elders, the Treja River curiously flows in reverse along a narrow gorge. The small elder trees produce black-purple fruits perfect for jams and, between May and June, large umbels of white flowers, used to prepare aromatic frittelle and an old vinegar recipe. Beautiful Roman women used elderberry ashes to lighten their hair, and the wood was used to manufacture triangular harps, the sambukè, and the flutes of the sambucistrie, portrayed on the Attic vases.

Via Amerina, whose name derives from the ancient town of Ameria, is the important route which allowed Rome to control the Mediterranean basin for around seven centuries. Crossing perched villages, necropolises and mysterious castles, the Via Amerina has been running along the Treja Valley since the third century B.C. Porcupines, wild boars, buzzards and, who knows, maybe some pointed-eared elves, sneak about the elongated shadows of the trees and the ruins. Let us try to capture them with a snap!

A little further north we reach the Ancient Beech Forest of the Cimini Mountains. As if by magic, we find ourselves in the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland, surrounded by huge centuries-old trees and moss-covered boulders. Fifty-metre beech trees with over one-metre-wide trunks have been whispering their stories for two centuries in the silence of the forest, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017. Let us follow the White Rabbit and experience an exciting excursion on foot, horseback or by mountain bike in Soriano nel Cimino.

On the summit of Mount Cimino, large magmatic rocks, originated by the volcanic eruptions of a million years ago, challenge today daredevil bouldering practitioners. Particularly appreciated is the Sasso Naticarello, or “sasso menicante”, a trembling cliff mentioned by Plinio il Vecchio in his “Naturalis historia”. This egg-shaped rock, balanced on a ledge at the border with the beech wood, is eight metres long, six metres wide and three metres high, and weighs approximately 250 tons.

The feared dark Silva Ciminias is the forest once sacred to the ancient Romans, who erected there small temples dedicated to Jupiter Cimino. In modern times, it has been the set of famous movies, such as “Il Marchese del Grillo” by Monicelli, “Yado” by Richard Fleischer, and the 2019 TV series “Il Nome della Rosa”.

Regarding mysteries, unmissable are the puzzling Sacred Woods of Bomarzo, with its amazing grotesque sculptures, wanted by Vicino Orsini and created in the mid-1500s by Pirro Ligorio, the architect of the Villa d’Este Fountains in Tivoli.

Immersed in a wild nature, the huge telluric stones have come to life, artfully sculpted into dreadful monsters. The illogical, frightening Monster Park, extremely far from the elegant Italian gardens in vogue at the time, is a labyrinth of symbols, a bizarre mixture of art, literature and nature, inspired by chivalric poems, where “sacred” means “bewitched”.

The enigmatic inscriptions from Ariosto and Petrarca, the precariously balanced house, the enormous ogre mask and the mysterious mythological animals inspired eclectic artists such as Salvador Dalí. The writing on an obelisk “Sol per sfogare il core” means the entire park is a place aimed only at finding serenity, leaving out grief.

Still stunned and doubtful, we cannot resist the temptation to visit the Etruscan Pyramid of Bomarzo, less than five km from the Sacred Forest. A much older mystery, a real truncated pyramid of unknown origins, in the heart of Tuscia.

On a small terrace overlooking the Valle del Fosso Castello, we will enjoy an exceptional view of the hamlet of Chia and the castle where Pier Paolo Pasolini had lived. Here, among the high peperino cliffs, stands an enormous stone, about 16-metres-high, on which several steps leading to an altar have been carved.

Some believe it to be an Etruscan work from the seventh century BC, and others bring up a mythical prehistoric civilization that had lived in the Teverina Viterbo area since 4000 BC, the Rinaldoniani. They were also mentioned in the Old Testament for their extraordinary tall stature and ability to dig stone and to carve houses and tombs in the cliffs. The pyramid was probably for the Rinaldoniani an astral observation point, and, for the Etruscans a sanctuary, but its function as a sacrificial site is undeniable, as evidenced by the presence of drainage channels. Although undergoing several changes over the centuries, especially in the Middle Ages, this monument still retains its aura of mystery.

And now let us set off for the Monumento Naturale Bosco del Sasseto, also called  “the Snow White Forest”, at the foot of the Torre Alfina Castle, in one of The Most Beautiful Villages in Italy.

In Acquapendente, in the heart of the “Riserva Natuale Monte Rufeno”, lies the magnificent Monumental Sasseto Forest, elected one of “The Twenty Enchanted Sites in Italy” by the Swide magazine. Centuries-old oaks, beech trees and hollies, big stones covered in green moss, and ruffled ferns flank the paths to the Monaldeschi Castle, the ancient water mill, the Fosso Subissone Waterfall in Aquilonaccio, and the tomb of the Marquis Cahen.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the Marquis Edoardo Cahen, who started the Italian branch of a Belgian Jewish banking family, chose this place as his final home.  He purchased a vast estate in Torre Alfina included the Castle, part of the village and the near impenetrable fifty-hectares forest, where he created a maze of paths in perfect harmony with nature and a small Neo-Gothic Mausoleum for himself, hidden among the trees.

Prepare to enjoy this silent, fairytale atmosphere and the howling of the wind that ruffles your hair!