Nature here creates magical, sometimes mystical atmospheres. When nature becomes inspiration, works of art are originated, and your eyes and heart open wide. We enter the fairytale woods of Lazio, where you feel the desire of losing yourself to find yourself, just as it happened to Alice in Wonderland.
We begin by visiting the Valle del Treja Regional Natural Park, a fairy forest between Mazzano Romano and Calcata. It is a potpourri of slopes, hills and cliffs, whose long geological history has been influenced by the Sabatino and Vicano volcanoes, from which the lakes of Bracciano and Vico originated. Eruptions have covered the rocks; atmospheric agents and the flow of water have carved out the valleys..
Treja Valley Park
In this natural landscape, among old dirt paths opening onto the waterfalls of the Treja River, Etruscan and Faliscan temples, together with the remains of medieval churches, are preserved. We can admire the waterfall of Monte Gelato, with its pouring energy. Its charm has captured the attention of film directors since the 1950s, such as Rossellini with “Francesco, Giullare di Dio”, Zeffirelli with “The Story of a Blackcap”, “Wanted”, the spaghetti western with Giuliano Gemma, Orson Welles in the adventurous “Treasure Island” and in “Don Quixote” and the unforgettable Franco and Ciccio in “Two Mafiosi in the Far West” as well as the Italian comedy by and with Nino Manfredi “By Grace Received”.
Monte Gelato waterfalls
Now let us go back to the narrow gorge where the Treja River flows, curiously in the opposite direction to the sea, among majestic specimens of poplars, elms, alders, willows, and black elders. The latter is a small tree with black-purple fruits, with which jams are made and which blooms between May and June, showing large umbels of white flowers used in aromatic frittelle (pancakes) and in an ancient vinegar recipe. Beautiful Roman women used elderberry ashes to lighten their hair to blonde. The wood was used to make whistles and flutes for the sambucistrie, the women players portrayed on the Attic vases, and the sambukè (triangular harp).
Elderflowers
Here we find Via Amerina, an important land and water communication route through which Rome has controlled the Mediterranean basin for about seven centuries. Through perched villages, necropolises and mysterious castles, the Via Amerina has been running along the Treja valley since the 3rd century B.C. and takes its name from the ancient town of Ameria, at the end of the first section. Porcupines, wild boars, buzzards and, maybe, pointed-eared elves sneak discreetly among the elongated shadows of trees and ruins.
The Via Amerina
Let’s move a little further north to the ancient beech forest in the Cimini mountains and, as if by magic, we find ourselves in the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland, surrounded by large old trees that rise between boulders covered with moss. A spectacular picture that only nature could paint, so sublime that it was named a UNESCO Heritage Site in 2017.
Ancient beech forest of the Cimini Mountains
Gigantic fifty-metre beech trees proudly display their trunks more than one metre wide and have been whispering stories and anecdotes for two centuries in the silence of the forest. It is a fairytale route in Soriano nel Cimino that winds slowly through paths to be covered on foot, on horseback or by mountain bike.
The Sasso Naticarello
Follow the White Rabbit until you reach the summit of Monte Cimino and you will see large boulders of magmatic rock. They have been staying there, dormant, after the volcanic eruptions of a million years ago. Today they are a challenge for bouldering practitioners. Particularly appreciated by the lovers of this kind of climbing is the Sasso Naticarello, a trembling cliff even mentioned by Pliny the elder in his “Naturalis Historia”. It is an enormous “egg” eight metres long, six metres wide and three metres high, weighing approximately 250 tons, balanced on a rocky ledge at the edge of the beech forest.
Nowadays in the feared “Ciminia Silva”, that dark, sacred and impassable forest, so much that the ancient Romans erected small temples dedicated to Jupiter Cimino, famous movies have been shot, such as “Il Marchese del Grillo” by Monicelli, “Yado” by Richard Fleischer, and the 2019 TV series “Il Nome della Rosa”.
Sacro Bosco
Fantastic and grotesque sculptures are scattered without apparent logic in a wooded area; the work of the architect Pirro Ligorio, author of the Villa d’Este fountains in Tivoli, and of Vicino Orsini in the middle of the XVI century.
Let us now move to the mysterious Sacred Wood of Bomarzo, with its many enigmas to solve. Fantastic and grotesque sculptures in a wooded area are scattered without apparent order by the architect Pirro Ligorio, the creator of the fountains of Villa d’Este in Tivoli, and by Vicino Orsini in the mid-1500s. In a continuous up and down immersed in wild vegetation, the large boulders, originated by telluric movements, have been artfully carved to create an original Monster Park, extremely different from the elegant Italian gardens in vogue at that time. Bizarre and frightening, the Sacred Wood is a labyrinth of symbols, often enormous, which convey contrasting feelings, from amazement to nightmare. This irrational mixture of art, literature and nature was inspired by chivalric poems, where “sacred” means “bewitched”.
Enigmatic inscriptions referring to Ariosto and Petrarca, houses in apparent precarious balance, enormous monstrous masks and mysterious mythological animals overlap the symbols hidden everywhere and inspire eclectic artists such as Salvador Dalì. Maybe there is no meaning to seek, no answer. Is this what the inscription Sol per sfogare il core (just to relieve your heart) suggests?
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 true pyramid with a truncated shape and unknown origins in the heart of Tuscia.
Etruscan Pyramid
On a small terrace overlooking the Valle del Fosso Castello, we can enjoy a unique panoramic view of the hamlet of Chia and the castle where Pier Paolo Pasolini lived. Here, among high peperino cliffs, you can find an enormous stone, about 16 metres high, on which several steps leading to an altar have been carved.
Some believe it is an Etruscan construction from the 7th century BC, and others think it is the work of a “mythical” prehistoric civilization that had been living in the Teverina area in Viterbo since 4000 BC, the “Rinaldoniani”. They have also been mentioned in the Old Testament for their extraordinary stature and ability to dig the stones and create homes and tombs carving the cliffs. For the Rinaldoniani this site was probably an astral observation point, while for the Etruscans a sanctuary, but its function as a sacrificial place is undeniable, as evidenced by the presence of drainage channels. There have been several changes over the centuries, especially in the Middle Ages, but the aura of mystery continues to hover over this monument.
We are now going to visit the Sasseto Forest Natural Monument, called “the Snow White Forest”, at the foot of the Torre Alfina Castle, one of “I Borghi più belli d’Italia” (the most beautiful villages in Italy).
Sasseto Forest
In Acquapendente, in the heart of the Monte Rufeno Natural Reserve, the overwhelming beauty of the monumental Sasseto Forest made it elect one of the “twenty Enchanted Sites in Italy” according to Swide magazine.
Monte Rufeno Nature Reserve
Oaks, Quercus Cerris, beeches and holly trees with centuries-old disheveled leaves, as well as boulders wrapped in green moss and ruffled ferns surround the paths. Through the twisted, lumpy branches, you can see the battlements of the Monaldeschi Castle, the ancient water mill, the Fosso Subissone Waterfall in Aquilonaccio, and the tomb of the Marquis Cahen.
Torre Alfina Castle
This is the story of a man who, at the end of the 19th century, loved this wild place so much that he made it accessible in order to make it his final home. It is the story of Edoardo Cahen, the marquis who started the Italian branch of a Belgian banking family of Jewish origin.
He purchased a vast estate in Torre Alfina, which included the castle, part of the village and the underlying, then impenetrable, forest. He created a maze of paths in the monumental forest in perfect harmony with nature, and a small Neo-Gothic Mausoleum for himself, hidden among the trees of this fairy forest. Nowadays you can enjoy fifty hectares of wood, to regenerate yourself and get back to your childhood with your nose turned up.
Are you ready for the silence and the howling wind that ruffles your hair? Stop, it is time to get lost, and to find yourself again.
The persistence of memory – Salvador Dalì