Photo Mac9, CC BY-SA 2.5
Viterbo · Lazio
Things to see in Calcata
In Calcata the atlas lists 12 historic places: 7 archaeological sites, 2 museums, 1 abbey or monastery, 1 fortress or tower and 1 historic villa or palace.
Of these, 1 list opening hours and 1 has free entry.
Don’t miss: Opera Bosco, experimental open air museum-laboratory for contemporary art, near Calcata, IT.
- 12historic places
- 905inhabitants
- 220 maltitude
The town
Calcata is a small hill town in Lazio near Rome in central Italy. It is, perhaps, the most unusual village in Italy.
It was a sacred ritual site used by the Faliscans, who came before the Romans, and it used to be claimed as the location of the foreskin of Jesus.
In the 1930s, the government condemned it for fear that the 50-m-high cliffs it sits on were crumbling and the whole village was in danger of collapsing. Most of Calcata’s inhabitants moved to the nearby newly built town, Calcata Nuova (New Calcata), leaving the old village more or less deserted.
But the old town survived and in the late 1960s and early 1970s, artists and “hippies” began moving in. They occupied the abandoned houses before eventually buying them from the original owners.
Text from Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA, abridged · Wikivoyage
12 places
Archaeological sites 7
Museums 2
Abbeys and monasteries 1
Fortresses and towers 1
Villas and palaces 1
Getting there
By car. From Rome, take the Cassia Bis highway (SS2) and exit at Sette Vene. Follow signs for Calcata. Parking is limited and mainly along the side of the road that passes Calcata. In the high season this may involve quite a long walk to get back to the village.
By bus. Hourly Cotral buses leave from the Saxa Rubra bus station to the north of Rome. The journey time is about 45 minutes although this could be much more on sunny weekends.
Text from Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA, abridged · Wikivoyage