The Footbridge to Civita

One bridge, no cars, ten residents. Everything that reaches Civita -- people, shopping, cement, the bins going out -- crosses a reinforced-concrete footbridge built in 1965, because the ground that used to connect the village to Bagnoregio has eroded away and is still going. Since June 2013 crossing has cost 5 euros, and the receipts were enough to abolish communal taxes in both places. A village of ten people pays for its own comune out of a turnstile.

Visit if you:

• want the approach to be the attraction: the bridge is where Civita is seen whole
• are interested in a settlement that is being lost in real time, and in the engineering that answers it
• like the economics of this -- a toll on a footbridge funding two municipalities

Skip it if you:

• cannot walk a long, steep, exposed ramp. There is no vehicle access and no lift
• want shade or shelter: the crossing is in the open from end to end
• object to a charge for entering a village. The charge is the village's income

The pedestrian rule is a structural rule. This is a 1965 concrete bridge landing on an outcrop whose clay base is actively eroding, and the only vehicles permitted are the cycles and motorcycles the comune lets residents and authorised persons bring across at set times. That concession exists because people live and work up there, not as a gap to be exploited.

The 5-euro ticket is the village's income and not a tourist tax in the ordinary sense. Introduced in June 2013, it raised enough to abolish communal taxes in Civita and in Bagnoregio itself -- so about ten residents and a comune are being funded through the gate. Buying it is the mechanism; the long list of exemptions, from under-6s to licensed guides to anyone with 100 per cent certified disability and a companion, is published.

What is being worn is the thing people come for. Civita's base layer is a marine clay particularly subject to erosion, under tufaceous and lavic upper layers, and the erosion is fast -- torrents, weather, and historic deforestation. Most of the Etruscan chamber tombs that once lined the base of the cliff have already gone into landslides. The village is called the dying city because the process is unfinished.

And this is a street, not a viewing platform. Ten people's shopping, post and building materials cross it on foot, in both directions, all day.

The bridge is restricted to pedestrians. To meet the needs of residents and workers, the Municipality of Bagnoregio permits those people -- and others it authorises -- to cross by bicycle or motorcycle at certain times; no other vehicle crosses at any hour. Expect a long, steep, exposed ramp with no shade and no shelter, and a climb through the Porta di Santa Maria at the far end.

Crossing has been chargeable since June 2013, at 5 euros a head bought at the gate. Two ticket offices rotate under the comune's tourist-flow plan: Piazzale Battaglini on the busier days -- Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays -- and Mercatello, near the bridge, on quieter ones. If you arrive without a ticket, go to Piazzale Battaglini: on a quiet day it has parking from which the village is a 15-minute walk, or a shuttle runs to the Belvedere, and on a busy day it is the office that is staffed. Tickets can also be bought online in advance or through the free Civita di Bagnoregio app, in Italian and English; queries go to +39 3248660940 or biglietteria.civita@gmail.com, 8:00-20:00.

Free entry applies to a published list: children under 6, residents of the borgo, citizens of the comune of Bagnoregio and their closest relatives, guests of house owners and clients of holiday lets inside Civita, licensed tourist guides accompanying a group and licensed interpreters, registered journalists with a press card, one adult per ten paying pupils on a school trip, students and teachers of schools in the comune, museum and heritage-site directors on written invitation from the comune, and anyone with 100 per cent certified disability together with one companion each.

The crossing is the exposed part of any visit to Civita, so the season matters more here than at most monuments: no shade, no shelter, and a long climb at the end. April to June and September to October are the comfortable months. Midsummer on bare concrete over bare clay is the combination to avoid, and the bridge is the first thing a visitor meets rather than the last.

Light is the other consideration, because the bridge is where the village is photographed from. Early and late are the hours when the outcrop has modelling rather than flat glare, and they are also the quietest: Civita is busiest at midday and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, which is exactly when the comune's flow plan switches ticketing to the larger Piazzale Battaglini office. The village's own calendar adds its own crowds -- the Palio della Tonna on the first Sunday of June and the second of September, the Tuscia in Jazz Festival across the last week of July and the first of August, the living nativity at Christmas.