Tuscania Geography, Climate & Nature

Tuscania rises, as is typical of this part of the Viterbese, on tufa promontories — seven of them — set between the river Marta and the Fosso Capecchio.

Those promontories dominate the valley of the Marta and allow it to be controlled, which is the whole strategic logic of the site. The valley is an important route of communication and transhumance that since prehistory has joined Lake Bolsena with the Tyrrhenian Sea, near present-day Tarquinia — so this town sits astride the link between the largest lake in the region and the coast.

Along the western part of the comune, towards Arlena di Castro, a wide wooded area extends, with elevations not exceeding 300 metres, identified by the place-names Pianaccio, Poggio della Madonna, Pian delle Rusciare and Poggio Porciaro.

The comune falls in climate zone D with 1,654 degree-days — the middle of the Lazio range, inland but not upland.

Tuscania has the inland climate of the Viterbese, in the volcanic country between Lake Bolsena and the coast.

The national classification places the comune in zone D with 1,654 degree-days — milder than the Cimini uplands to the east, cooler than the Tyrrhenian strip to the west.

The terrain is low. The wooded western part of the territory, towards Arlena di Castro, has elevations not exceeding 300 metres, so there is no real altitude effect across the comune.

Spring and autumn are the right seasons for a town whose attractions are open tufa ground and rock-cut tombs.

Summer is warm and dry inland, and the Marta valley funnels the connection to the sea that moderates it a little.

Tuscania sits in the tufa country of the Viterbese, and both its habitats and its archaeology come out of that rock.

The wooded western part of the comune, towards Arlena di Castro, is the most substantial natural habitat — a wide forested area with elevations not exceeding 300 metres, named in the local toponymy as Pianaccio, Poggio della Madonna, Pian delle Rusciare and Poggio Porciaro.

The water system is the Marta and the Fosso Capecchio, which flank the seven promontories the town stands on. The Marta valley is the corridor: a route that since prehistory has connected Lake Bolsena to the Tyrrhenian near Tarquinia, used for transhumance as well as trade — so it has been a corridor for moving animals for millennia.

The rock-cut necropoleis are, incidentally, habitat: twelve distinct cemeteries carved into soft tufa provide exactly the cavities that bats and crevice-nesting species use.

And the archaeology protects ground that would otherwise be ploughed.

The wildlife here belongs to inland Viterbese farmland, woodland and river valley.

The western woods towards Arlena di Castro are the main block of continuous habitat in the comune, below 300 metres and extensive.

The Marta valley is the connecting corridor, running from Lake Bolsena down to the Tyrrhenian near Tarquinia. It has carried transhumance since prehistory, which is a reminder that this is a worked landscape rather than a wild one.

The Fosso Capecchio provides a second, smaller watercourse flanking the town's promontories.

Rock-cut tombs in soft tufa — twelve necropoleis' worth — offer cavity habitat of a kind that built landscapes rarely have.

Pressure from visitors is minimal: Tuscania is among the least-visited archaeological towns in this set.