Tolfa: The Undiscovered Medieval Village Near Civitavecchia
Drive inland from Civitavecchia port and within ten minutes the sea is gone. The road climbs through oak woods and open pasture where long-horned grey cattle graze, and then a strange shape fills the windshield: a steep cone of volcanic rock with a ruined castle on top and a town fanned out below it. That is Tolfa, a medieval village about 20 km from Civitavecchia that most cruise passengers never hear about, even though it sits closer to their ship than Rome's traffic does.