I set off bright and early on this Sunday morning at 8am to catch the bus to Cerveteri, home to one of the most famous Etruscan necropoli. The various guides (we have seven) suggested it would be completely easy; catch the blue COTRAL, or regional, bus from the Cornelia metro stop, and it should be at Cerveteri in 90 minutes. Lovely, except for that fact the COTRAL stop signs are tiny white squares affixed to the huge yellow ATAC signs, so I first wandered for a block in a particularly unpleasant area of outer Rome, wondering where the bus would stop, and then saw a series of blue buses head for a particular spot. I ran over and asked the driver of the first if he were going to Cerveteri; he said no, but the one behind him was--just as that bus, of course, pulled away.
Forty-five minutes later, another bus, this time helpfully labeled with Cerveteri on the front, pulled up, and a huge crowd appeared from virtually nowhere to board an already full bus. Now, I had been assuming this Cerveteri would be some out-of-the-way location and that I would enjoy a leisurely bus ride, but instead I stood in the aisle of said bus for 90 minutes, unable to see any signs indicating how far we'd come, and worried that two older Italian women whom I asked had no idea, apparently, where Cerveteri even was. Finally, the mystery of the crowded bus was solved when everyone got off at Ladispoli, a beachside town. Our bus then proceeded to park in the square and turn off; the driver said something that included the word Cerveteri, and then got out of the bus and closed the doors on us behind her. We sat there for fifteen minutes, until another bus pulled up, and everyone got off ours and onto that one; finally, I was able to ask the driver if we were indeed going to Cerveteri, and it turned out to be the next town over. Here, I managed to successfully request the right stop (you basically have to know where you're going so you can ping for the next stop) near the museum. At last!
I got into the museum for free since I was a student, but it was very unimpressive, and the reclining couple sarcophagus that I love and which the guides said was there was nowhere to be foumd, though its picture was on the brochures. After a very unsatisfying lunch from the only open bar in town, I headed off to the necropolis, 2km outside town on a very pleasant and shaded road. The entrance here, too, turned out to be free, which was quite nice. From the difficulty it had taken me, at least, to get there, I was expected it to be somewhat deserted, but there were three or four tour groups wandering around, all but one of which were French. I have some kind of magnet on me for French tours, it seems.
Necropolis, of course, means city of the dead, but nowhere is that more literally interpreted than in Cerveteri. The Etruscans laid it out on a gridded city plan, completely with main streets and side streets (several still with chariot tracks embedded in the tufa), filled with mansion-sized tombs as well as comparatively humble tenement-style ones. I wandering around for more than two hours, and it was incredibly easy to get turned around, inasmuch as there were all sorts of paths, steps, and even bridges (later additions, in that case) leading you off in different directions, as well as different levels and entrances to individual tumuli, and as every structure in the place is a tumulus, it's rather hard to find a landmark! When the woman at the entrance gave me a map, I didn't expect I would actually consult it, but I seriously underestimated the size and complexity of the site.
The Lonely Planet said of Cerveteri that you would feel like you were climbing around the set of Indiana Jones, and they weren't kidding. You're clambering up over worn-away stone steps and bare rocks, squeezing through plant-filled apertures between tombs, and climbing down steep flights into tombs so far below ground that you could see your breath in the air. It was not a place to be claustrophobic or afraid of the dark; some of the tombs had artificial lights placed in them, but many didn't, and even the lit tombs had passageways leading off into darkness. When you're thirty feet underground and the only one in this icy cavern, you can imagine all sorts of unpleasant things coming out of a hold like that! At the very least you might expect a rat, but there were none. In one tomb I apparently disturbed a bird while it was napping, and the fluttering of its wings reverberated in the chamber and was so freakishly loud--and more importantly, between me and the exit--that I jumped and yelled and then felt ridiculous. On the whole though, I felt awfully adventurous, especially as I was going it alone and not in these tour groups, but I did find several instances where my courage failed but I knew that Sean, had he been there, would have immediately considered it a challenge: in one case, I was on a higher level about ten feet above the road, and my choices were to go back around the other side of the tumulus, or inch my way along a foot-wide ledge around the side of the tomb bordering the road toward a crumbled staircase that looked like it hadn't seen a human foot in a hundred years. (Guess which one I chose).
After my exploring was over and I walked back to town, I missed the bus by a minute, and had to wait an hour in the blazing sun, as it was 1pm on a Sunday and even that one terrible bar had closed. My company was a strange old man who insisted on speaking to me in half-English and whom I could really barely understand; he told me that there were too many communists in the country, and that he didn't like where he grew up in Piedmont, nor did he like it there in the south, because everyone was stupid. He also said repeatedly, "Italia e finito!" Basically, a grumpy old man, the same the world over; just smile and nod. Anyway, on the bus back I did have a seat, which was a huge blessing, and it was a much less eventful ride. It was worth any mild travel difficulties for that experience!
No comments:
Post a Comment