THE HOLLOW WAYS

Huge works, up to 20 meters deep and about 3 meters wide, the Vie Cave are large canyons dug into the valley's tuff below Pitigliano. It is easy to count them, they are 15. It is difficult to understand the reasons for their construction. A sacred network of links between various Etruscan places of worship? A defense system where the inhabitants of the area could hide in cases of enemy attacks? A series of corridors useful for moving livestock? It is not known with certainty. Although the most credible hypothesis is that they were used both for the sacrificial rites of animals celebrated by the priests and like roads.

And while you think about it, you start walking along some of it, maybe that of Fratenuti, 0.5 km east of Pitigliano on the road to Sovana, which is full of Etruscan graffiti; or that of St. Joseph passing by the Fontana dell'Olmo with the head of Bacchus, where the procession of the spring equinox that ends in Piazza Garibaldi in Pitigliano passes on March 19; but there is also that of San Rosso, near Sorano, which with its 2 km leads to the homonymous necropolis, and there is a beautiful walk of 8 km from Pitigliano to Sovana that for some sections passes inside of the Vie Cave and others on the hills: you must leave Pitigliano behind leaving the Via Porta di Sovana, reach the provincial road, go over the bridge on the Lente and follow the signs for a path that goes up into the woods.