Bassano in Teverina is Villa Vacanze Valentina's home village, so we are biased — but the recognitions speak for themselves: one of Italy's Most Beautiful Villages and, since 2025, a Touring Club Orange Flag. A village of 1,300 souls on a tuff spur above the Tiber valley, with a story of destruction and rebirth and an architectural secret few people know. Here is the complete guide, written by people who live here.

The tower's secret: a bell tower hidden for 400 years

Bassano's landmark holds one of Tuscia's most curious stories. The Clock Tower, 25 metres of peperino stone built by the Madruzzo family between 1559 and 1571, is not what it seems: it is a shell. In 1976, during consolidation works, labourers discovered that inside the Renaissance tower hid — walled up and forgotten — the Romanesque bell tower of the 1100s belonging to the church of Santa Maria dei Lumi, complete with mullioned windows and rare human figures carved on its columns. An "animated bell tower" swallowed by a tower for four centuries. Today you visit by walking through the gap between the two structures: an experience unique of its kind (weekend openings by booking, eighteenth-century majolica clock face included).

The village: destroyed in 1943, reborn today

On 25 November 1943 a German train loaded with munitions exploded at Bassano's station: the old village, already fragile on its cliff, was declared unsafe and abandoned. For decades it was a ghost town. Then, from the 2000s, the rebirth: the cliff consolidated, dozens of houses restored, the village repopulated — today it is one of Lazio's most successful recoveries, and walking it means reading both stories. Worth seeing: the medieval-rooted church of Santa Maria dei Lumi, the Old Fountain of 1576 with the Madruzzo crest, the church of the patron saints Fidenzio and Terenzio, and the walkway along the walls: a kilometre on the edge of the plateau, the Tiber valley beneath your feet.

Nature: the Tiber, the trails and a lake of legend

From Bassano starts CAI trail 134: down through the woods to the Tiber, past ancient Roman brick kilns, and up to the micro-village of Mugnano in Teverina (80 inhabitants, an Orsini palace and a view that repays the climb) — a loop of about 3 hours, perfect in the early morning. In the plain towards Orte hides Lake Vadimone: today little more than a sulphurous pond among the fields, but in 309 and 283 BC it was the battlefield where Rome broke the Etruscans forever. Pliny the Younger described its floating islands: a place of memory, not an attraction — and that is its charm.

The village calendar

Bassano comes alive in summer: the Renaissance re-enactment "Alla Corte di Alfonso De Lagnis" in mid-July, with a costumed procession through the alleys; the Pizza Festival at mid-August; the Estate Bassanese season of concerts and open-air cinema; and in late September the patron saints' feast with fair and fireworks. Real village life, not tourist events — which is the beauty of it.

Fifteen minutes away: three gems

  • Vitorchiano — the "suspended village" on its peperino cliff, with a thirteenth-century double ring of walls and a surprise below the belvedere: an authentic Moai, carved in 1990 by sculptors from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in local stone.
  • Orte — the historic centre on the tuff and underground Orte: guided tours through hypogeal fountains, Etruscan-Roman tunnels and dovecotes (€8, weekends). In early September the Medieval Ottava turns the town back into the 1300s.
  • Bomarzo — with the Sacred Wood, which needs no introduction: 10 minutes and you are among the stone monsters.

Where to stay in Bassano in Teverina

Here we play at home, literally: Villa Vacanze Valentina sits in Bassano's greenery, with the pool, two independent apartments and the Lovers' Cottage. From the gate: Bomarzo 10 minutes, Orte and the station for Rome 10, Viterbo 25, Civita and the lake under 45. The most strategic village in Tuscia — and now you know its secret too. If you are thinking of staying more than a day, here is our guide to where to stay near Bomarzo.