A countryside weekend an hour from Rome: Tuscia versus the Castelli Romani and the coast, and two days of villages, hot springs and lake, from people who live here.
Look for a countryside weekend near Rome and you usually end up on one of two roads: the Castelli Romani, pressed up against the city, or the coast, where the green is a backdrop to the traffic. There is a third answer, and few people know it yet: the Tuscia, the countryside around Viterbo. An hour from Rome, just past Orte, the landscape changes: oak woods, tufa gorges, villages perched on cliffs and a silence the city has long forgotten. We live here, in Bassano in Teverina. This is our way of explaining why it is worth the drive, and how to spend two days here.
A real hour, door to door
The first argument is logistics, and it is a practical one: the A1 motorway to the Orte exit, then fifteen minutes of country road, and you have arrived. An hour from north Rome, not an hour according to an optimistic sat-nav: no hairpin bends, no restricted traffic zones, no parking apps, because the car stays inside the property. And if you miss the city halfway through your stay, Rome is one regional train away from Orte: go for the day, and come back to the quiet in the evening.
Castelli, coast or Tuscia: an honest comparison
Three kinds of countryside, three characters. None of them is wrong: it depends on what you are after.
- Castelli Romani: the closest, with their lakes, their wine and their rustic taverns. But they are joined to the city: there is green, but you have to look for the silence.
- The coast: the sea within reach, but in summer the Sunday-evening queues back into Rome come with the package.
- Tuscia: an hour on the road, almost all of it motorway. Fewer people, smaller villages and, within the same radius, a lake, hot springs and woods. A few extra kilometres buy you the silence.
If you are travelling as a couple, the Tuscia-or-Castelli comparison written with two people in mind is in our piece on a romantic weekend near Rome.
Seven reasons to choose the Tuscia countryside
1. The silence
On the first day it is almost startling: no traffic, no horns, no neighbours behind the wall. Crickets in the evening, birds in the morning. It is why an out-of-town stay works here even when it only lasts two nights.
2. A pool without the resort
At the villa there is a pool in the middle of the garden, shared between the three units and open from mid-May to mid-October: no sunbeds to claim at dawn, no entertainment team. If what you want is a weekend of nothing but the pool, you will find it all there.
3. Villages a few minutes away
Within three quarters of an hour: Bomarzo and its Sacred Wood at 10 minutes, Vitorchiano hanging on its cliff at a quarter of an hour, Celleno, the ghost village, at half an hour, and Civita di Bagnoregio above the badlands at 45 minutes. Plus the Renaissance gardens of Villa Lante in Bagnaia, about twenty minutes away.
4. Hot springs
Twenty-five minutes away, in Viterbo, are the Terme dei Papi: a large open-air pool fed by a spring that rises at 58 °C, and on Saturdays you can stay in the water until one in the morning. If you prefer bathing in the open with no turnstiles, there are still free thermal pools around the city.
5. The table
Truffles, lake whitefish, wild boar, new olive oil in autumn, and Est! Est!! Est!!!, the white wine of Montefiascone: Tuscia cooking is simple and seasonal, and the trattorias in the villages are the place to discover it. If you would rather cook, there is the apartment kitchen or the outdoor kitchen with its barbecue, and shopping at the market becomes part of the trip.
6. Easy logistics
The Orte motorway exit is 15 minutes away, parking is inside the property, and there is wifi throughout the grounds for anyone who has to open the laptop again on Monday. The weekend starts when you switch off the engine, not after half an hour hunting for a space.
7. Your time is yours again
This is the reason that holds all the others. There is no list of sights chasing you here: there is a long coffee in the garden, an outing if you feel like it, a book if you do not. The real luxury is a day without a timetable.
The weekend in practice: two days
An outline, with real driving times from the villa. Take it as a suggestion, not a duty. Check-in is from 3 pm, so if you arrive on Friday evening you have the whole of Saturday.
Saturday
- Morning: the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo, 10 minutes away, among stone monsters and woodland paths. If you are happy to drive further, Civita di Bagnoregio is 45 minutes away.
- Afternoon: at the villa. The garden, a book and, from mid-May to mid-October, the pool.
- Evening: dinner in a village. Vitorchiano is a quarter of an hour away, the medieval quarter of Viterbo 25 minutes.
Sunday
- Morning: check-out is by 10 am in the apartments and by 11 am in the Cottage. Load the car and head for Lake Bolsena, 40 minutes away, or the Terme dei Papi, 25.
- Afternoon: lunch by the lake or in town, then home along the A1, well away from the queues coming back from the beach.
From mid-October to mid-May the pool is closed, but the plan still works: villages, hot springs and good food have no season. For ideas, see our winter weekend near Rome and truffles and chestnuts in Tuscia.
Where to stay
We are in Bassano in Teverina, right in the middle of this radius. Villa Vacanze Valentina is a villa in the green near Rome, but not a villa rented as a whole: inside are two apartments, side by side, each sleeping up to 4 and each with its own kitchen; outside, standing apart, is the Lovers' Cottage for two, with its own bathroom, its own private garden and the porch. The large 3,000 m² fenced garden, the pool and the outdoor kitchen with barbecue are shared between the three units. A real home, not a room. Pets are welcome in the apartments (one, for a supplement), not in the Cottage; breakfast is not included.
If you are comparing several places, here is how to choose the right holiday home around Viterbo. Everything about our holiday home with a pool near Rome is on its page, and you book directly on the website, with no middlemen.
