A quarter of an hour from Villa Vacanze Valentina there is a village that seems carved from the rock. Vitorchiano does not sit on the cliff: it is part of it. The medieval houses rise straight out of a huge spur of peperino, the grey volcanic stone of the Tuscia, fractured into boulders that become foundations, walls, stairs. They call it the "Hanging Village" (Borgo Sospeso), and it is one of Italy's Most Beautiful Villages. But the greatest surprise waits just outside the walls: the Moai of Vitorchiano, the only full-size Moai ever carved outside Easter Island.
New in 2026: Rapa Nui comes back to Vitorchiano
On 26 August 2026 a delegation from Rapa Nui, Easter Island, returned to Vitorchiano to see its Moai again. Among them was a granddaughter of the master sculptor Pedro Atan Pakomio, who led the carving in 1990. First a meeting at the town hall, then a traditional ceremony at the foot of the statue, with the island's music and dances. The visit opens a programme called "Hakamahana Matou Arinja Ora": the aim is to turn a friendship born more than thirty years ago into a lasting partnership, with a yearly event devoted to the music, art and traditions of Rapa Nui. If you like true stories, this is a good moment to come and see it.
The Hanging Village
Vitorchiano looks out over a gorge, and that is where its nickname comes from. Seen from the belvedere, the village appears suspended in the void: the peperino cliff splits into cyclopean blocks and the houses grow on top of them, continuous with the stone. You cannot tell where nature ends and human hands begin. No photograph quite captures it: you have to walk the alleys, beneath arches and porticoes of the same stone, then step out onto the Borgo Sospeso belvedere to understand why this corner of the Tuscia leaves you speechless.
The Moai: a piece of Easter Island in the Tuscia
And here it is, the unexpected wonder. The Moai of Vitorchiano is not a copy: it is an authentic work, about six metres tall. In 1990 a group of sculptors from the Atan family, who had travelled from Rapa Nui, cut it from a single block of peperino from a local quarry, working it with axes and stones, as their ancestors did for the great statues of the Pacific. The idea came from an Italian TV programme, RAI's Alla ricerca dell'arca by Mino D'Amato, which set out to raise funds for restoring the Moai on the island. They chose Vitorchiano because its peperino resembles the volcanic stone of home.
At first it stood in Piazza Umberto I; after a spell in Sardinia for an exhibition, it found its permanent place in Largo Padre Ettore Salimbeni, in the parking area facing the Borgo Sospeso belvedere. Stop and look at it, and think of the journey it made to get here.
