Usignola / Tufa Hill Towns of Central Italy

Architectural Style

Tufa Hill Towns of Central Italy

Etruscan-founded settlements carved into and built upon volcanic tufa rock — a shared geology and a shared, slowly eroding fate.

3 villages

Pitigliano

Tuscany (Maremma), Italy

Pitigliano rises directly from a tufa cliff in Tuscany's Maremma, its buildings seemingly continuous with the rock beneath them.

I Borghi più belli d'Italia

Civita di Bagnoregio

Civita di Bagnoregio stands alone on an eroding tufa pillar, reachable only by a footbridge — no vehicle has ever been able to reach it.

I Borghi più belli d'Italia

Sovana

Tuscany (Maremma), Italy

Sovana, a frazione of Sorano with barely more than a hundred residents, sits above an Etruscan necropolis carved into the surrounding tufa cliffs.

I Borghi più belli d'Italia