Cerveteri was the Etruscan city of Caere, one of the richest and most powerful in Italy in the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ, and its dead lie in houses. The Banditaccia necropolis, on a ridge outside the modern town, is a city of tombs: round mounds of earth on stone drums, laid out along streets and squares, each containing rooms cut in the soft volcanic rock to look like homes, with beds, benches, columns and carved ceilings. The Tomb of the Reliefs, with stucco images of household objects, shows how the Etruscans pictured the afterlife. UNESCO listed the necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia together in 2004.
Walking among the mounds is an unusual experience. Cypress and pine trees give shade, the paths are clear, and the sounds of the town fade away. The site is open most days, though hours change with the season, and the museum in the town holds finds from the tombs, including painted vases of great beauty. A famous Greek vase, the Euphronios krater, was dug up illegally near Cerveteri in the 1970s, sold to a New York museum and returned to Italy decades later.
The riding is a matter of flat roads and fast traffic. The Via Aurelia runs along the coast, with trucks and cars heading for Rome, and the modern roads are busy. The old centre of Cerveteri has narrow streets, and the road up to the necropolis is a gentle climb. Better riding lies inland, in the hills behind Cerveteri, where the lanes cross volcanic ridges and quiet farmland, with views of Lake Bracciano and the Tolfa Mountains. The surface is fair, the bends are easy, and the country is empty at weekdays.
The town has sixteen thousand people and fuel, bars and trattorias. Marina di Cerveteri, on the coast, is a seaside resort of nearly eight thousand that is quiet in winter and packed in summer. Local white wine, from the Cerveteri denomination, goes well with fish and pasta.
Visit in spring or autumn when the weather is mild. Summer is hot, and the stones of the tombs hold the heat. The Appian Way, on this ride, is a very different monument to Roman power, a long road of paving stones heading south.