Monte Cimino is the highest point of the Cimini hills, an old volcanic range rising to just over a thousand metres between Viterbo and the Tiber valley in northern Lazio. Its top is clothed in one of the most beautiful beech forests in Italy, unusually low for beech in this latitude, and UNESCO counts these trees among Europe's ancient beech forests. On a hot summer day, climbing into its shade from the baking plain feels like entering a cathedral.
Near the summit lies the Sasso Menicante, a huge block of volcanic rock balanced so finely that, according to tradition, it could be rocked by a person's push. Pliny the Elder mentioned it. Below the mountain, on its western side, the Lago di Vico fills an ancient caldera, a round lake surrounded by forest and hazelnut groves, protected as a nature reserve. Hazelnuts are the main crop of the whole area; you will see orchards of them everywhere, and chestnuts too, which are celebrated in autumn festivals.
The Romans regarded the Ciminian forest as dark and impenetrable, and Livy describes the army hesitating at its edge during the war against the Etruscans. Today the hill towns around it are among the most charming in Lazio. Soriano nel Cimino is crowned by a massive Orsini castle, Caprarola has the extraordinary pentagonal Villa Farnese, and Canepina and Vallerano are quiet villages of grey stone.
For riders this is a superb playground. The roads climbing from Viterbo, Soriano and Ronciglione to the summit and around Lago di Vico are twisty, well graded and lightly trafficked on weekdays, with a mix of tight hairpins in the forest and faster bends through the orchards. Watch out for leaves and moss on shaded corners, hazelnut harvest machinery in late summer, and local riders who know every bend. Soriano nel Cimino, with five and a half thousand people, has fuel, bars and restaurants; Viterbo is a larger city with everything. Try the local pork, chestnut dishes in autumn, and the wines of the nearby Lake Bolsena area. Rome is less than an hour and a half away, so the Cimini make a great escape from the capital.