Tarquinia sits on a hill a few kilometres inland from the Tyrrhenian coast, in the northern tip of Lazio where the land starts to feel more like Tuscany. The town was called Corneto until 1922, when it took back the name of the Etruscan city of Tarchna that once stood on the neighbouring plateau. The old centre is tight, brownish stone, medieval towers, and a few good small piazzas; the main reason people come, though, lies on the Monterozzi ridge just outside, where the Etruscans built their necropolis.
Those tombs are the real wonder. Many are cut into the soft rock and painted inside, with banqueting scenes, dancers, musicians, hunters and fishermen in colours that still look fresh. Names like the Tomb of the Leopards and the Tomb of the Augurs are worth looking up before you arrive. They give a rare sense that the Etruscans were people who enjoyed themselves, and the necropolis is a UNESCO site shared with Cerveteri. In the town, the national museum is housed in a fifteenth-century palace and holds the famous winged horses from a temple of the city.
The riding is a pleasant mixture. Coming up from the Via Aurelia, which runs along the coast, you cross low rolling country of olive groves, cornfields, grazing and the odd cypress line. The roads around Monte Romano and the Tuscia are rarely crowded, the surface is generally decent, and the corners are gentle, not technical. This is a landscape for easy cruising, not hard attacking. Heat in July and August is heavy, and the middle of the day on the ridge feels like an oven; spring and autumn are far kinder.
Tarquinia is a proper town of twelve thousand people, so fuel, a pharmacy, bars and restaurants are all here. The seafood in this part of Lazio is straightforward and good, and a plate of pasta with local fish is the right reward after the necropolis. If you want a swim, the beaches at Tarquinia Lido are a short ride away, flat and dark-sanded, and not especially pretty but welcome after a hot day.
Rome is not far south, which is why this is a natural start for the Vatican ride. Heading north towards Assisi, you leave the coast behind and climb into Umbria with the day getting cooler as you go.