GTL 12 Lazio From Stimigliano To Orte

SORATTE AND SURROUNDINGS

A challenging and fascinating stage, the first in the land of the Etruscans: from here to the end of the GTL, for its entire northern arc, we will cross necropolises, tuff walls and roads cut into the stone and woods, the legacy of a people still partly mysterious and then merged into Roman civilization. From Stimigliano we cross two large "barriers", the Tiber first and then the Autostrada del Sole, to find ourselves in front of the only great giant that stands alone in the Agro Romano: Monte Soratte. With its unmistakable profiles, it is a limestone massif from which numerous hiking and mountain bike trails start, and has always stimulated the imagination of poets, writers and travelers, first of all Horace. To move around these hilly and often winding territories, the GTL 12 uses two European cycle paths, the Eurovelo 5 Romea Francigena and the Eurovelo 7 We continue along winding roads to Sant'Oreste, then Faleria, an ancient settlement of an ancient Lazio population, the Falisci, until we reach one of the pearls of Upper Lazio: Calcata, perched on a block of tuff in the middle of the Treja valley, is a village that seems to isolate itself from the rest of the world, once a refuge for hippie municipalities, today for craft shops. We continue descending into the woods of the Treja river valley, where there are also many paths and bridleways for fascinating detours such as the one to the Monte Gelato Waterfalls, a real locus amoenus used as a set for many films. From here we make a long bend to cross the Treja river to the north (there are no crossing passages except for very bumpy and impervious), and reach the two pretty villages of Nepi, a Borgia stronghold, and Civita Castellana, which gathers around its Fort San Gallo. Still through the countryside and woods, this time on the western bank of the Tiber, the last kilometers of the stage to Orte flow, also perched on a tuffaceous block and certainly worth a visit.