Visit Date: April 27, 2019, approximately 1:00 p.m.
This is the Italian version of “Tour of the World’s Most Beautiful Villages,” which has somehow become my life’s work. I’ve done a series of articles on France and Spain, but never on Italy. However, this is not my first visit to a beautiful village in Italy.
We visited almost 20 places during our trip to Southern Italy in 2014. The reason why I haven’t made a series despite this is that at the time I went to Southern Italy, I was disillusioned by the fact that so many of the most beautiful villages in Italy were unnecessarily large and very disappointing compared to France and Spain, although of course there were exceptions. Since then, I dared to avoid visiting beautiful villages in Italy.
However, five years have passed since then, and I’ve eased the tensions of that time, and this time I decided to resume my tour of Italy’s most beautiful villages for the first time in about five years, because this area has many villages with a relatively calm and medieval atmosphere compared to Tuscany, Umbria and the south.
Now, the first beautiful village in this trip is Civita de Bagnoregio. This village is very popular and famous because it is a day trip enough from Rome. Maybe it is the most popular among the most beautiful villages in Italy. I believe you can get there by bus.
We, of course, by car. The day we visited was Saturday, so it was surprisingly crowded with many people. However, you can’t approach this village by car. You have to park your car in the town of Bagnoregio, which also belongs to the village’s commune, and then walk for about 20 minutes. There were several parking lots, including on the street, because it is indeed a famous tourist spot. However, it was difficult to find a space.
By the way, Bagnoregio means “the king’s bath”. The village has a long history, and the name of the town was first mentioned in an ancient document in 599. You will enter the town of Bagno Reggio, and from there you will go to Civita, which is designated as a beautiful village. It’s not easy to find your way around, but all visitors have the same goal: to visit Civita, so if you follow the flow of people, you’ll definitely reach the entrance of the village.
Of course, the town of Bagno Regio itself is small, with many street vendors and restaurants, and is a very interesting place to visit.
After passing through the busy streets of Bagno Reggio, a large, hollowed-out valley appears before you. Here, for the first time, tourists can see the city of Civita as if it were floating in the air. This sight is very impressive.
To get to the inside of Civita, once you leave the town of Bagno Regio, you have to go down the valley. However, you don’t have to go to the bottom of the valley, you just have to go down to the entrance of the bridge to Civita. Civita is really an isolated island, so the only bridge to get there is this one, which is accessible from the town of Bagno Regio. However, at the entrance of this bridge, you will be charged 5 euros. If you go there, it is the fee to enter the village.
We paid the money and crossed the bridge, but there were a lot of people.
Around here, I became half-confident, saying, “Hey, is it something that can be expected in contrast to the beautiful village that is quiet and empty…” But I ran up the bridge that becomes steep around the entrance of the village at once, and the doubt was cleared at once the moment I passed through the gate of the entrance.
The view from the outside is definitely one of the best among the beautiful villages in European countries, but the atmosphere inside and the beauty of the buildings were also top class.
The landlocked area is very small, no, it’s exactly the size of a beautiful village. There were certainly a lot of people, a lot of open air, restaurants and cafes, but it wasn’t overly secular and had a nice touch to it.
The tower of the church of San Donato, the central association of the village, was severely damaged by the earthquake in October 2016. The tower was damaged by the earthquake in October 2016. We have made a small donation to help them.
There are some accommodation facilities in the village, so you can stay inside. However, it may be quite difficult to go to the village with your luggage in this crowded place. In case of car, it is easy to go to the hotel with only minimum luggage, and I often do it, but still, this distance and so many people are a bit unpleasant.
When we were crossing the bridge to the sky village, we were a little worried about the clouds behind us, but when we arrived at the village, it cleared up completely and we were able to take a lot of good pictures under the clear sky.
Are the villages of Lazio and Tuscany as beautiful as you’d expect from a midway area in southern Italy? This was our first visit to a beautiful village in 2019, which gave us such high expectations. This time, we averaged about two to three villages per day, and visited famous towns and World Heritage Sites as well. I will introduce them sequentially.
