What is Bagnoregio known for?

Eroding tuff-plateau frazione one kilometer east, sixteen residents, accessible only by a footbridge built in 1965. The dying town. The plateau loses centimeters of edge each year to landslides; the 1695 earthquake started the modern collapse. Franciscan theologian and biographer of Saint Francis, born Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnoregio in 1221, named Doctor of the Church.

Bagnoregio is a comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio region of Italy, about 72 kilometers from Terni.

Lazio · Viterbo

Bagnoregio

The Etruscan-founded hill town in Tuscia whose frazione Civita di Bagnoregio sits on an eroding tuff plateau, reachable only by footbridge.

72 km / 45 mi

Nearest hub (Terni)

3,364

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Why come

Bagnoregio sitson a tuff ridge in northern Lazio, sixty kilometers from Perugia and a hundred north of Rome. The town itself is small and quiet, but it is famous for what comes next to it: Civita di Bagnoregio, the frazione one kilometer east, a separate Etruscan-founded village stranded on a tuff plateau that erodes a few centimeters every year. After the 1695 earthquake split Civita from the rest of the commune, the population emptied; today sixteen people live there year-round. A reinforced pedestrian bridge built in 1965 is the only access. Civita is on the Borghi più belli d'Italia list and on most northern Lazio itineraries, and Bagnoregio, the larger and older town it grew out of, is where the bridge starts. Saint Bonaventure, the medieval Franciscan theologian and biographer of Saint Francis, was born here in 1221.

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Gallery

10 photos · scroll →

Known for

Ponte pedonale di Civita
Reinforced concrete pedestrian bridge built in 1965, replacing the donkey path that connected Civita to Bagnoregio after the 1695 earthquake.
Civita di Bagnoregio
Etruscan-founded frazione on an eroding tuff plateau, sixteen permanent residents, accessible only by the 1965 footbridge.
Cattedrale di San Donato (Bagnoregio)
Episcopal cathedral in the larger town, with works tied to the cult of Saint Bonaventure, born in Bagnoregio in 1221.
Valle dei Calanchi
Badland valley of eroded clay and tuff that surrounds Civita, the geological process that has been carving the plateau for two millennia.
Chiesa di San Donato (Civita)
Romanesque-Renaissance church on the small piazza of Civita, holding a fifteenth-century wooden crucifix attributed to the school of Donatello.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September through October are when Civita is at its best. The light is low, the hill mist rises off the calanchi at dawn, and the path across the bridge is bearable in temperature. July and August reach the low thirties; the open bridge has no shade, and the small piazza of Civita can hold no more than a few hundred visitors at a time. November through March is the quiet season. The bridge stays open year-round, with a small access fee charged since 2013, and winter fog over the calanchi produces the photograph most people associate with the place.