bacco garage doors canada

A Piece of God

Calcata is not easy to get to. From Rome's Flaminio/Piazza del Popolo metro stop, you jump on a light rail for about twenty minutes before getting to the Saxa Rubra bus station. Buy your bus tickets (be sure to get a round trip) and then wait for a big blue bus to arrive at platform number two. In the meantime, try to avoid the salty regulars who park themselves on a bench near the snack bar, nursing large Peroni beer bottles and trying not to fall over.

The bus to Calcata goes north up the Via Cassia, one of the most important of the ancient Roman roads. Two thousand years ago it was trafficked with wagons and military officers on horseback moving between Rome and Florence. Today, the Cassia-the new Cassia, that is-swarms with buzzing Vespas and Fiat-driving manias who rocket up the highway like they were on a high-speed police chase.

The bus turns off at Sette Vene and then twists and turns through a patchwork of low-rolling, villa-topped hills and olive tree groves. It then passes through the village of Mazzano Romano before descending into a valley, which today makes up part of a regional park called Valle del Treja.

Calcata sits almost halfway between the Cassia and another ancient Roman road turned modern-day thoroughfare, the Via Flaminia; because of this, Calcata was largely inaccessible until about midway through the last century, when roads were finally paved to the village. As the bus winds its way through the verdant forest and back up a hill, you come around the bend and there it is: Calcata, an ancient hill town, a medieval island, magically suspended in the air.