Beautiful Tarquinia: Tombs in the Italian Countryside

Where is Tarquinia? Why should you visit? And how do you get there? Read all about beautiful Etruscan painted tombs in this detailed guide.

The Etruscan necropolis (burial ground) of Tarquinia is the perfect site for an inexpensive day trip from Rome. Visiting ancient tombs might not seem like your idea of a fun time – but I promise you, it’s worth it.

Beautiful and otherworldly tomb paintings nestled in the rolling hills of the Italian countryside . . . what’s not to like?

I went to Tarquinia back in 2018, and I will try to convince you that you should visit, too! But this post is also a photo tour of the site, so even if you have no plans to travel to Italy, you can still enjoy the view and learn a bit about the ancient Etruscans.

If you do want to visit Tarquinia, make sure you pay close attention to my instructions on how to get there. It can be confusing if you don’t know what to expect!

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Where is Tarquinia, and why should you visit?

The city of Tarquinia is located 102 km (63 mi) north of Rome in the region of Lazio, Italy. Built on the hill Monterozzi, Tarquinia features many beautiful churches and a lovely view of the nearby Mediterranean coast.

You can walk around and enjoy the feel of an old Italian town while avoiding the hubbub of Rome. But the major attraction is the ancient Etruscan necropolis located 10-15 minutes outside of the city walls.

Throughout the 8th to the 2nd centuries BCE, the hillside gradually became covered with around 6,000 tombs. The burial mounds (or tumuli) popping up out of the hill earned it the name Monterozzi, “the rough mountain”.

This makes for a distinct landscape, but the really cool part is underground. There are around 6,000 tombs in the Monterozzi necropolis and about 200 of them are painted. These tomb paintings are beautiful and mysterious – definitely worth a day trip from Rome.

15 tombs are currently open to the public, including the famous Tomb of the Leopards. You descend via an entry tunnel (dromos) to a burial chamber hewn out of stone. And there, under the ground, you can gaze at two-thousand-year-old wall paintings.

The complex was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. As the necropolis website proudly proclaims, is the first chapter in a long history of Italian painting.

The Etruscans & the History of Tarquinia

The Etruscans, an ancient non-Indo-European people, were powerful in northern and central Italy before the Romans. The Romans took a lot of their customs from the Etruscans, such as haruspicy (otherwise known as telling the future based on animal entrails – lovely, I know).

If you would like to know more about this people and their quirky customs, check out my post about the Etruscans and their world. Or you can keep reading and dive straight into Tarquinia!

By the 8th century BCE, the Etruscans had settled on a long plateau, La Civita, across the valley from Monterozzi. They lived on La Civita, but buried their dead on Monterozzi. Thus the dwellings of the living and the dead faced each other across the valley.

After the rise of the Romans, the settlements on La Civita gradually disappeared. A new town, Corneto, sprang up on Monterozzi near the necropolis. In 1922, during the fascist era, Corneto was renamed Tarquinia in a nationalist attempt to hearken back to ancient roots. Thus the memory of the Etruscans lives on.

How do you get to Tarquinia and the necropolis?

Step 1: Getting to Tarquinia Station

I recommend traveling to Tarquinia by train. If you are coming from Rome, you can catch a train from Roma Termini station to Tarquinia for just €5.60 one way. The ride takes from 1.25 to 2 hours, depending on the time of day and the speed of the train.

It is easy to book tickets in advance on the Trenitalia website, but you can also just show up at the station and buy your tickets there. If you don’t speak Italian and want a more accessible experience in English, then you can book Trenitalia tickets via ItaliaRail.

Do not – and I emphasize, do NOT – book a trip that requires a transfer to a bus in Civitavecchia. I did this, and to this day I have no idea if the bus that Trenitalia sold me a ticket for actually exists or not.

It was only after wandering around for an hour in Civitavecchia and asking multiple locals for help that I managed to find a different bus headed for Tarquinia. I did make it there in the end, but it was stressful and tested my Italian to its limits. In short: take the train directly to Tarquinia!

Step 2: Getting to the City

The Tarquinia train station is a bit far from the city center (3.3 km). But fortunately, buses run from the station to the main gate of Tarquinia and from there to the necropolis itself. The company is Eusepi and the tickets (which you purchase on board) only cost €1.

To get to the main gate of Tarquinia, you take line BC from the station to Barriera San Giusto. The bus will drop you off right by the gate – and there is conveniently a tourist center right there, too!

You can look at the bus schedule on this site, but honestly, buses in Italy are always running behind, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention. Note that the feriale (weekday) schedule is first, and then the festivo (weekend) schedule is at the bottom.

Step 3: Getting to the Necropolis

From Barriera San Giusto, it is about 20 minutes on foot to the necropolis. I chose to walk so I could see the town and grab lunch on the way, and I highly recommend this. It was a lovely walk, but beware: it is all uphill. If walking isn’t your style, there are two other options for getting to the Necropolis.

Option 1 is to take Eusepi bus line D. The necropolis isn’t an official stop, but the bus will be going to the Cimitero (the cemetery, which is DIFFERENT from the necropolis) so you can simply ask the driver to let you off at the necropolis. (If you look up some Italian, it helps, but honestly, if you repeat “necropoli di Monterozzi” enough, the driver will probably understand what you want.)

Another option is the free shuttle (bus navetta) which leaves about every 20-30 minutes from near the Barriera San Giusto. There are three routes – A, B, and C – but they all go to the necropolis.

My top piece of advice, when traveling in Italy, is always ask the bus driver to make sure you are going to the right place.

Mention “Barriera San Giusto” when you want to go to Tarquinia, and “Stazione” when you want to go to the train station. Or “necropoli di Monterozzi” if you are heading to the necropolis. If you are polite, the drivers are happy to help you out. Never sit down on a bus without confirming the route first, because you could end up going in the wrong direction!

I also just want to emphasize one more time how cost-effective Tarquinia is. You can easily do the whole daytrip from Rome for under €50 (under €30 if you bring your own food).

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What is Tarquinia like?

Tarquinia is open every day except for Mondays and admission is only €6 for adults. As I mentioned above, 15 tombs are currently open to the public. The site is well-marked: each tomb features a sign with information in Italian and English.

If you want even more details, you can rent an audio guide for a few euro – and then they will give you a handy map, too!

Little huts have been built over the entrance ways of the tombs for conservation purposes, and stairs have been added over the original stone tunnels to facilitate access. On the walls, you can see where the brick of the modern hut meets the original stone.

At the bottom of the stairs, a glass panel separates you from the burial chamber and you can press a button to light up the room. At first I was disappointed that I couldn’t enter the burial chamber itself, but in the end I was impressed by how well the system worked and how clearly I could see everything through the glass.

Now it’s time for the fun part: photos of the tomb paintings themselves! All of the photos are my own, which means that they are all taken through the protective glass. You really can see amazingly well!

Tomb Paintings at Tarquinia

The painted tombs at Tarquinia are rock-cut chamber tombs, which means that they are rooms carved into the living rock of the hillside. Most tombs just have one chamber, but some have a door leading into a second room.

Typically several people were interred in each chamber. These were likely the elites of Tarquinia, since they were wealthy enough to make such conspicuous tombs.

Big Cats & Other Predators

In the Tomba Moretti we can see an extremely common motif: big cats! Lions and leopards often make an appearance in the upper register of the central wall.

In this tomb, the lions have blue manes. Such unrealistic coloring is typical in Etruscan art and was one of my favorite parts. It gave the tombs a very otherworldly feel.

Why were big cats so popular? They – along with bulls and sphinxes – served an apotropaic function. This means that the Etruscans believed these images would ward off evil. The blue-maned lions protected the tomb and its inhabitants.

Feasting

In the Tomba Bettini another common Etruscan motif appears: feasting! Etruscan funerals involved a banquet, and afterwards the family of the deceased would host athletic and equestrian games.

Perhaps Etruscans believed their loved ones were feasting in the afterlife. We don’t know for sure, but we do know that they returned to the tombs periodically to make offerings and hold commemorative feasts to honor the dead.

The most famous tomb open to the public is the Tomb of the Leopards, so named because, well, there are leopards (with particularly fierce tongues, too, I might add!). The men and women in this painting are feasting, too.

Note that they are lying down: the Etruscans adopted the custom of reclining at feasts from the Greeks, who took it from the ancient Near East. Nude servants walk among the couches serving wine and food.

Women did not dine with men in Greece, but they frequently appear in Etruscan banquet scenes. Because of this, scholars believe that Etruscan women may have had more influence and freedom than Greek women. Here the Etruscan artist has adopted the Greek custom of giving men red skin and women white skin.

The scene continues on the right wall. Here we can observe musicians playing the aulos (two-stemmed flute) and the cithara (lyre). Such musicians provided entertainment during feasts.

Do you see the little plants growing everywhere, even under the leopards’ tails? This preoccupation with filling up all the space is called horror vacui, literally “fear of empty space”. It is a fundamental characteristic of Etruscan art.

Journey to the Underworld

We don’t know much about the Etruscans’ vision of the afterlife, but we can tell from their tombs that they believed something was waiting beyond death. Doors frequently appear, and many scholars believe that they symbolize the entry into the afterlife.

These doors were often – as in the image above – guarded by figures with wings, gods of death called “Charun”. They are distant relatives of the Greek figure Charon, who ferried the souls of the departed across the River Styx.

Apologies for the quality of the image above – I could not avoid the glare. But the scene is too important not to include here!

In this tomb painting we see the deceased (a child and an adult) being led to a door representing death. My favorite part is Vanth, the female divinity on the far right of the image.

Vanth’s job is to guide the souls of the departed to the afterworld. She usually sports a short skirt and boots and carries a torch, which she uses to light the way.

Charun and Vanth are sometimes referred to as demons, but this is misleading. They were helpers, not punishers, and we should make sure not to impose our own conceptions of devils and evil underworld spirits onto these Etruscan figures.

These photos give a taste of what the necropolis at Tarquinia has to offer. Archaeologists also found many grave goods in these tombs, and you can stop by the Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense (right next to the main gate of Tarquinia) to see them. The museum contains fascinating sarcophagi, pottery, and other items that came straight from the tombs.

Final Thoughts on Tarquinia

I hope you have enjoyed this virtual tour of Tarquinia, and if you end up in Italy, I highly recommend a visit! Past and present meet on the sunny hillside and in the cavernous tombs. You can imagine the Etruscans walking down the tunnels to lay their dead to rest and then returning to honor them with burial rites over the following years.

You can sense that, even though these mysterious people lived over 2000 years ago, they grappled with the same questions and realities that we face today. At Tarquinia, you can encounter another piece of the puzzle that is human diversity and creativity.

So, what do you think? Does Tarquinia make the wish list?

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