The “Vie Cave”, or “Hollow Roads”, also called “Cut Roads”, is a little known creation of the Etruscans. These fascinating open-air roads in the tuff hills have no comparison in any other civilization of the ancient world. For this reason, numerous hypotheses have been made about their real function: canals to convey rainwater from plains to valleys, simple communication routes, strategic passages designed against enemies, ceremonial paths and so on.

Inside the Archaeological Park of “Città del Tufo”, the Vie Cave of Sorano and Sovana lead the visitor to discover an ancient Etruscan necropolis. Walking in the “cut”, between walls of tuff even more than twenty meters high, is an emotion that is hard to describe.

Walking through these streets – immersed in an evocative and uncontaminated natural environment, allows you to immerse yourself in a magical atmosphere, and to be in contact with the subsoil, with an “other” dimension.

In a landscape characterized by large plains of tuffaceous sandstone and carved by deep valleys, these steep paths, winding and deeply dug in the tuff, will allow you to save time while traveling through the towns, the cultivated countryside on the hills, the necropolis, and the other historical settlements.

Faced with the wonder that is felt along these imposing trenches that were built in ancient times, without the help of mechanical means, it is often necessary to make some clarifications in order to evaluate the actual work required to their realization from the right perspective: the tuff is a rock that, when it is still humid, is easily workable. Also, the current route level is much lower than the original (sometimes more than ten meters). For this reason, it was assumed that at the time of the first realization of the path, the trench dug through the tuff had to have a minimum depth, sufficient to easily overcome the difference in height between the sides, and that further excavations would have to be ascribed to the additional works of remaking – intended to regularize the erosion of the floor, consumed in particular by the hoofs of animals like mules, donkeys or horses.

Some Vie Cave are certainly attributable, in their original making, to the Etruscan road system: this is the case of the Via Cava of “Cavone”, in the necropolis of Sovana. The Etruscan layout of this important road to Mount Amiata is unequivocally attested by the numerous archaic chamber tombs that overlook it and, above all, by the Etruscan inscription “Vertna” indicating a noble family name that was identified on the left wall, at a depth of about 170 centimeters from today’s road surface.

Some other Vie Cave date back to the Middle Ages instead, or at least have been the subject of reconstruction in that period. In all the Vie Cave, there is a careful work of water management that is now almost completely compromised, due to the abandonment in which they have been left for a few decades now.

During the Christian period the particular depth of darkness that envelops these deep cuts in the rock, and the awe that emanated from them, favored the realization of numerous “Scacciadiavoli” (small niches with sacred images painted) with the aim of relieving and reassuring travelers. But the particular atmosphere that can be discovered in these paths has also made the continuation of ancient pagan rites possible, such as the one that, until the second post-war period, was held every year, on March 19th, in the Via Cava of San Giuseppe in Pitigliano: a night procession during which flaming bundles were carried through the roads.

The use of these paths as shortcuts has lasted until quite recent times, and, today, the Vie Cave continue to be traveled by hikers and visitors fascinated with their evocative dimension and unique natural environment. In this regard, we should not forget the importance of the Vie Cave from the ecological and environmental point of view. The particular conditions that developed in these paths determined a microclimate that has favored the growth of plants typical of humid and shady environments. Indeed, along the Vie Cave there are various types of ferns and, along the narrower paths, the steep walls appear almost entirely covered with mosses and lichens, which give an indirect greenish reflection to the shadier areas of the walls. A particularly frequent guest is then constituted by the ivy, wrapping the stems of the plants present at the edges of the walls which – sometimes falling inside the paths together with the characteristic lianas, enhance the beauty of the place.