Capranica (VT)
In short. Capranica (VT) is a municipality of just over 6,300 inhabitants in the province of Viterbo, on the southern foothills of the Cimini Mountains, at kilometer 55 of Via Cassia.
Capranica (VT) is a municipality of just over 6,300 inhabitants in the province of Viterbo, on the southern foothills of the Cimini Mountains, at kilometer 55 of Via Cassia. The town hall is at Corso Francesco Petrarca 40, telephone 0761 667900, email protocollo@comune.capranica.vt.it. The municipal territory covers a little under 41 square kilometers and ranges from 290 meters in the Valli di Sutri to 579 at Macchia Grossa, with the built-up center resting on a spur of tuff. From Rome you reach it by car along the Cassia in about an hour from the Grande Raccordo Anulare, or by train with the FL3 regional trains Roma Ostiense-Viterbo, which stop at the Capranica-Sutri station, in the hamlet of Capranica Scalo, a few kilometers from the historic center. The village is visited on foot and no ticket is paid: the churches generally open at the time of services, and for hours it's best to contact the parish or the public relations office of the Comune. Those who arrive on foot almost always come along Via Francigena, which crosses the municipal territory on the stage between Vetralla and Sutri.

Where Capranica (VT) is and how you really get there
Geography explains Capranica better than any adjective. The town occupies a narrow, elongated tongue of tuff, cut on two sides by deep ravines, with its tip pointing south, toward Rome. Looking at the map you see a municipality of almost oval shape, eight kilometers by six, wedged between the cone of the Cimino volcano to the north and the Sutri plateau to the south. It borders Ronciglione to the north, Sutri to the east, Bassano Romano to the south, and Barbarano Romano, Vetralla and Vejano to the west. Lake Vico is close but doesn't touch the municipal territory: the two are separated by the wooded ridge that closes the northern horizon.
Getting to Capranica (VT) by car
From the Grande Raccordo Anulare you take the Cassia toward Viterbo and continue for about 50 kilometers. State Road 2 cuts through the municipal territory and leaves the historic center on the right, uphill. The provincial network completes the picture: SP 35 Ronciglionese leads to Ronciglione, SP 91 leads to Sutri, SP 92 goes down toward Bassano Romano and Oriolo Romano. A practical warning that no GPS will give you: the historic center of Capranica is not made for cars. The alleys are very narrow, the slopes steep, the wide spots extremely rare. It's best to leave the car in the modern part of town, toward the corso, and climb on foot. Anyone who insists on driving in through the medieval gates spends the next 20 minutes maneuvering.
Getting to Capranica (VT) by train: the Capranica-Sutri station
The Capranica-Sutri station is one of the most interesting stops in northern Lazio, and almost nobody notices as they step off the train. It stands in the hamlet of Capranica Scalo and serves a wide catchment area: besides Capranica and Sutri, it collects riders from Bassano Romano, Ronciglione and Vejano. Almost all the regional trains of the FL3 route of Rome's suburban rail service, the Roma-Capranica-Viterbo line, stop there. Rete Ferroviaria Italiana classifies it in the Silver category. It has been unstaffed since 2010 and ticket sales are handled by a vendor a few hundred meters from the passenger building. The advice is banal and always valid: buy your ticket before boarding, because there is no ticket machine on board and the fine does exist.
What makes this station special is its past as a junction. Here the Roma-Viterbo line and the Civitavecchia-Orte cross-country line crossed, and the track yard still preserves the trace of that era: six through tracks, three of them serving passengers, and a turntable for steam locomotives. The cross-country line was interrupted toward Civitavecchia in 1961. The last passenger train toward Orte ran in 1994. The Civitavecchia-Capranica stretch was formally decommissioned in 2011. Two other stops stand on the municipal territory: Vico Matrino, also on the FL3, and the old Madonna del Piano, on the disused line. Walking along the abandoned railbed, with the walled-up gatehouses and the kilometer markers still standing, is an exercise in industrial archaeology that works better in Capranica than elsewhere.
Capranica (VT) on foot: Via Francigena
The pilgrim coming down from Viterbo toward Rome reaches Capranica after Vetralla, on the stage that ends at Sutri. It is the best way to enter the town, and not out of romanticism: the historic route slips into the ravines below the built-up area, passes by the little rock churches and climbs back onto the ridge, so that the village appears suddenly in profile, with the tower serving as a prow. Walkers find refreshment at the Giardini di San Rocco, the public park around the spring of the same name, with free access from Via Annibal Caro. If you have already walked other stretches of the route, the page dedicated to Via Francigena collects the other Lazio locations crossed by the itinerary.
The medieval village of Capranica (VT): a tuff ship with two gates
The historic center of Capranica is closed by two gates placed a short distance from each other, an uncommon defensive solution that doubled the filter at the entrance. The built-up area stretches along the tuff tongue like the hull of a flagship, with its prow pointed toward Rome, among the woods of oaks, Turkey oaks and chestnuts on the southern slope of the Cimini. Whoever walks it finds streets that intersect at angles, snug little squares, relieving arches between houses, staircases that descend toward the emptiness of the ravine. The fabric is compact and lived-in, well kept, and this must be said with a certain respect: World War II hit Capranica repeatedly, with the bombings concentrated above all on the railway yard, an obvious military target.
Our opinion: Capranica is not a postcard village domesticated for tourism, and that is its merit. You won't find the row of ceramics and soap shops that has made half a dozen Lazio towns interchangeable. You'll find a lived-in town, with people at the windows and children in the square, where the monumental heritage coexists with ordinary life. Anyone looking for the packaged experience will be disappointed. Anyone looking for a real village will have a memorable morning.
What to see in Capranica (VT): the religious architecture
Capranica's ecclesiastical heritage is out of proportion to the size of the town, and the reason is historical: for three and a half centuries the village was the capital of a cardinal governorate, and the governors brought money, artists and commissions. The surviving churches tell an arc running from the 9th century to the 19th.
The Church of Madonna del Piano in Capranica (VT)
It is the most important monument of the territory, and it stands outside the walls, in the locality of the same name, Piano. The original structure dates to the period between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 14th century. Inside is preserved a fresco of the Virgin with Child, with a dove between the hands: local tradition attributes it to the Sienese painter Andrea Vanni, but it is precisely tradition, not a documented attribution, and should be taken for what it is.
The turning point comes in the 16th century. The many testimonies of miracles attributed to the intercession of the Madonna depicted in the fresco made the little church a destination of devotion, and in 1559, entrusted to the Hermits of Saint Augustine, it was restructured to a design by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, the architect who in those same years was working on Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, some 15 kilometers away. Having a Vignola in Capranica is not a provincial detail: it is proof that the village, at that moment, counted.
In 1632 the church and part of the convent suffered a disastrous collapse. The reconstruction was immediate, and for that very reason partly unfaithful: Vignola's lines came out of it attenuated, and today the facade must be read as a palimpsest, looking beneath the 17th-century plaster for the 16th-century articulation. Look at the pilasters and the relationship between the registers: that is where the original imprint holds out. Inside, the church also preserves a fresco attributable to Francesco Cozza, a Calabrian painter active in Rome in the 17th century, depicting the Nativity of the Virgin, and it is the reason the procession of September 8 comes right here.
The Church of San Francesco in Capranica (VT) and the Anguillara tomb
Anyone short on time should go in here. San Francesco is a church of Romanesque layout, with remodelings reaching the 16th century, and it holds two things worth the trip. The first is the marble sepulchral monument of the Anguillara brothers, who died in the first decade of the 15th century, a funerary machine with recumbent figures that bears witness to the level of patronage reached by the house at the moment of its greatest power. The second is a 15th-century fresco attributed to Pastura, the nickname by which Antonio del Massaro of Viterbo is known, the painter who brings to the Tuscia the Umbrian update of the Perugino school.
It's worth stopping in front of the tomb and thinking about what it means. The Anguillara were frontier lords, condottieri who lived on raids and shifting alliances with the popes and against the popes. Having themselves buried in a Franciscan church, under a marble monument of this quality, was a political act: it meant declaring that the family was not an armed band but a dynasty. The fact that the monument survived the destruction of the castle, ordered a few decades later, has something paradoxical about it.
The Duomo of San Giovanni Evangelista in Capranica (VT)
The collegiate church of San Giovanni Evangelista is the mother church of the town and stands in the square of the same name. The present building is the result of a 19th-century reconstruction, carried out in the decades between the beginning and the middle of the 19th century, which replaced the earlier structure of Romanesque layout. It has a single majestic nave, in neoclassical taste, and preserves older works recovered from the previous building: among them a Renaissance tabernacle and a 16th-century wooden crucifix. That very crucifix is the effigy that the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament carries in procession on the first Sunday of May, and that for centuries was invoked against the calamities that struck the town. At the end of the procession it returns to the chapel dedicated to it inside San Giovanni.
The Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Capranica (VT)
Santa Maria Assunta preserves a small, uneven and precious heritage: medieval works, a painting of Christ from a 13th-century milieu, a Renaissance triptych whose attribution oscillates, in the local literature, toward Bartolomeo della Gatta, and a statue of the Madonna documented to 1808. On this attribution the caution of the art historian is advisable: it is a hypothesis current in the area, not an archival certainty. Here, for the whole month of May, the ancient statue of the Madonna delle Grazie is placed on the decorated main altar, after the procession of the second Sunday.
The Church of San Rocco in Capranica (VT) and the Museo delle Confraternite
The church of San Rocco dates to the 15th century, an era consistent with the spread of the cult of the pilgrim saint invoked against the plague, and today houses the Museo delle Confraternite. It is a small, specialized museum, and that is exactly why I recommend it: it gathers vestments, mozzettas, cords, banners, reliquaries and processional floats of the brotherhoods of Capranica. In a town where the confraternities are still alive and carry the saint on their shoulders every year, a museum like this is not a case of dead objects but the sacristy of the community. For opening hours it's best to ask at the Comune, because it is not a museum with a ticket office and fixed shifts.
The Church of San Terenziano in Capranica (VT)
Dedicated to the patron saint, with a structure dating between the 13th and the 16th century, the church of San Terenziano is the arrival point of the patron's procession. There is also a rural chapel dedicated to the saint on the mountain of the same name, inside the protected area of the ravines: it is the one the people of Capranica reach on foot the evening before the feast, with torches and lanterns. The two should not be confused: the urban one and the rock one.
The other churches of Capranica (VT)
The list is long and deserves to be walked in full, because each building tells a piece of the territory. The Church of Madonna delle Grazie, with a structure between the 13th and 16th century, is the rural chapel downhill from the built-up area that welcomes the May procession. The Church of Madonna del Cerreto is 18th-century. The Church of Madonna dei Ruscelli takes its name from the presence of water, a recurring element in a territory cut by spring-fed ravines. The Church of San Pietro preserves memory of a 9th-century structure, the oldest chronological reference in the ecclesiastical heritage of Capranica. The Church of Santa Maria, 19th-century, is due to Virginio Vespignani, trusted architect of the Papal States in the 19th century, author of interventions in half of Rome: his presence here measures how much the town still counted in ecclesiastical matters after losing the title of capital.

The civil architecture of Capranica (VT): the palaces of the governorate
If the churches tell of devotion, the palaces tell of power. And in Capranica power has a precise starting date, 1465, and an ending one, 1831.
Palazzo Accoramboni, seat of the Comune of Capranica (VT)
It is the most important civil building in town and today houses the town hall. It was built during the 1570s to a design by Giacomo del Duca, a Sicilian, pupil and collaborator of Michelangelo Buonarroti, as a residence for the Accoramboni family. Inside it preserves frescoed rooms. The name recalls Vittoria Accoramboni, the woman whose story runs through crime chronicles and European literature: born in Gubbio in 1557, married at 16 to Francesco Peretti, nephew of the future Pope Sixtus V, widowed by the murder of her husband in April 1581, then wife of Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, and finally killed in Padua on December 22, 1585 by hired assassins sent by Ludovico Orsini, who paid with his life for the sentence of the Serenissima. Her story inspired John Webster's tragedy titled The White Devil, published in 1612, a novella by Stendhal and a novel by Ludwig Tieck.
A clarification that has to be made honestly: the timelines of the construction and of Vittoria's biography overlap only in part, and the link between the house and the woman belongs to local memory more than to a certain document. The palace remains in any case one of the most notable Michelangelo-inspired architectures of the Tuscia, and it is worth the climb even just for the portal.
The Palazzo del Governatorato of Capranica (VT)
17th-century, it is the translation in stone of the administrative function the town had for three and a half centuries. After 1465 Capranica was no longer a baronial fief but the seat of a cardinal governor, and the governorate had for a certain period the same territorial extent that the domains of the Anguillara had had. The palace is the place where that jurisdiction was exercised.
Palazzo Patrizi-Naro and the historical archive of Capranica (VT)
It houses the municipal historical archive, and this is a piece of information that visitors snub and scholars seek out. The archive of a governorate capital preserves notarial deeds, land registers, correspondence with the Curia, registers of the confraternities: it is the deposit from which the history of half of the southern Tuscia is reconstructed. Consultation must be arranged with the Comune.
Palazzo Forlani and Palazzo Montenero-Sansoni
The first is 17th-century, the second belongs to the second half of the 18th century. Together with the Governatorato they define the noble front of the town and document the building phase that precedes 1700, when the cardinal governors invested in urban decor. They are looked at from outside: they are residences, not museums.
The portal of the Ospedale di San Sebastiano and the Porta di Sant'Antonio
Of the old Ospedale di San Sebastiano the 13th-century portal remains, and it remains because carved stone outlives institutions. The Porta di Sant'Antonio is 17th-century and is one of the two entrances that close the village. Look for them: they are the details that distinguish a stroll from a visit.
The Anguillara Castle and the Torrione dell'Orologio of Capranica (VT)
The Torrione dell'Orologio is the image with which Capranica presents itself to the world, and at once its wound. It stands above the main gate into the town and is what remains of the Castle of the Anguillara, dismantled by order of Pope Paul II after the fall of the house in 1465. The rest of the fortress has almost vanished, swallowed over the centuries by the building that has grown up against it: whoever walks the alleys passes without knowing through spaces that belonged to the castle, recognizable here and there by an overly thick wall or an out-of-scale arch.
The demolition ordered by a pope was not a whim. It was the standard procedure by which the Papal States dissolved the military power of the barons: the fortress was torn down, a tower was left standing as a memorial and a check, a governor was installed. Capranica is a textbook case, and the tower with the clock face is the monument to that defeat turned into administrative promotion. The advice: look at it twice, once from under the gate and once from afar, climbing back toward the modern part of town. They are two different monuments.

The archaeological areas of Capranica (VT)
The Castellaccio Archaeological Area
In the locality of Macchia di Caporipa, surrounded by dense vegetation, are the remains of ancient buildings and pre-Roman fortification walls. It is the site that explains the true origins of settlement, well before the legend of the goatherds: the first settlements on the territory of today's Capranica date to the Etruscan era, and the Castellaccio is the testimony on the ground. Don't expect an equipped archaeological park: it is a wooded area with outcropping structures, and the visit requires boots, caution and possibly someone local.
The Torri d'Orlando of Capranica (VT)
This is the most fun place to explain. In the locality of Vico Matrino, in the area between the Cassia and provincial road 493, amid oaks and hazelnut groves, three large cylindrical towers stand. They are Roman funerary monuments, mausoleums of the late Republican age, attributable to the 1st century BC, of the cylindrical drum type found along the great consular roads. Beside them stands the bell tower of a vanished medieval church, Santa Maria in Campis, with references going back to the 10th century.
The legend, which is quite another thing from history and must be kept distinct, has it that the paladin Orlando camped here in the retinue of Charlemagne headed to Rome for the coronation. The mechanism is the classic one of popular toponymy: before monumental ruins whose memory has been lost, the community invents a heroic origin. The name has remained, the mausoleums are Roman, and the coincidence between the ancient route and the medieval Via Francigena explains why the Carolingian legend took root right here. The place is beautiful in the raking light of late afternoon and almost always deserted.
Nature around Capranica (VT): ravines, woods and springs
The Valloni della Via Francigena Natural Monument
It is the protected area that wraps the town, established in 2017 by decree of the President of the Lazio Region number 160 of September 29, extending over 104.79 hectares entirely within the municipality of Capranica, with management entrusted to the Comune itself. It runs along two ravines and the vegetation changes with elevation in a textbook way: willows and poplars on the valley floor, where water is constant. Mixed woods of Turkey oak and downy oak on the slopes. Evergreen formations of cork oaks and holm oaks on the summits. The centerpiece is the high-forest holm oak wood on Monte di San Terenzio, about one hectare of trees that were allowed to grow tall instead of being coppiced: a rarity in Lazio, where the holm oak is almost always managed as coppice.
Within the protected area are the rock church of San Terenziano, from the 16th century, the rock church of San Rocco, from the 17th, and the church of Madonna delle Grazie, from the 14th. They are the places of rest and prayer built for the pilgrims who passed along the Francigena route, and their presence shows that the passage was not occasional but structured. Whoever walks here follows the same ravine floor that was followed in the Middle Ages, and this is a good fortune that few stages of the Lazio Francigena preserve.
The Fonte delle Rocce and the Giardini di San Rocco
The Fonte delle Rocce supplies water that the people of Capranica have appreciated for generations and to which a healing quality has historically been attributed, subject over time to the assessments of the competent bodies. Take it for what it is: a spring much loved by the inhabitants. The Giardini di San Rocco, on the other hand, are the public park that surrounds the spring of the same name, with free entry from Via Annibal Caro. It's the right place for a stop in the shade, and it's also the natural refreshment point for those arriving on foot from the Francigena. The water of San Rocco, by the way, is not a folkloric detail: it is the industrial reason a soft drink factory that made the history of Italian taste was born in Capranica.
Capranica (VT) and Chinotto Neri: the Italian answer to American soda
In 1949 Pietro Neri founded the Mineralneri plant in Capranica. The idea was simple and bold: postwar Italy was being invaded by American soft drinks, and Neri decided to respond with a product with a different aromatic profile, built on a bitter, Italian citrus, the chinotto. The plant was set up right here for a precise technical reason, the mineral water of the San Rocco spring, which formed the base of the drink. The brand under which the product became famous is Chin8.
The chinotto was followed by Aranciosa, Gassosa and Limoncedro. The communication was aggressive for the time: spots in Carosello and giant bottles mounted on American cars that drove around Italian cities, with alliterative slogans that people of a certain age still remember, first among them the one built on the play between the surname and the verb to drink. In 2000 the Capranica company passed to the company Chinotto Neri, which relaunched the historic brand.
Why am I telling this story in a guide to a medieval village? Because it is the most honest way to explain what the 20th century was for a town of the Tuscia. Capranica is not a fossil: within a century it lost the rank of capital, suffered the bombings on its railway yard, hosted a factory that sold soft drinks all over Italy. Anyone who visits the village and ignores this part takes home half of the town.

The history of Capranica (VT), from Etruscan tuff to the governorate
The origins and the name of Capranica (VT)
Tradition tells that in the 8th century some goatherds, coming out of the nearby village of Vico Matrino, chose this spur for the beauty of the site, for safety and for the healthiness of the air. The initial name is said to have been Capralica, from Caprae ilex, the goats' holm oak, then turned into Capranica, according to a popular explanation because of a goatherd called Nica. It is village etymology, it must be said, and must be kept separate from the facts, but it explains well why the municipal coat of arms bears a goat, a mountain and the sun.
The facts are others and older. The first settlements on the territory date to the Etruscan age, as the structures of the Castellaccio show, and in Roman times the area was crossed by the consular roads, as the mausoleums of Vico Matrino prove. The first certain news of the medieval settlement dates to around 1050. Until 1300 Capranica was subject, like the neighboring municipalities, to the jurisdiction of the Sutri convent of Santi Cosma e Damiano.
The Anguillara and the golden century of Capranica (VT)
In 1305 the Anguillara family appears in the village, the house that will make it one of the most important centers of the Patrimony of St. Peter in Tuscia. The greatest splendor and the greatest territorial extent of Capranica coincide with their rule, between the 14th and 15th centuries.
In 1337, under Orso degli Anguillara, Francesco Petrarca stayed in Capranica. It is not a mere plaque detail: Orso was one of the most notable figures of the house and the only count to reside permanently in the castle, and in his period the fortress was enlarged. Under him and then under Count Everso, Capranica extended its influence over the surrounding territories and was drawn into the long war the Anguillara fought against the Prefetti di Vico throughout the 14th century and beyond.
Everso degli Anguillara is the last count worthy of note. In 1435 he fought alongside Pope Eugene IV to drive out the last prefect, Giacomo di Vico, and his two sons Menelao and Securanza. The collaboration with the papacy lasted as long as it suited both. In 1465 Everso's successors, Deifobo and Francesco degli Anguillara, came to arms with Pope Paul II: the papal reaction provoked the uprising of Capranica and the controlled villages, and on July 7, 1465 the house fell.
Capranica (VT), capital of the governorate
Paul II had the castle dismantled leaving only one tower standing, and granted Capranica a cardinal governor, making the village the capital of the governorate. For a certain period the district had the same breadth as the Anguillara domains: the town lost its lords and gained an administrative rank. Under the cardinal governors the settlement was enlarged and, above all before 1700, the most important palaces were built there. It is to this phase that the noble face of the historic center is due.
The 19th and 20th centuries of Capranica (VT)
In 1831 Pope Leo XII took away Capranica's title of capital, closing three and a half centuries of preeminence. After the Unification of Italy the town followed the events of the whole province. The administrative transfer from the province of Rome to that of Viterbo took place with the reorganization of 1927. During World War II Capranica was repeatedly hit by bombs, with the railway yard targeted as a junction of two lines. The postwar period brought the soft drink industry, emigration toward Rome and then commuting on the FL3 that still governs the days of many people of Capranica today.
Traditions, events and folklore of Capranica (VT)
Capranica has a dense religious and civic calendar, and the confraternities are its backbone. Here the processions are not reenactments for tourists: they are rites the community celebrates for itself, and those who attend are guests.
The patronal feast of San Terenziano in Capranica (VT)
Capranica celebrates its patron San Terenziano on the first Sunday of September, even though the liturgical feast, memorial of his death and martyrdom, falls on the first of the month. Tradition has it that the evening before people walk from the town to the rural chapel dedicated to the saint, along a dark route lit for the occasion by torches and lanterns. After a short service, the evening continues with entertainment, a brass band and a hot-air balloon. A custom abandoned for several years had the gathering end with a collective watermelon feast in the square in front of the chapel, sliced and handed out freely among those present.
On the day of the feast the bust of the saint, flanked by two silver reliquaries in the shape of arms that give him a blessing look, is placed on an antique processional float with a gilded radiating halo and wooden angels. To the sound of the band it goes through the streets of the town accompanied by the brothers of the confraternity of the same name, who wear a green robe, a red cape and a cord, to reach the rural chapel on the mountain dedicated to him, greeted along the way by booming gunshots and the ringing of bells. The right arm contains a bone from the saint's arm. The left holds a relic of San Biagio.
The Procession of the cocciarelle in Capranica (VT)
On the evening of September 8, the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, a second processional transport takes place that the people of Capranica call the procession of the cocciarelle: the name derives from the sellers of small articles in crockery and terracotta who in times past gathered along the route. On this occasion the patron saint is carried to the esplanade in front of the church of Madonna del Piano, just outside the town, where the fresco attributable to Francesco Cozza depicting the Marian feast is preserved.
For the occasion the facade of the church, a work of Vignola, is lit by a multitude of candles and small lights arranged to highlight its main architectural features. With the darkness of the September evening, the luminous design can be read from afar as the procession approaches. If I had to pick a single moment of the year to see Capranica, I would pick this one: 16th-century architecture drawn by fire is a spectacle that no electric lighting reproduces.
The Madonna delle Grazie in Capranica (VT)
For over two centuries, on the second Sunday of May, celebrations have been held in honor of the Madonna delle Grazie, culminating in a solemn procession. The ancient statue of the Madonna holding the baby Jesus, dressed in precious finely embroidered fabrics and a sky-blue mantle quilted with stars, placed on an antique processional float, goes through the streets of the town. The brothers of the confraternity of the same name accompany it, in white robes, sky-blue mozzetta and cord, lining its way to the rural chapel dedicated to her, downhill from the built-up area, where she is welcomed by loud gunshots. When the transport is over, the statue is placed for the whole month of May on the decorated main altar of the church of Santa Maria Assunta, where it had already been displayed since the evening before the feast, for the adoration of the population.
The Procession of the Most Holy Crucifix and the infiorata of Capranica (VT)
On the first Sunday of May the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament, officially born in 1596 according to the documentation, with manuscripts that might trace its foundation to even earlier times, celebrates the procession of the Most Holy Crucifix. The procession leaves from the Duomo, the church of San Giovanni, goes through the streets of the medieval historic center and the modern part of town carrying a wooden crucifix of the 16th century, once carried in procession to intercede against the calamities that struck the town several times and now become the symbol of the archconfraternity. At the end of the event the effigy returns to the chapel dedicated to it inside San Giovanni.
During the night before the celebrations, in Piazza San Giovanni the infiorata is made, a collective work of brothers, sisters and sympathizers of the archconfraternity, depicting moments and figures from the sacred world, changing subject from year to year. Anyone who wants to see it come into being must accept staying awake: the floral carpet is composed at night and lasts a few hours.
The Sagra degli Strozzapreti of Capranica (VT)
It is the food event that fills the town in August, tied to the celebrations of San Rocco. It takes place around Ferragosto, from August 14 to 16, at the Giggi Iezzi sports center on Via John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and is organized by the Amici di San Rocco association. The food stands open in the evening. The dish is fresh pasta prepared according to the local recipe, served with several sauces, from the classic tomato sauce to the version with sausage and porcini mushrooms. Every evening live music, ballroom dancing, craft stalls. A tip from someone who has seen many food festivals: arrive early, because the lines at the counters grow quickly and the tables fill up. For dates and program of the current edition, it's best to check the channels of the organizing association.
The Festa del Cacciatore and the Capranica Carnival
The Festa del Cacciatore is held in early August and offers a menu of meat and first courses, with music, a raffle and entertainment. The Capranica Carnival, with parades of allegorical floats and parties, is organized jointly by the Comitato Carnevale Capranichese and the Pro Loco. They are events designed for the town, not for tourism, and precisely for this reason they give a reliable picture of the community.

What there is around Capranica (VT)
Capranica holds a formidable position for building itineraries, and that is why I often propose it as a logistical base rather than as a sole destination. A few minutes away is Sutri, with the regional urban park of the Antichissima Città di Sutri, seven hectares established in 1988 and managed by the Comune, where you can visit the Roman amphitheater carved in the tuff, the necropolis and the mithraeum that became the church of the Madonna del Parto. Heading north you reach Ronciglione and Lake Vico, while to the west open Barbarano Romano with the Marturanum Regional Natural Park (Marturanum), 1,240 hectares established in 1984 and famous for the rock necropolis of San Giuliano, and Vetralla on the Francigena route. Not far away you also find Blera, another chapter of the rock-cut Tuscia.
Going south you enter the district of the lakes: Bracciano with its castle, Trevignano Romano and Anguillara Sabazia, which bears the name of the house that ruled Capranica. In the same belt you find places of unusual nature like the Macchia Grande wood at Manziana and the Manziana caldara, with its sulfurous exhalations, and the gorges of Corchiano, ravines carved in the tuff that reproduce on a large scale the landscape of Capranica's ravines.
For those who love abandoned villages and out-of-scale places, the one-hour radius includes Monterano, the ghost village with its Bernini ruins, Canale Monterano, Chia and Civita di Bagnoregio. Among the living towns worth noting are Nepi, Castel Sant'Elia with the frescoed basilica in the gorge, Calcata and its Opera Bosco, a museum of art in nature, Faleria, San Martino al Cimino with its Cistercian abbey church, Soriano nel Cimino, Vitorchiano perched on a sheer peperino drop and Bassano in Teverina. On the front of gardens and palaces the territory offers the Park of the Monsters in Bomarzo, the gardens of Villa Lante at Bagnaia, Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola and of course the provincial capital Viterbo with the medieval San Pellegrino quarter and the Palazzo dei Papi.
Frequently asked questions about Capranica (VT)
Where is Capranica and how far is it from Rome?
Capranica (VT) is in the province of Viterbo, in Lazio, at kilometer 55 of Via Cassia, on the southern foothills of the Cimini Mountains, between the Sutri plateau and Lake Vico. It is about an hour by car from Rome, and the town hall is at Corso Francesco Petrarca 40.
How many inhabitants does Capranica have?
Capranica (VT) has just over 6,300 residents, on a municipal territory of about 40.74 square kilometers wedged between the cone of the Cimino volcano to the north and the Sutri plateau to the south. The historic center occupies a narrow, elongated tongue of tuff, closed by two gates a short distance from each other.
How long does it take to visit Capranica?
For the village of Capranica two hours of easy walking are enough, which become three if you go into the churches and stop at the confraternities museum. Adding an hour for the church of Madonna del Piano, outside the walls, and an hour and a half for the Torri d'Orlando, which require a trip by car, a full day lets you see Capranica at a relaxed pace.
What are the Torri d'Orlando near Capranica?
The Torri d'Orlando, despite the name that suggests medieval origins, are actually three large Roman funerary mausoleums of the late Republican age, attributable to the 1st century BC, located in the locality of Vico Matrino between Via Cassia and provincial road 493, near Capranica.
What is the Chinotto Neri made in Capranica?
Chinotto Neri is a chinotto-based soft drink produced in Capranica (VT) by the Mineralneri plant, founded in 1949 by Pietro Neri as an Italian answer to the American soft drinks that were invading the postwar market. The plant was set up right here for the mineral water of the local San Rocco spring.
What is the best way to reach the historic center of Capranica, by car or on foot?
In Capranica (VT) it's best to leave the car along the road to Madonna del Piano or at the San Rocco gardens and reach the village on foot, climbing up from the ravines, because the town was built with access from below in mind and the last stretch on foot gives back the shape of the historic center perched on the tuff spur better.
What is there to see around Capranica?
Near Capranica is Sutri, with the regional urban park of the Antichissima Città di Sutri, which includes the Roman amphitheater carved in the tuff, the necropolis and the mithraeum that became the church of the Madonna del Parto. The position of Capranica also makes it suitable as a logistical base for itineraries in the Cimini Mountains area.
How to organize your visit to Capranica (VT)
For the village two hours of easy walking are enough, three if you go into the churches and stop at the confraternities museum. Add an hour for the Madonna del Piano, which is outside the walls, and at least an hour and a half for the Torri d'Orlando, which require a trip by car and a walk on a dirt track. The ravines of the Francigena deserve half a day of their own, with suitable shoes. A full day allows Capranica plus Sutri. Two days allow you to add Ronciglione and Lake Vico.
Anyone traveling as a group or wanting a professional reading of the territory can rely on licensed guides and tour leaders: the tour escort service of TourLeaderPro exists exactly for this, and for planning itineraries in Lazio the section dedicated to Rome and surroundings gathers the services for operators and groups. Anyone organizing an excursion starting from the capital will find a general overview in the English guide to day trips in Italy.
Capranica (VT) with children
It works, provided you choose well. The village with its alleys and tower is appealing, but the slopes discourage strollers: a baby carrier or backpack is better. The San Rocco gardens are the natural outlet, with the water from the spring and the shade. The Torri d'Orlando are an excellent destination for older kids, because the story of Charlemagne's paladin camping among the Roman mausoleums always works and lets you explain the difference between legend and archaeology. The confraternities museum, with its colorful robes and processional floats, intrigues them more than you'd expect.
When to go to Capranica (VT)
May and September are the right months, and not because of the weather: they are the months of the processions, when the town shows its identity. August means the strozzapreti food festival and a full town, with the advantage of nightlife and the disadvantage of heat on the tuff. Winter offers the empty village and low light, perfect for photography, but with many churches closed outside service hours. The period I would avoid without regret is high summer at noon: the tuff gives back the accumulated heat and the climb to the tower becomes an ordeal.
A curiosity about Capranica (VT)
The most beautiful curiosity concerns a name that seems medieval and is instead Roman, five centuries earlier. The Torri d'Orlando, the three large masonry cylinders found in the locality of Vico Matrino between the Cassia and provincial road 493, are funerary mausoleums of the late Republican age, attributable to the 1st century BC. Nothing Carolingian, nothing chivalric: they are tombs of wealthy Roman families, built in a cylindrical drum form after a model that repeats along the consular roads of Lazio from Rome as far as southern Etruria.
The name, though, tells another story. Local legend has it that the paladin Orlando camped here in the retinue of Charlemagne, headed to Rome for the coronation. It's a mechanism the historian recognizes right away: a medieval community faces monumental ruins whose memory it has completely lost, has no categories for dating them, and attributes them to the giants of its own imagination. All over Europe cyclopean ruins become the work of ogres, devils or Carolingian heroes. Here it was Orlando's turn, and the fact that the route known as Via Francigena passed right there, bringing Frankish pilgrims and chivalric cantari, makes the choice perfectly logical.
There is a third layer, and you can see it with the naked eye. Beside the Roman mausoleums stands the bell tower of a vanished medieval church, Santa Maria in Campis, with references going back to the 10th century. Three eras in 30 meters: Republican Rome of the tombs, the Christian Middle Ages of the bell tower, the narrative Middle Ages of the legend. If I had to take a group to a single point in the municipality of Capranica to explain how cultural stratification works in Italy, I would take everyone here and not to the historic center.
One thing nobody tells you about Capranica (VT)
That Capranica was for three and a half centuries the administrative capital of a considerable piece of the Tuscia. No generalist guide writes it, and the visitor who arrives sees a village of 6,000 inhabitants without suspecting that between 1465 and 1831 this town was the seat of a cardinal governor with jurisdiction over a territory as broad as the domains of the Anguillara had been.
The practical consequence is visible everywhere, but only to those who know what to look for. The 17th-century palaces lined up along the corso, the Palazzo del Governatorato, the historical archive kept in Palazzo Patrizi-Naro, the disproportionate number of churches for a town of this size: all of this is not the heritage of an agricultural village, it is the heritage of an administrative seat. A farming village of the same size, 20 kilometers away, has a parish church and nothing more. Capranica has a collegiate church, 10 churches, five noble palaces and an archive.
The second thing nobody tells you concerns the railway. The Capranica-Sutri station was a crossing junction between the Roma-Viterbo and the Civitavecchia-Orte cross-country line, and still preserves six through tracks and the turntable for steam locomotives, an installation that today turns out to be enormously oversized for the traffic it serves. That disproportion is a document: it tells of a national railway ambition that died out in three stages, in 1961 toward Civitavecchia, in 1994 with the last passenger train toward Orte, in 2011 with the formal decommissioning. Anyone who loves places that carry the mark of what never was will find a formidable subject here.
The advice I give you for visiting Capranica (VT)
There is one piece of advice and I give it without half measures: don't arrive in Capranica by car and don't leave by car. Arrive on foot from below, from the ravines, even if only for the last kilometer. Leave the car along the road to Madonna del Piano or at the San Rocco gardens, go down into the ravine and climb up toward the gate. The difference is enormous and has a precise explanation: the village was built to be seen from below and to defend itself from below. The tuff spur, the two sets of close-spaced gates, the tower above the main entrance work as a system only if you approach them from the one direction from which a pilgrim or a besieger could arrive.
The second piece of advice concerns time. Capranica cannot be dispatched in 40 minutes between one stop and another of a tour of villages. Give it a whole morning, and organize it like this: climb to the village and walk around the two gates, San Francesco with the Anguillara tomb and the Pastura fresco, the Duomo of San Giovanni, the confraternities museum in San Rocco, the tower seen from two different points, descent to Madonna del Piano in the afternoon when the light catches the facade. The Torri d'Orlando afterward, toward sunset.
Third piece of advice, against the grain. Don't look for innovative restaurants: it's not the place. Look for the village trattoria and ask for strozzapreti, which here have a local recipe and are not an imported food fashion. And ask for the spring water: in Capranica the relationship with spring water is a matter of identity, so much so that a soft drink factory that sold all over Italy was built on top of it.
Another well-known fact, and yet seldom cited
That Francesco Petrarca was a guest in Capranica in 1337 is known by many in town, and it is also recalled by the name of the main street, that Corso Francesco Petrarca at number 40 of which the town hall now stands. What almost nobody places correctly is the context, and that's a pity, because the context is the interesting part.
Petrarca stayed in Capranica under Orso degli Anguillara, and Orso was no ordinary lordling: he was the only count of the house to reside permanently in the castle, he enlarged the fortress and ruled a lordship in permanent war against the Prefetti di Vico. 1337 is the year of Petrarca's first Roman journey, the one that puts him before the ruins of the ancient city and marks his later output. The poet crossed the Tuscia to reach Rome, and the counts' hospitality in a frontier castle was part of the protection system for illustrious travelers along the northern route.
There is more, and it's the detail that makes the story real instead of hagiographic. The castle that hosted Petrarca barely exists anymore: Paul II had it dismantled in 1465, leaving only the tower that now carries the clock. What the visitor sees is not the poet's house but the scar of its destruction. Capranica commemorates in the name of its main street a stay that took place in a building a pope had torn down 128 years later, and nobody tells it. It is one of the most elegant ironies of Lazio toponymy.
The right photo to take at Capranica (VT)
The photograph I always bring home from Capranica is not the one of the tower from under the gate, which is the most obvious and the most photographed. It is the profile of the village seen from the ravine, with the tuff spur cutting across the landscape and the houses following the ridge like the planking of a ship. You get it by walking down along Via Francigena inside the Valloni Natural Monument and turning to look up. You need a moderately wide-angle lens and the right light: early morning in summer, late afternoon in winter, when the raking sun separates the masonry from the wooded background.
The second framing I recommend is vertical and should be built on the Torrione dell'Orologio. Stand in the middle of the street that climbs to the gate, step back far enough to include the arch and the clock face, and wait for someone to pass: the human figure under the arch gives back the real scale of the medieval entrance, which in photographs without people always looks bigger than it is. It's a banal trick and it always works.
The third, for those with patience, is nocturnal and can be done one evening a year. On September 8 the facade of Madonna del Piano is lit by hundreds of candles and lamps arranged along the architectural lines. You need a tripod, you need long exposures and you need to arrive early to take a frontal position. The result is a drawing of fire on Vignola's architecture that can't be obtained at any other time or in any other way. If you can't be there in September, the Madonna del Piano by day remains in any case the best architectural subject in the municipality: look for the light of late afternoon, when the facade isn't backlit.
One last technical note for the Torri d'Orlando: they are immersed among oaks and hazelnut groves and the green eats them. Go in winter or early spring, when the vegetation is sparse and the three cylinders can be read against the sky together with the bell tower of Santa Maria in Campis. In August they are almost invisible.
Some important events that took place here in history
The first event is the stay of Francesco Petrarca in 1337, under Orso degli Anguillara. The poet stopped in the castle of Capranica during the journey to Rome, and the town preserves the memory of it in the name of the main street.
The second is the political battle of 1435. Count Everso degli Anguillara fought alongside Pope Eugene IV to drive out the last Prefect of Vico, Giacomo, and his sons Menelao and Securanza. It was the conclusion of a war that had run through the whole 14th century and that had involved Capranica on the front line, as a logistical base and as a stake. The paradox is evident: the Anguillara reached the height of their power fighting for the papacy that 30 years later would annihilate them.
The third is the fall of July 7, 1465. Deifobo and Francesco degli Anguillara, successors of Everso, came to arms with Pope Paul II. The papal reaction provoked the uprising of Capranica and the other villages controlled by the house, and on that date the Anguillara rule ended. Paul II had the castle dismantled leaving only one tower standing and installed a cardinal governor, raising Capranica to the capital of the governorate. It is the date that drew the town that is visited today: without that July 7 the 17th-century palaces and the historical archive would not exist.
The fourth event is the collapse of 1632, which affected the church of Madonna del Piano and part of the convent. The immediate reconstruction saved the building but partly altered the lines intended by Vignola, and even today the facade reads as a superimposition of two designs.
The fifth is the loss of rank in 1831, when Pope Leo XII took away Capranica's title of capital. An administrative measure that in a single line erased three and a half centuries of preeminence and started the town's demotion to a municipality among municipalities. In 1927, with the reorganization of districts, Capranica passed from the province of Rome to that of Viterbo.
The sixth is the bombings of World War II. The town was repeatedly hit and the railway yard, as a junction of two lines, became a privileged target. That the historic center has come down to us intact, in these conditions, is not a given: it is the result of the placement of the railway installation at a distance from the historic settlement, and of a certain amount of luck.
The seventh, finally, is from 1949: the founding of the Mineralneri plant by Pietro Neri, who built Chinotto Neri and the Chin8 brand on the water of the San Rocco spring, the Italian answer to the American soft drinks of the postwar period. In 2000 the company passed to the company Chinotto Neri, which relaunched the historic brand. Seven centuries of history and the last chapter is a soft drink: it is a trajectory that deserves respect.
Who has passed through Capranica (VT)
Francesco Petrarca is the most illustrious name, and his passage in 1337 is the one documented most continuously by local memory. The poet was a guest of Orso degli Anguillara in the castle that dominated the spur, during the journey that took him to Rome for the first time.
Orso degli Anguillara deserves a chapter of his own, beyond his role as host. He was the most notable figure of the house, the only count to reside permanently in the castle of Capranica, and under him the fortress was enlarged and the lordship extended its influence over the neighboring territories. Everso degli Anguillara, the last count of weight, was the condottiero of 1435 alongside Eugene IV. Deifobo and Francesco degli Anguillara closed the arc in 1465.
Among the popes, Capranica counts three who affected its history directly. Eugene IV, ally of Everso against the Prefetti di Vico. Paul II, who in 1465 tore down the castle, installed the cardinal governor and made the town a capital. Leo XII, who in 1831 took that title away from it.
On the side of artists, the most authoritative presence is that of Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, who in 1559 signed the renovation project for the Madonna del Piano while working on Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola. Next comes Giacomo del Duca, a Sicilian, pupil of Michelangelo, author of the design of Palazzo Accoramboni in the 1570s. In painting the town preserves a 15th-century fresco attributed to Pastura, that is Antonio del Massaro of Viterbo, and a 17th-century painting attributable to Francesco Cozza in the Madonna del Piano. Local tradition also attributes to Andrea Vanni the Marian image venerated in the same church, and to Bartolomeo della Gatta a Renaissance triptych in Santa Maria Assunta, but in both cases these are traditional attributions and not documented facts. In the 19th century Virginio Vespignani steps in, the reference architect of the Papal States, author of the church of Santa Maria.
Vittoria Accoramboni is the figure who made the surname of the town hall's palace a name known across Europe. Born in Gubbio in 1557 and killed in Padua on December 22, 1585, her story of marriages, murders and contested inheritances inspired the English tragedy The White Devil by John Webster, of 1612, a novella by Stendhal and a novel by Ludwig Tieck. The memory of Capranica links her to the residence designed by Giacomo del Duca, and the link belongs to local tradition more than to the archive.
Finally Pietro Neri, the entrepreneur who in 1949 chose Capranica for his soft drink factory, exploiting the water of the San Rocco spring. He is neither a prince nor a poet, but his name has reached more Italian homes than that of the Anguillara.
Quick questions about Capranica (VT)
Where is Capranica (VT)?
In the province of Viterbo, in Lazio, at kilometer 55 of Via Cassia, on the southern foothills of the Cimini Mountains, between the Sutri plateau and Lake Vico. The town hall is at Corso Francesco Petrarca 40.
How many inhabitants does Capranica (VT) have?
Just over 6,300 residents, on a municipal territory of about 40.74 square kilometers.
How far is Capranica (VT) from Rome?
About an hour by car from the Grande Raccordo Anulare along Via Cassia toward Viterbo.
How do you get to Capranica (VT) by train?
With the FL3 Roma-Viterbo regional trains, getting off at the Capranica-Sutri station, in the hamlet of Capranica Scalo. The station is unstaffed and the ticket must be bought before boarding.
Do you pay a ticket to visit Capranica (VT)?
No. The village is a public settlement and visiting is free. The churches have free admission and generally open at the time of services.
How long does it take to visit Capranica (VT)?
Two or three hours for the historic center and the main churches, a full day if you add the Madonna del Piano, the Torri d'Orlando and a stretch of the ravines of the Francigena.
What should you absolutely see in Capranica (VT)?
The church of San Francesco with the marble tomb of the Anguillara, the church of Madonna del Piano designed by Vignola, the Torrione dell'Orologio, Palazzo Accoramboni seat of the Comune, the Torri d'Orlando at Vico Matrino.
Is the historic center of Capranica (VT) wheelchair accessible?
Only partly. The village is built on a tuff spur, with steep slopes, historic paving and staircases. The modern part of town and the San Rocco gardens are easier. For visits with specific needs it's best to contact the public relations office of the Comune in advance.
Can you park inside the village of Capranica (VT)?
Strongly discouraged. The alleys are very narrow and without maneuvering space. Better to leave the car in the modern part of town and climb on foot.
Is Capranica (VT) on Via Francigena?
Yes. The municipal territory is crossed by the Francigena route on the stretch between Vetralla and Sutri, and the ravines below the town preserve the historic route with the little rock churches built for pilgrims.
What is the Valloni della Via Francigena Natural Monument?
A regional protected area of 104.79 hectares, established in 2017, entirely within the municipality of Capranica and managed by the Comune itself. It includes two wooded ravines, a high-forest holm oak wood on Monte di San Terenzio and three historic churches.
What are the Torri d'Orlando of Capranica (VT)?
Three large cylindrical Roman mausoleums of the late Republican age, attributable to the 1st century BC, in the locality of Vico Matrino, accompanied by the bell tower of the vanished church of Santa Maria in Campis. The name comes from a medieval legend about the paladin Orlando, not from a historical fact.
When is the patronal feast of Capranica (VT)?
San Terenziano is celebrated on the first Sunday of September, with the torchlight procession to the rural chapel the evening before. The liturgical feast falls on September 1.
What is the procession of the cocciarelle?
The processional transport that takes place on the evening of September 8 to the church of Madonna del Piano. The name comes from the sellers of small crockery articles who once lined the route.
When is the Sagra degli Strozzapreti of Capranica (VT) held?
Around Ferragosto, from August 14 to 16, at the Giggi Iezzi sports center on Via John Fitzgerald Kennedy, organized by the Amici di San Rocco association. The program and dates of the current edition should be checked on the association's channels.
What are the strozzapreti of Capranica (VT)?
A fresh pasta prepared according to the local recipe, served with several sauces: the classic tomato sauce and the version with sausage and porcini mushrooms are the most requested at the August food festival.
Was Chinotto Neri born in Capranica (VT)?
Yes. The Mineralneri plant was founded here in 1949 by Pietro Neri, who chose Capranica for the water of the San Rocco spring. The brand of the main product was Chin8. In 2000 the company passed to the company Chinotto Neri.
What is Capranica (VT)'s connection with Petrarca?
Francesco Petrarca stayed in Capranica in 1337, a guest of Orso degli Anguillara in the castle later dismantled in 1465. The town's main street bears his name.
Why does the castle of Capranica (VT) no longer exist?
Because Pope Paul II had it dismantled after the fall of the Anguillara on July 7, 1465, leaving standing only the tower that now carries the clock above the main gate of the village.
What is the Museo delle Confraternite of Capranica (VT)?
A collection housed in the church of San Rocco, from the 15th century, which preserves vestments, mozzettas, banners, reliquaries and processional floats of the town's brotherhoods. For hours it's best to ask at the Comune.
Is Capranica (VT) suitable for children?
Yes, with some care. The slopes make strollers awkward. The San Rocco gardens offer shade and space. The Torri d'Orlando and the confraternities museum catch the attention of older kids.
What can you visit near Capranica (VT)?
Sutri with the Roman amphitheater and the mithraeum, Ronciglione and Lake Vico, Barbarano Romano with the Marturanum Park and the San Giuliano necropolis, Vetralla, and further south the lakes of Bracciano with Trevignano and Anguillara Sabazia.
What is the best time of year to go to Capranica (VT)?
May and September, the months of the processions. August for the food festival and the evening life. Winter for the photographic light and the deserted village, bearing in mind that many churches open only for services.
Where was the railway yard bombed during the war?
At Capranica Scalo, the hamlet where the Capranica-Sutri station stands, a junction between the Roma-Viterbo line and the Civitavecchia-Orte cross-country line, and for that reason a target of the bombings of World War II.
Are there authorized tour guides to visit Capranica (VT) and the Tuscia?
Yes. For groups, companies and private visits you can turn to licensed professionals. Anyone organizing an itinerary in Lazio starting from Rome will find an overview of day excursions in the English guides by ItalyPlanner devoted to what to do in Rome.
The final verdict on Capranica (VT)
Capranica is one of the towns of the Tuscia to recommend with the most conviction, and almost nobody looks for it. It has a 15th-century tomb that in an art city would draw a line, a church designed by Vignola, three Roman mausoleums amid the hazelnut groves, a protected area with the original Francigena route and a soft drink factory that made the history of Italian taste. It has no lines, no tickets, no souvenir shops. It does have a living community that holds its processions for itself, and that is worth more than any exhibit.
I'll grant it its flaw: it completely lacks signage and interpretive apparatus. Anyone who arrives without knowing what to look for sees a pretty tuff village and leaves in 40 minutes, convinced they have seen it. That's why I insist on the method: find out beforehand, climb on foot, give the town a whole morning and come back for a procession. Done like that, Capranica is not forgotten.
Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.
Planning a trip to Rome? The English guides to visiting the city are on ItalyPlanner.com.
