Tolfa
Old-fashioned health resort, interesting shops
Coming this way from Biera on minor roads you pass a nature reserve on the left and the San Giovenale archaeological zone on the right, with tumuli and ruins of mainly specialist interest, and 6 km west the Pian di Luni plateau. Here stands a huge Bronze Age construction with a cave in which Etruscan relics have been found. There is now a church on top of it.
Tolfa at 470 m is a small old-fashioned health resort half-way up a conical mount which has a medieval fortress of the Frangipani on top. The area is wooded, pleasing to the eye and rich in wildlife. They produce hams at Tolfa and sell them locally. August sees the festa of the hams, and of the butteri (cowboys), marked with tournaments and horse-races. In Tolfa’s gift shops you can buy cattane, soft leather purses and wallets, and incerrate, rough rainproof coats as worn by the cattle-men.
