Packing List for Pitigliano, Italy: What Women Should Bring

Photograph: Pitigliano on its tufa cliff by s9-4pr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Pitigliano is a town of about 3,600 people in the province of Grosseto, in the far south of Tuscany, built on a spur of volcanic tufa that drops away on three sides into ravines. It lies about 80 kilometres south east of the city of Grosseto, close to the border with Lazio, and it is known as la piccola Gerusalemme, little Jerusalem, for the Jewish community that lived here for centuries and whose synagogue still stands in the old town. The packing list follows from two facts: a town made of soft stone steps, and a climate that runs hot in summer and cold in winter.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The photograph shows the houses of Pitigliano rising straight up from the edge of a sheer tufa cliff under a clear sky, with tiled roofs packed along the ridge, a tall bell tower at the left and green scrub on the slope below. What one frame cannot show is most of what you will do here: the synagogue and the lanes of the old Jewish quarter, the vie cave, the Etruscan sunken roads cut deep into the rock around the town, the arches of the Medici aqueduct, Palazzo Orsini, and the two places most visitors pair with Pitigliano, the village of Sovana and the hot springs at Saturnia. None of those are in this picture.

A Town Built Out of Its Own Rock

Arriving from the coast on the Maremmana road, you see the houses before you see how they stand: they jut out from a great spur of tufa above a sheer drop, and the ravines around it are full of caves cut into the stone. Three streams, the Lente, the Meleta and the Prochio, run along the valley floors below.

The area was lived in during Etruscan times, though the first written mention of Pitigliano dates only to 1061. The town belonged to the Aldobrandeschi counts and then, at the end of the thirteenth century, passed to the Orsini family, who made it the capital of their county and fought Siena on and off for generations. Palazzo Orsini, the town's fortified palace, was substantially rebuilt in the sixteenth century to designs by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, and now holds a museum.

The Medici aqueduct is the structure that tells you most about life on the rock. Work began in the sixteenth century, again to a design by Sangallo, to bring water up to a town that had none on its summit, and it was finished in 1639, after Pitigliano had passed to the Medici. Look for two large arches followed by a row of thirteen much smaller ones, added later under the house of Lorraine.

Little Jerusalem

The reason Pitigliano became a refuge was its position on a border. For several hundred years it was a frontier town between Tuscany and the Papal States, and when Jews were expelled from the Papal States in 1569 and again in 1593, many crossed to Pitigliano, where the Orsini counts had offered protection to a Jewish settlement since the middle of the sixteenth century. Italian sources describe the community as always well integrated with its neighbours.

The synagogue was built in 1598 with contributions from a resident named Leone di Sabato, and it sits in the old Jewish quarter, a knot of narrow alleys and arches inside the historic centre. You enter through a large arch into a small courtyard. Inside, the furnishings date largely from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and a stair leads up to the women's gallery. The building has been restored many times, after a roof collapse in 1756, in 1835 when the facade was given its Rococo stucco, and in 1931. Beneath it, cut into the rock, are the rooms that served the community's daily life: the ritual bath, the oven where unleavened bread was baked for Passover, the kosher butcher, the kosher wine cellar and a dye works. The Jewish museum, the synagogue and the former ghetto are now visited as a single route.

The word ghetto is not decorative here. In the seventeenth century the Medici grand duke Cosimo II issued an edict ordering the Jews of Pitigliano, Sovana and Sorano to leave their homes and move into the ghetto of Pitigliano. The town's best known pastry comes from that moment: the sfratto, a long stick shaped biscuit filled with honey and walnuts, whose name means eviction and whose shape recalls the staff the messengers used to knock on Jewish doors. It is worth knowing what you are eating.

The community began to shrink in the nineteenth century, when emancipation drew families to the larger cities. In the middle of that century Jews made up about a fifth of the town's population; by 1931 the community numbered about 70. The Jewish cemetery, laid out in the second half of the sixteenth century, lies beyond the Meleta stream on the south side of the town.

What happened during the Holocaust is told in two ways, and the difference matters. English language summaries often say the town's remaining Jews all escaped capture with the help of their Christian neighbours. The Italian record is harder. It states that during the German occupation and the Italian Social Republic, 22 members of the community were deported, held first at Roccatederighi and Fossoli and then killed in the Nazi camps. Others scattered into the countryside, where, despite the round ups and the constant risk of being betrayed, they were sheltered by a wide network of local families. In 2002 and again in 2008, Yad Vashem recognised several people from Pitigliano as Righteous Among the Nations for that help.

After the war the community could no longer sustain itself. The synagogue's Torah ark was sent to Israel in 1948 and is now in a synagogue in Carmiel, the building closed in 1956, and it was later damaged in a landslide. The municipality restored it, and it reopened in 1995. There are too few Jews left in Pitigliano to make up a minyan, so services are rare, but the synagogue and the museum next to it open to visitors every day except Saturday, the Sabbath. Dress as you would for any house of worship, with shoulders covered.

The Vie Cave and the Etruscan Country

The vie cave are the walk to make here. They are roads cut down into the tufa, running in trenches between steep rock walls that in places are more than twenty metres high, part of a network linking settlements and burial grounds in the country between Pitigliano, Sovana and Sorano. Who cut them and why is still not settled: road, quarry and water channel are all argued for, and some cuts carry carved channels or steps at the bottom. What is certain is the atmosphere: cool, shaded, with ferns growing out of the damp walls. Several start just outside Pitigliano, including one that heads towards the archaeological area at Sovana.

The easiest to reach is the Via Cava del Gradone, south of the town across the Meleta, where an open air archaeological museum named for Alberto Manzi lays out Etruscan finds along the route. Nearby, the Gradone necropolis holds chamber tombs dating to the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Expect uneven ground, loose stone and mud after rain, and tell someone where you are going if you walk them alone, because phone signal in a deep cut cannot be relied on.

Sovana is close by, a tiny village that was once the capital of the county before the Orsini moved it to Pitigliano, and the birthplace of Pope Gregory VII. Its Etruscan necropolis, with tombs carved into the rock faces, is the other half of a visit to this corner of Tuscany.

Recommended Tours and Experiences

Saturnia

A drive west of Pitigliano, near the village of Saturnia in the commune of Manciano, sulphurous water at about 37 degrees pours over a waterfall into a series of natural pools, the Cascate del Mulino. It changes the packing list: bring a swimsuit and a way to dry off, because you will be getting out of hot water into whatever the air is doing.

When to Go

The climate is more continental than the coast's. Average records for the town's weather station give an annual mean of about 14 degrees and roughly 926 millimetres of rain a year. Winters bring low overnight temperatures that can last for long spells, even when the days themselves are pleasant, and the town is in the climate zone where heating is permitted from mid October to mid April. Summers can be very hot, though usually with low humidity.

Spring and autumn suit the vie cave best. On 19 March the town holds the Torciata di San Giuseppe, a costumed procession through the old town that ends at dusk with a bonfire of brushwood in Piazza Garibaldi, burning a reed figure of winter called the invernacciu. The patron saint, St Roch, is celebrated on 16 August.

Is Pitigliano Safe for Women Travelers

Italy carries no advised-against area anywhere, the phrase "advise against" appears nowhere on the FCDO's landing or safety pages for the country, and neither page names Pitigliano, Grosseto or the Maremma.

The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Italy. Its guidance concentrates on petty theft in crowded tourist areas and on the ZTL, the limited traffic zones in historic centres that catch drivers out with automatic fines months after the trip.

The FCDO describes Italian crime as generally low, with bag snatching and pickpocketing concentrated in city centres and at major tourist attractions. In a small rural town the risk that matters more is the car: the FCDO notes that theft from parked cars is common across the country and advises against leaving luggage in a vehicle, even out of sight in the boot. If you are driving between Pitigliano, Sovana and Saturnia, take your bag with you. Historic centres in Italy often have a limited traffic zone marked ZTL, and entering one without a pass brings a fine by camera, so park outside the old town.

One line in the FCDO's advice applies directly to this town. It records that Italian authorities have increased security around some Jewish community sites because of events in Israel and Palestine, and it advises staying aware of your surroundings and following the advice of local authorities. Expect visible security at the synagogue.

The FCDO notes that risks are greater on any outdoor activity done alone, so leave your plans with someone before walking the vie cave, and carry photo ID at all times.

Many parts of Italy lie on a major seismic fault line and the FCDO notes that minor tremors and earthquakes happen regularly. Learn what to do before, during and after one. Pitigliano itself sits in Italy's seismic zone 3, the classification for low seismicity.

The Pitigliano Packing List

Pack for stone and for temperature swings. Evenings on the ridge can turn cold at almost any time of year outside high summer.

A merino wool base layer is the foundation. In the vie cave you go from sun to deep shade and back again many times in an hour, and merino handles that change without leaving you clammy, which cotton does not.

Footwear decides the trip. The old town is a maze of worn stone steps and lanes, and the vie cave are uneven, stony and often muddy. Hiking shoes with real grip and a closed toe are the right choice for both, and they do not look out of place in a rural town. Pair them with merino hiking socks, which stay comfortable on long days of stairs.

For the cold months and for any evening on the ridge, add a fleece mid-layer. With more than 900 millimetres of rain a year, a packable rain jacket earns its place from autumn to spring. In summer swap both for a wide brim sun hat, because the open country between the towns has little shade.

For Saturnia, a quick dry travel towel packs small and dries before you are back in the car. Bring an old swimsuit you will not miss, for the sulphur.

Sunscreen and sunglasses are both needed and neither is linked, because our affiliate register carries no sunscreen and no eyewear entry. For the synagogue and the churches, pack one top or a light scarf that covers your shoulders.

Essential Resources for Women in Pitigliano

Emergency numbers: 112 is the single European emergency number and the FCDO lists it for police in Italy; 118 is the ambulance; 115 is the fire service.

Hospital: dial 118 for an ambulance, which will take you to the nearest public emergency department, the pronto soccorso. No source used for this post names a specific hospital, so none is given here. Confirm the nearest emergency department with your accommodation on the day you arrive, and remember that Pitigliano is a small rural town with the distances that implies.

Official health authority: the Ministero della Salute, the Italian health ministry, covers the national guidance, which is the right level for a town of this size.

US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Rome.

Official tourism authority: ENIT, the Italian national tourist board, covers the national picture. For synagogue opening, the Orsini museum and the vie cave routes, the town's own sources are the current ones rather than anything printed here.

US State Department travel advisory: the Italy advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.

UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.

Italy is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as an Italian resident. That means the same ticket, the co-payment Italians make, rather than nothing, and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. Italian public hospitals are good and the emergency department, the pronto soccorso, treats anyone who arrives. Pharmacies, farmacie, are marked with a green cross, are staffed by pharmacists who can advise and dispense for minor problems, and post a rota for nights and Sundays on the door. Tap water is drinkable across the country, including from the public fountains that are common in Italian towns.

Solo women safety assessment: Pitigliano is a quiet, friendly and easy place to be on your own. The FCDO names nothing in this part of Tuscany, and the old town is busy into the evening. The things to manage are practical rather than personal: your belongings in a parked car, good footing on worn stone, and telling someone your route before you walk the vie cave, where the ground is uneven and the signal is poor. Outside the main season the town is very quiet after dark, so plan your evenings and onward travel in advance.

Reading On

The Tuscany packing list covers the region as a whole. Across the border in Umbria, Orvieto is the other great town built on a volcanic rock, and Civita di Bagnoregio is a tufa village on its own rock just over the border in Lazio. North in Tuscany, Montalcino and Montepulciano are the wine towns of the same southern hills, and Siena was the city Pitigliano spent so long resisting. Rome is the city many of Pitigliano's Jewish families came from. Sovana, Saturnia and the Maremma have no post in this library yet and are named here in prose rather than linked. The Italy travel guide for women is the hub, and the travel packing guide covers the system this list is built on.

If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.

For why stone steps, cool sunken roads and hot afternoons argue for merino rather than cotton, see our guide to the best merino wool base layers for women, and the full range is in the Roman Trail collection.