Civita di Bagnoregio

Civita di Bagnoregio stands alone on a pillar of soft volcanic tuff in northern Lazio, and the pillar is slowly eroding away. Italians call it la città che muore, the dying town. The Etruscans settled here more than 2,500 years ago; today the only way in is a long pedestrian bridge climbing up from Bagnoregio.

Around it lie the calanchi — pale clay badlands folded like paper between green slopes. I walked up in the five o’clock light under a sky that couldn’t decide between storm and sun, through the stone gate, past a doorway framed in pink flowers, and out to a terrace where the whole valley opened at once.

Saint Bonaventure was born in Bagnoregio around 1221. Eight centuries later the town is still on its rock — not forever, but for now. Which is the whole case for climbing anything: go while it’s still there.