Etruscan Tombs

Took a day-trip to the small town of Cerveteri to explore the unesco listed Etruscan Tomb sites. On the bus ride over I chatted with the guy next to me, Ivan, who turned out to be an officer for the carabinieri, Italy's federal police force. When you see them walking around with their machine guns and uniforms, they look pretty mean and intimidating, but this guy was extraordinarily friendly. He didn't speak any english so I got to practice my Italian.

When we arrived at Cerveteri, we noticed that the tourist information booth was closed. The Etruscan tombs are about a mile outside of town and I didn't know how to get there, but Ivan offered to give me a ride to the tombs since his family's house was nearby. Along the way he kept on quizzing me to make sure I would know the path back to town after he dropped me off, which was another kind gesture.

The tombs themselves were pretty haunting. For most of the time, I was the only tourist there, so it really was like wandering through a quiet graveyard. The tombs are anything but orderly, and they looked like organic constructs growing in odd directions upon the surreal landscape. I felt like I was in one of those video games where you have to rid a haunted crypt full of evil monsters, and I half-expected vampires and skeleton kings to jump out at me at any moment. My explorations where interrupted by short bursts of heavy rain and I often had to seek shelter in the tombs themselves, accompanied only by buzzing insects and unseen creatures rustling in the leaves.

I started to head back to town and was only a few steps along the way when a young guy my age pulled over and asked if I wanted a ride back. He looked like a normal guy and it was starting to rain again, so I took him up on his offer. He didn't speak any english either, but we talked in italian a bit about the world cup. I wondered if he was going to ask me to pay him for the ride, but after he dropped me off in the main piazza he just wished me a good day. This sort of hospitality was far removed from what I was used to in Rome, and it was refreshing to see.