Not the first thing you might think of doing this summer, but the ancient Etruscan road systems cut deep into the surrounding bedrock as vertical trenches throughout the Maremma are fascinating! Called Cavoni, they are thousands of years old and their exact function and origin are unknown and found in Spain, Italy, Turkey, and even Jordan, but in the Maremma they are extensive, especially around Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano.

In some areas they are so wide and massive that they have been incorporated into the modern Italian road system, for instance outside Viterbo and Pitigliano, and the Romans used them as well, adding them to the ancient high road Via Clodia, which was build from Rome north through the Maremma in the 3rd century BC, and which was used initially to move Roman troops north in the conquest of Etruria, and after that for short range commercial traffic between the various towns and lands and the capital.