---
title: 'Sorano: Rock and Time'
date: '2026-09-03'
location_name: Sorano
location_country: Italy
lat: 42.683
lng: 11.715
hero_image: hero.jpg
hero_alt: Medieval town of Sorano clinging to pale tufa cliffs at dusk
published: true
---

The road from Orbetello climbs inland through scrubland and heat. For most of the afternoon there is nothing on the horizon except sky and the occasional electricity pylon. Then, at the top of a ridge, Sorano appears — and the word "appears" does not quite cover it. The town has been carved from a cliff of tufa, a pale volcanic rock so soft you can score it with a fingernail. The buildings are the cliff and the cliff is the buildings.

[scrolly-section image="hero.jpg" alt="Medieval town of Sorano seen from the approach road, perched on pale tufa cliffs" caption="Sorano — tufa cliff town, Grosseto province"]
The approach by bike gives you an unusually long time to study it. The descent into the valley and the climb back up take perhaps forty minutes, and the town is visible for most of that time, doing nothing, requiring nothing.

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Close up the rock is extraordinary. Hundreds of tomb niches cut into the cliff face — Etruscan graves, most of them open to the sky now, their contents long removed. The people who built this town chose to live surrounded by the evidence of their own mortality. This seems either very brave or very sensible.

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The gate into the old town is fifteenth century and narrow enough that loaded bikes don't fit without turning sideways. Inside, the air is noticeably cooler and the alleys are steep, paved with the same pale tufa, worn smooth by centuries of feet.
[/scrolly-section]

We found a wall to lean the bikes against and sat looking south over the valley we had come from. The light was going amber. Below us, the road we had ridden was already in shadow.

[chapter-break image="photo-1.jpg" title="After Dark" number="II" alt="Narrow medieval alley in Sorano at dusk, pale stone walls glowing warm" /]

[pull-quote image="photo-1.jpg" alt="Stone alley in Sorano lit by a single lantern at night"]
A town built on rock, carved from rock, returning slowly to rock. Two thousand years of human effort and the cliff remains indifferent.
[/pull-quote]

[scrolly-section image="photo-2.jpg" alt="View south from the tufa cliff walls of Sorano at dusk" caption="Val di Fiora, from the old walls"]
One restaurant was open. The menu was four items. We had the pasta with wild boar and the pasta with truffles and a carafe of local wine that cost six euros and was excellent.

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The owner sat at the next table watching a football match on his phone without headphones. Nobody minded. The town outside was completely quiet.
[/scrolly-section]

We were in bed before nine. Sorano at night is absolutely silent. It has been this quiet, in approximately this configuration, for a very long time.
