Now we would see the “really old” stuff -- things so old, even the early Romans studied their archeology. Our first stop was a verdant mountain setting, with lush vegetation, tall trees, and babbling brooks. What brought us here, however, were the ancient tombs of Etruscan kings and nobles.
Carved into the sides of these lava stone mountains were mammoth-scaled altars, crypts, caves and tombs. I was blown away by the honor of being able to walk up to these magnificent structures, and touch them with my own hand. Someone once carved this beautiful groove I am touching, with tools he held in his hand, right here, standing where I stand now. Who was he? What did he love? What did he fear? George Trevelyan once wrote: "The dead were -- and are not. Their place knows them no more, and is ours today ... The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once on this earth, once on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now are gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow." 
The Etruscans were very advanced as a society, and the Romans borrowed heavily from their technology, belief systems and culture in building the Roman Empire. One might think of the Etruscans as “proto-Roman,” except that might be distasteful to the Etruscans. The name Tuscany is derived from the word Etrusca. Our next stop was the stunning city of Pitigliano (“pee-til-YAHN-no”), a city far older than places like Pienza or Montalcino, a city that is so “Medieval” it’s a bit scary.
Using the local dark gray-brown tufa stone from the surrounding volcanic mountains, the city is deliciously dark and intriguing, especially from the outside looking in. On the inside of the city, almost as if the locals realize the color of their city is a bit off-putting, there are flowers everywhere. 
During the Middle Ages (and to some extent all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire) Pitigliano was the home of a large Jewish population. It was called “New Jerusalem.” They had prospered here, and had been largely responsible for the building of the city high above the dense forest below the walls. Of course, the Nazis of World War II made Pitigliano an example of racial cleansing, capturing and shipping off many members of Jewish families who had lived in this town for centuries. The Italians did what they could to hide some families, preventing their extermination. They also are said to have adopted many of the Jewish children, so they could pass as gentile when the Nazis came calling.
The food is excellent here. It's rustic and unrefined, and I ate every bite. For lunch I had one of the best lamb stews I’ve ever tasted. The meat was, of course, falling off the bone, and the whole thing was in a tomato and veggie stew, along with classic Tuscan bruschetta (which is just toasted slices of rustic bread smeared with garlic and olive oil, and sprinkled with salt).
We then departed for the neighboring town of Sorrano, a smaller version of Pitigliano. Romeo explained the sad fact that towns of this kind are dying in Italy. Fewer families, if any, move into these towns, the young people who do grow up in them so often move away for better jobs in big cities. The remaining population becomes older and (my guess) more and more resigned to a feeling of isolation. What town can do without the sound of kids invading its streets after school lets out in the afternoon? Unless something changes, such towns are destined to become ghost towns. I have to think that would be a great loss to us all if these towns, after enduring so many centuries of struggle and survival, cease to exist as living and breathing villages crowning the great hills of central Italy.
