This weekend I finally got the chance to check out the city center of the town where I am staying, Montefiascone. It is a small town, but it has a very rich history.
As I mentioned earlier, this area was a center of the Etrucian society. There are many caves here that date back well before the Roman Empire. The city itself is thought to have been built on the ruins of an ancient Etrucian temple. The first record of the name "Montefiascone" is from 853. It was a very wealthy medieval city, and a strategically important fortress. The castle hosted many popes on their way to cities north of Rome.
There is a popular local story about a catholic bishop who was traveling to Rome many centuries ago. As the story goes, this bishop sent a servant ahead with instructions to scrawl "Est" (latin for "it is") across the door of inns that had good wine. When the servant came to the inn at Montefiascone, he loved the wine so much that he wrote "Est, Est, Est!" The bishop drank so much of the wine that he died, and is now buried in the crypt of a local church. Today, Est Est Est is a large commercial wine bottler. Dario concluded "it might have been good once, but now it is crap!"
The city center is built on a hill with a beautiful park at its peak. I spent some time reading in the park, checked out the cathedrals and castle ruins, and got some food a a local cafe.
Photos from top to bottom: 1) The view from the park. 2) Cathedral Santa Margherita. 3) Could this be it!?
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