It was our luck to be there for the culmination of their latest project. After Pitigliano, we walked to Sovana, close to which is the Tomba della Sirena, so named for the tufa carving of a mermaid, so delicate and fragile that she was removed for safe-keeping to a museum. With ATG's help a replica has been made, identical but weatherproof, and restored to her dramatic position in the ancient necropolis. After she was unveiled, the archaeologists decided to show us their latest discovery, a few yards away through the bracken.
We met few people still using these mossy old roads - certainly no Italians - but we felt pretty close to the Etruscans.ATG has set up a trust that aims to give something back to the people whose countryside we treasure. To reach Pitigliano, however, we were to take our first sunken road, and that was certainly something new. One of a network of narrow paths carved deep into the tufa by those same Etruscans, it snakes its cool and crumbly way down to the river in the valley and then up the other side. To the seasoned walker in Italy, the three words "little hilltop town" mean only one thing: a steep and weary climb. We encountered it on the very first morning of our trip.We had walked steeply out of Montemerano past barking dogs and crowing cocks, through bell-led flocks of flop-eared sheep, many with late and bleating lambs. As the sun grew warmer, these sounds of habitation died away in the valley and we found ourselves climbing towards wooded hills, past the white flowers of campion and the blue of wild chicory, through drifts of vibrant pink cyclamen and tiny autumn crocuses and into a darker, danker wood. Here mushrooms pushed up through the springy bark and fallen leaves of the forest floor, shoving aside the stripy quills of porcupines and studding the playgrounds of frolicking wild boar.And then, as the path grew wider and deeper, holes shaped like large fireplaces began to appear in the tufa walls.
These, Roxanne told us, were our first Etruscan graves, simple ledges hidden deep in the fungal, leafy wood. They had been hollowed out to house the mortal remains of people who had lived here long before the Romans began their empire-building, centuries before the birth of Christ. It was an exciting moment - although, in truth, there was not much to look at But that was to change. Later that afternoon, after nearly 15 miles on foot, we rounded a bend in the track to find ourselves suddenly facing Pitigliano, a perfect, golden little town glowing in the light of the declining sun.You can't afford to be romantic about such a sight.