Every design for Cerveteri

Cerveteri is best known for its dead. The Necropoli della Banditaccia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the largest ancient necropolis in the Mediterranean, a city of grassy mounds and tombs cut from the tufa, laid out over centuries by the Etruscans of Caere. The living town that grew on a corner of that ancient plateau is far smaller than its ancestor, and it wears the past lightly.

The Museo Nazionale Cerite "Claudia Ruspoli" gathers what the soil has given back, while the Tomba dei Rilievi and the Tumulo della Nave draw people out to the necropolis on weekend afternoons. Everyday Cerveteri spreads well beyond the old centre: Cerenova and Campo di Mare by the Tyrrhenian Sea, Ceri and Sasso up in the Colli Ceriti among holm oaks and downy oaks, and Rome within easy reach down the coast. Streams such as the Fosso della Mola cut valleys that have linked the shore with the hills since prehistory.

The picture that stays is simple: the green dome of a tumulus in the evening light, and somewhere beyond the plain, the sea.