We set off through the streets to the Palazzo del Papi and descend past this grand edifice to exit the city through its extensive walls and towers.
We soon enter the Etruscan Via Cave, a magnificent road cut deep into the tufa limestone and running for 3 k from the old Etruscan city. In places the narrow walls are 15 metres high and there are supposed to be inscriptions and bear symbols, but we cannot find any.
Unfortunately the rush hour traffic uses this route also.
We have to follow a path next to the current Via Cassia, the fast road to Rome before striking up over farmland to a picnic table with a view for a welcome break.
We pass through olive groves and fields of grass, cut and drying for cows that we never see. Some groves are bright with flowers, some have earth or lawn like grass under the trees and some have sheep in them happily munching away.
We sit under an olive tree and munch our lunch surrounded by grass whose seeds get stuck in our clothes and irritate until removed. There are butterflies and mice and ants about, all busy with their lunches too, no doubt.
We pass the church of St Maria in Forcassi built on top of a Roman forum and a precious stop on the Via Francigena, but it is ruined and locked up now.
As we approach Vetralla, we come past fields of farmed hazel nut bushes, neatly coppiced and trimmed. Vetralla is another ancient Etruscan town on a hill with an excellent ostello where we are staying tonight.