The Footbridge to Civita site features

There is one way into Civita and this is it: a reinforced concrete footbridge, built in 1965, running from the edge of Bagnoregio across the gap to the tufa outcrop the village sits on. No car reaches Civita. Everything that goes in -- people, shopping, building materials -- crosses on foot.

The bridge may be crossed only on foot, with one exception the comune has made: to meet the needs of those who live or work in Civita, residents and authorised persons are permitted to cross at set times on cycles and motorcycles. Nobody else does, at any hour.

What the bridge is bridging

Not a river. The gap is what erosion has taken out. Civita stands on a spur in the Valle dei Calanchi, between Lake Bolsena to the west and the Tiber valley to the east, where the ground is built in two layers: an older marine clay at the base, particularly prone to erosion, under upper layers of tufaceous and lavic material. The torrents, the weather and historic deforestation take the clay out from under the tufa, and the tufa goes. The terrain here was once gentler and more accessible, crossed by an ancient road from the Tiber valley to the lake; what is left of that is the two gullies of the Fossato del Rio Torbido and the Fossato del Rio Chiaro.

At the far end the bridge arrives at the Porta di Santa Maria, also called della Cava -- the only one of Civita's five ancient gates still standing.

The only way in

A reinforced-concrete pedestrian bridge of 1965, carrying every person and everything else that enters Civita. No vehicle access exists.

The concession for residents

The comune of Bagnoregio permits residents and authorised persons to cross at set times by cycle and motorcycle -- the single exception to a pedestrian-only rule, made for the people who live and work there.

A toll that funds two comuni

Access has been chargeable since June 2013 at 5 euros a head. The revenue was sufficient to abolish communal taxes in Civita and in Bagnoregio itself.

The view from the middle

The crossing is where the whole outcrop is visible at once, which is why the bridge appears in almost every photograph of the place -- and why Civita has been a film location repeatedly, and the inspiration Hayao Miyazaki drew on for Laputa: Castle in the Sky.

The second entrance, from below

A tunnel cut in the rock climbs from the Valle dei Calanchi into the lowest part of the village -- the Bucaione. It is not the way most people arrive, and it is the only alternative to the bridge.

Porta di Santa Maria at the end of it

The bridge lands at the one surviving gate of the five the ancient settlement had, also known as della Cava.