The real point of a visit to Tuscania, however, lies in two justly celebrated Romanesque churches on the eastern edge of the town, close to the rocky outcrop of the old Etruscan settlement. From the central Piazza Basile take the Via Clodia until the unmistakable bulk of San Pietro (daily: summer 9am-1pm & 3-7pm; winter 9am-1pm & 2-5pm) looms into view. Considered one of the gems of the Italian Romanesque, it's an essentially thirteenth-century construction with eighth-century fragments of Lombard origin. Fronted by a threadbare grass piazza, which produces an odd courtyard effect, it's also flanked by the remains of a Bishop's Palace and two sturdy towers, the whole church having once been fortified as part of the town's defensive scheme. The intrinsic marble carving on the facade is a bizarre mix of mythological figures and Christian symbolism - look out for the dancer and a three-headed man spewing out a twisting vine - and may well come from an Etruscan temple. The interior is solemn and cavernous, with huge blunt pillars supporting curious notched arches, a feature known in Italian as dentati (literally "toothed"), a spiralling Cosmatesque pavement and some early twelfth-century frescoes in the transept, somewhat the worse for wear after the earthquake in 1971. Steps lead down underneath the chancel to a mosque-like crypt made up of 28 columns and ribbed vaulting.

The town's other focal point, Santa Maria Maggiore (same hours as San Pietro), is a stone's throw away down the hill, a less gracious affair than San Pietro, despite the fact that it was built slightly earlier in the same style. The arched marble doorway was probably added by Pisan sculptors in the twelfth century, and is surmounted by an almost naive white-marble Madonna and Child, and flanked by saints and biblical scenes. The rest of the ruddy stone facade is largely Gothic, only the left portal preserving the zigzags of Norman motif. Inside is the usual bare simplicity of the Romanesque - stone walls, the odd fresco (including entertaining scenes of the Last Judgment in the apse now, alas, fading fast) and, most remarkably, a font designed for total immersion.

The rest of the town is decidedly less impressive, boasting only a small archeological museum (Mon 3-7pm, Tues-Sun 9am-7pm; free), housed in the ex-convent of Santa Maria del Riposo on Via XX Settembre. In addition to the predictable Etruscan display, there's a collection of twelfth- to seventeenth-century ceramics, many taken from the walls of local houses.