Perugia's Etruscan Well and the free Rocca Paolina

The Rocca Paolina in Perugia costs nothing to walk through and its escalators run from 6:15 am to 2 am, while the Etruscan Well is 37 meters deep but has no hours or price published by the city (2026).

The Rocca Paolina: free, and open until 2 am

The buried quarter under the Rocca Paolina is crossed free of charge, on escalators that run from 6:15 am to 2 am (06:15 to 02:00 on the signs).

It's not a detour. The route from the Piazza Partigiani car park up to the historic center runs through it, so anyone who parks there walks through it on the way up.

2 am is the useful number. Coming back down late after dinner in the upper town, the escalators are still running.

A medieval quarter under a papal fortress

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger built the Rocca Paolina between 1540¹ and 1543¹ for Pope Paul III, and he built it on top of an entire medieval neighborhood.

The fortress swallowed the houses of the Baglioni family, the borgo of Santa Giuliana and the church of Santa Maria dei Servi. What you walk through are the streets of that quarter, roofed over. The full account is in Perugia buried a whole quarter.

Porta Marzia: 7 am to 8 pm

Porta Marzia, an Etruscan gate of the 3rd century BC, was taken apart and remounted by Sangallo in the front wall of the Rocca, and the passage through it is open from 7 am to 8 pm (2026).

It's the same fortress, with shorter hours than the escalators. After 8 pm, use the escalator route.

The Etruscan Well: 37 meters, three springs

The Etruscan Well, also called Pozzo Sorbello, was dug in the second half of the 3rd century BC and goes down 37 meters, at Piazza Piccinino.

The upper part is a cylinder about 5.6 meters across and 12 meters tall, narrowing to 3 meters lower down. Two travertine arch beams cover it, each weighing 80 quintals, 8 metric tons, laid without mortar or binder. Three perennial springs feed it.

The beams have held for more than two thousand years without mortar.

Well hours and price: not published by the city

The city's page on the well does not publish opening hours or prices: the site is run by the Fondazione Ranieri di Sorbello, at pozzoetrusco.it, and that page wasn't verified for this one.

Look there before you plan around it. A comparison with the well at Orvieto is in two staircases that never meet.

The Arco Etrusco: 11 meters and a Roman rename

The Arco Etrusco is an 11-meter travertine gate from the 3rd century BC, and it carries the inscription Augusta Perusia, added about two centuries later.

The inscription dates from Augustus's restoration of the city after the Bellum Perusinum of 41 to 40 BC, which is why the gate is also called the Arco di Augusto. More on the city: Perugia, events in Perugia and the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria.

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