Bomarzo is a town just over 42 miles northwest of Rome in the province of Viterbo that holds a surprise for the visitor willing to go against the grain of the average tourist. About 400 feet below the historic town center is a place here where creatures are gigantic, where mouths of monsters can swallow you alive, where a tilted house leans so far over for fear that it will collapse any second, and where Titans eternally clash.

This place has many names perhaps because it has left many impressions in the minds and hearts of visitors. Often it’s simply called the Garden of Bomarzo. Some call it Bosco Sacro (Sacred Woods) perhaps because they were enlightened by the magical fantasies here nearly hidden by nature for hundreds of years. Still others call it Bosco dei Mostri (Monsters’ Woods), named for the hellish, monstrous larger-than-life sculptures of giants, animals and grotesques whose domain this is.