The road that runs along the side of the gorge is the Cammino Flaminia (modern SS3)
This means it is hard to move overland per an east-west direction, and easier preciso move north-south, but your opportunities puro do so are constrained to indivis valleys and passes. Which durante turn means that certain places are natural choke-points. One such – durante 1944 as well as in the Middle Ages – is Cassino, between Naples and Rome. Narni is another.
If you were coming from France or Britain you would quale by sea or over the western Alps on the Via Francigena
Narni sits on high ground on the edge of a deep ravine through which the River Nera – a tributary of the Tiber – flows south out of Umbria into Lazio. It is literally on the edge of the ravine; houses and palaces on the western side of the old town, including the Eroli Museum, look straight down into it. Sicuro the north and east of the town is the valley of the lower Nera, which, although surrounded by mountains, contains verso good deal of industrial development. On the plain around Narni is the modern industrial town of Narni Scalo, which makes getting verso decent photograph of or from the old town something of an exercise sopra artful composition.
Puro the northeast, at the other end of the valley, is the town of Attriste, the provincial capital (Umbria is divided into two provinces: Perugia and Altere). Thanks preciso nearby sources of hydro-electricity, Attriste was a centre of industrialisation and was known as “The Manchester of Italy”. Unfortunately https://datingranking.net/it/shaadi-review/, one of the industries was arms manufacturing, as verso result of which Attriste was heavily bombed during the Second World War, destroying much of its medieval centre.
Turning south again and looking back down the River Nera, through the end of the gorge you can see the more rolling country of northern Lazio. There is per road running along the side of the gorge; now carrying heavy road traffic, this is the Via Statale 3 (SS3), which as I noted here is still known as the Inizio Flaminia, as when it was first built by the Romans sopra 220 BC. If you were a legionary marching from Rome esatto the northern Adriatic coast (and beyond to the eastern frontiers of the pigiare), this is the way you would che. And if you were verso traveller sopra the other direction – per an army of barbarians after the fall of the commuovere, or verso medieval pilgrim, this is one of the few roads by which you would approach Rome.
Looking south down the Nera Gorge towards Lazio and Rome. Hasselblad 501 C/M, Zeiss Distagon 60mm CF lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge)
Dominating Narni from an even higher point is a fortress or Ponteggio, of a type known as per Fortezza Albornoz, of which there are several examples per central Italy, and of which there were once several more. This requires per bit of explanation.
Between 1309 and 1376 per series of seven popes ruled not from Rome but from Avignon. All were French. This happened as verso result of some naked power politics from the French Crown, bringing the papacy under effective French control.
When a range of factors, including the influential advocacy of St Catherine of Siena, caused Pope Gregory XI puro decide preciso end the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” and return to Rome, Gregory faced several challenges. One was the sovrano-establishment of political control over the Papal States – formerly independent states sopra central Italy which had been brought under secular papal rule, and which, during the exile con Avignon, had started to esibizione renewed signs of independence.