It is a distance of nine miles from Bolsena to Monte Fiascone, and the road on the long ascent commands superb views of the lake and its richly-wooded shores. That the lake, notwithstanding its vast size, was once the crater of a volcano, seems proved by the character of its encircling hills; and in one spot, about a mile from Bolsena, there is strong evidence in a cliff of basaltic columns, of irregular pentagons, hexagons, and heptagons, piled up horizontally. The quarries, for which these shores were anciently renowned, have not yet been recognised.

Though the lake anciently took its name from Volsinii, the principal city on its shores, yet, as the ager Tarquiniensis stretched up to its waters on the west, it was sometimes called the Tarquinian Lake. In all ages something of the marvellous seems to have attached to it. The blood-flowing wafer, and the foot-prints of the virginmartyr, have already been mentioned. Its islands are described as floating groves, blown by the wind, now into triangular, now into circular forms, but never into squares. Shall we not rather refer this unsteady, changeful character to the eyes of the beholders, and conclude that the propagators of the miracle had been making too deep potations in the rich wine of its shores?