Situated just 7 km from Terni are the famous Marmore Waterfalls (the Cascata delle Marmore), without doubt one of the most spectacular and beautiful natural sights in Italy. It is seldom possible to experience such an awe-inspiring, exceptional spectacle in which power, beauty and motion are combined and blended togheter: a spectacle which words cannot describe. Suffice it to say that those who see the Marmore Waterfalls will never forget the sight or sound of the foaming mass of the waterfall, crashing with a roar over the rocks and throwing clouds of spray upwards, producing rainbows in the air.

The Marmore Waterfalls have been immortalized by great painters such as Corot and by the poet Byron, while they have been visited by princes and famuos personalities in every era.

The Waterfalls are not entirely a natural phenomenon: they were created by the Roman consul Curius Dentatus in 271 B.C., who built a channel to divert the waters of the River Velino, which stagnated in the higher plain of Rieti, into the River Nera. The waters of the Velino plunge steeply downwards for 165 metres, divided into three leaps of which the first, some 80 metres, is the highest.