Orvieto, Umbria, Italy, Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Madonna From the Duomo

We get up to catch the early bus to Bagnoregio, but Carol is still not feeling good so we decide to go tomorrow and try to tour a few sites in town today. Back to bed we go and wake back up around 1000. Her stomach issues have settled down for now, so we head out to see how she does. We walk over near the Duomo and sign up for an 1115 underground Orvieto Tour. While we wait, we visit the city museum which is right across the piazza. It contains art from the Duomo and other cathedrals in the area. It is nice and fills in the time void we had so our wait is only a few minutes for the tour.

Olive Press Room

The tour is in English, yet we seem to be the only Americans in the group. There are French, German, and Italians, who obviously all speak English. We descend slightly outside the town walls and enter the first cave. There are over a thousand caves underneath the city, all man made over the centuries. The caves, most of which are still privately owned by the homes above them have been used for storage, wine, olive oil, and other uses. The first one we see was an olive oil mill and the large grindstones are still here. The constant temperature in the caves were ideal for making wine and olive oil as well as storage of the products. There is even a corral here as they kept the donkeys that pulled the stones here as well.

130 Foot Well Shaft

The caves were also a source of protection from enemies and their locations as well as existence were kept as secret as possible. Most important of all with Orvieto being a hill town was the drilling into the rock to have wells for water. Enemies would think long and hard before attacking a hill town with walls and water. Food was stockpiled as well and Orvieto was never attacked. It is amazing to see the footholds carved into the side of the long well shafts. They used these to climb down while they were excavating the well. This shaft we are looking at is 130 feet deep and only about 3 feet square.

Pigeon Coops

We enter a different cave where there are holes carved into the side walls. Starting way back before Christ, the Etruscans raised pigeons here. This continued well into the 1800s. The pigeons provided a source of food as well as income selling the meat. A pigeon can have two babies every month and you can still find roast pigeon on many of the menus here. All of these caves were accessed from the homes above although there were external access in some and holes cut in the rock for the pigeons to come and go. One of the Popes who came here for safety, ordered all the external holes blocked off for fear of an attacker gaining access to the town. In reality, they say there was no real threat here and the order was so that smugglers could not use these entrances to bring in goods without paying tax. It’s almost always about the money!

The Well

After the tour, we grab a couple of slices of pizza for lunch and go to visit the well of the cave. This cave complex was discovered in 1984 when the owner of the restaurant above was renovating. The well here dates back to the Etruscans and was enlarged around 1527 by order of Pope Clement VII and then closed to the public in 1646. It lay hidden until 1984. They also found Etruscan and Roman artifacts, Etruscan tombs, a quarry, an Etruscan cistern system, wine cellar, and an old medieval kiln with tools. Who knows what else lies beneath some of the homes and streets above.
Carol is not feeling great but wants to continue to see the Etruscan Necropolis. It is not easy to find and we end up walking along the path on the outside of the city walls. We find it lying beneath us but the entrance is quite a ways downhill on a road. Carol is not up to it so we walk a little further on the path and cut back up into town. We stop to rest in front of a small church and start to talk to a lady sitting there. Candy is from Texas but has lived in Switzerland the last 10 years. She is waiting for her husband to pick her up and we chat for a while. She would like to do what we are doing in the future so is interested in our travels. They have been renovating an old home in Switzerland for four years as things do not move fast there. Her husband arrives and off they go.

Exquisite Sausage and Truffles Pizza

We stroll back to the BNB so Carol can rest. Later, she is still not up to going out so I go to find her some medicine and food. I find the pharmacy and pick up some pills for her tummy and some Tylenol. Then I walk around a find Ristorante Pizzeria Charlie. How can I not order from here. I order a Margherita pizza and a tartufano pizza, which is sausage and truffles.
When I get back we feast in the Room and the truffles pizza is amazing. Sausage and truffles on top and then drizzled with a truffle infused oilive oil. Then it is early to bed so hopefully a good nights sleep will help Carol feel better.
CNC
“Not I, not anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself”- Walt Whitman

Expenses
2.40E- 2 slices pizza for lunch from I Dolci Di Moscatelli , just OK
13.20E- Medicine from pharmacy for Carol
13.50E- 1 Margherita, 1 sausage and black truffle pizza from Charlie, excellent pizza
58E-BNB

Miles Walked- 5 Miles