Roseyland

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Yeah, I know, it’s been awhile since I updated my Italy travel blog, but hey, I’m here now and that’s all that matters. Today we travel to the small Umbrian town of Orvieto. Getting to Orvieto was easy, yet this was the point in the trip where everything almost went wrong. This was my first time traveling with “open” train tickets. Basically this means we had tickets from Rome to Orvieto that could be used any time on any train within a 30 day window. Which sounds easy enough, but this means I had to figure out what train to get on. Every other time I have travelled by train, my ticket has a specific train number, time, and seat, that I was supposed to be in. Specific numbers work well with my personal psychology, but hey, growth is good. Anyways, I downloaded a list of all trains going from Rome to Orvieto on RailEurope.com, but I think my list was a little dated. We got on a train that was supposed to go to Orvieto, but for some reason I was uneasy, so I tried to ask our fellow Italian passengers if we were on the right train. They didn’t speak much english, but the consensus seemed to be that no, this train did not go to Orvieto. So we got off, and then we had to run to catch the next train, which was off on some weird far away track, but we made it, and it took us to Orvieto. Lessons learned: make sure you have recent train time tables, double check at the station before the train arrives, and if you aren’t sure whether or not a train is the right train, don’t get on the train. It’s stresses me out thinking about how close we came to being on a train to who knows where in Italy. To be fair, I still think the first train might have gotten us to Orvieto, I am pretty positive that it would have gone through Orvieto, because it was headed to Milan, I’m just not sure it would have stopped in Orvieto.

So, we made it to Orvieto, which is a small town on top of a plateau of volcanic rock. You know that James Bond movie where he climbs up this steep pillar like rock with a fortress on top where this underage figure skater totally wanted him. It was kind of like that, but not as tall and there was a whole town up top. The train drops you off below the town, and then you are supposed to take a funicular up to the town. Here is a picture of the funicular stop, notice how steep the tracks are. The funicular was closed though, so we had to take a bus. Not as much fun.

Here is a view from Orvieto, looking down at the valley below.

Here is the Orvieto Cathedral. Very impressive, although it does not have a dome you can climb, bummer.

Orvieto had lots of these small winding cobblestone streets, as seen below.

Look! Real Italian kids playing soccer, I mean football, but soccer.

This is another winding Orvieto street. These streets were a nice change from the somewhat manic streets of Rome.

Here is the Orvieto bell tower. By now you should know how much a like to climb things, so yeah that’s what I did next.

I talked my aunt into climbing the bell tower with me. It wasn’t as tall as any of the other bell towers or domes I had climbed, but it still had great views. Here is the Orvieto Cathedral from the bell tower. Also, while we were on top of the tower, the time struck 1pm, the bell rang, and my aunt nearly had a heart attack, that was cool.

Here are the steps we had to climb to get up to top of the bell tower.

Hey, it’s another cat! When i see a cat in a foreign country, I am obligated to take a picture. This cat appeared to be fairly busy, because he was clearly going somewhere with purpose.

This is the inside of a small church we came across while wandering around Orvieto. It was so bright outside, that I couldn’t see anything when I took this picture, but apparently my camera could see just fine.

Another winding cobblestone street. The person in the chair is a shop owner sitting outside her ceramic shop. Orvieto has lots of ceramic shops.

You wanted to see another picture of an Orvieto street, right? Good, here you go.

After spending a fair amount of time walking around the upper part of Orvieto, we then decided to take a tour of the Etruscan caves below Orvieto. Like I said earlier, Orvieto is on top of a plateau of volcanic rock. This rock is very soft and crumbly, kind of like a pumice stone, so it’s fairly easy to carve into. While these caves are underground and below Orvieto, we are still above the valley floor, since Orvieto is so high to begin with. Make sense? At one point they had dug so many of these caves, that the town of Orvieto was at risk of collapsing. Fortunately they stopped digging new caves and shored up the existing caves in a few key spots. Our guide assured us that the probability of a cave in was relatively small.

They used to raise pigeons in these caves. The pigeons would live in these holes, but they would fly out to get their own food, and then return to their holes. When the ancient Orvietians would get hungry, they would eat the pigeons who so loyally returned everyday. Yum.

Here is another view of the valley below the town of Orvieto. The Umbrian countryside is pretty amazing.

This is St. Patricks well. Being that Orvieto is up high on a plateau of rock, it is fairly easy to defend, but it has no natural water source. So, they dug a well, and this is it. There are two spiral sets of steps around the well in a double helix pattern. This was so mules could take one set of steps down to get water, and then take another set of steps up, without passing the mules coming down. Now, you can walk down the well if you want, which of course I did. It was fun to climb down something for a change.

Here are the steps around St. Patricks well. It was dark and musty.

Orvieto was a nice change of pace from Rome and even Florence. You definitely feel like you have seen more of a country if you get away from the big cities. Not that Florence is a big city, but it kind of feels like it, when it is packed with people. I did all of my touristy shopping in Orvieto. I bough a bottle red wine, white wine, and olive oil from a very excited man who spoke very little English. After Orvieto, we took the train back to Rome, which was uneventful this time, and then took a taxi to eat at the restaurant in front of the Pantheon we liked so much. Here is the Italian style coffee, in other words expresso, that we had after dinner.

Here is the wine and olive oil I bought in Orvieto. I haven’t tried the wine yet, but the olive oil is great. Oh and it’s organic. The excited man who sold it to me wants you all to know that it’s organic.

That is all for today. Tomorrow we experience the fun that is a Rome public transportation strike. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.