Orvieto

Not too long ago, in a country far, far away, your blogger visited one of those mystical type of towns that is hard to believe actually exists. For this weekend, the mystical Italian city of our choosing was Orvieto, which I believe I mentioned, is a place that I had wanted to visit since I first spied it from the window of a bus when I was 16 years old. Well, earlier this month, I finally visited the town. Mark, Natalie, and our friend Lindsay set out from Bologna on Friday afternoon and had a lovely direct train ride to Orvieto. After disembarking from the train in Orvieto, we had to take a funicular train (which may be my favorite mode of transportation) to the actual town on a hill: (this is a bad picture swiped from the Internet) The village of Orvieto sits on a butte about an hour outside of Rome. The butte is populated with many underground caves, which today are used mostly for wine cellars and basements of the people of Orvieto. At various times in the past, the caves were used to house pigeons, food, etc.

After arriving on Friday night, we went to eat at a restaurant located in a cave. It was rather neat. I would post pictures, but they are stuck in Natalie's camera....After dinner we roamed a very deserted Orvieto. No one was out on the town. It was eerie how silent this place was on a Friday night.

On Saturday, we took to the town and saw everything there was to see, which isn't saying too much, as the town is so small you could walk from one side to the other in 10-15 minutes. Anyway, some of the sights of our tour included a view of the hillside and some of the town's buildings:

Here is me in the town, overlooking the valley:

We also took an underground tour that included caves dating back to the Etruscans. The last time these caves were used for anything other than wine cellars was actually during WW II when the caves were used as air raid shelters:

And can anyone say "Absolut Fortress"?

Here are Mark and Natalie, trying to figure out what we should do next. Or maybe they were looking for a restaurant. I don't recall. But what is funny about this picture are the surroundings. Or maybe the combination of the playground, beer, and wind....
And here are me, Natalie, and Mark:
And then there is the Duomo in the center of town. This was a very interesting church--very ornate gold mosaic scenes on the outside, but very sparsely decorated on the inside. Actually, the inside of the Duomo has huge frescoes on the walls that some credit as the inspiration for Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The church is also interesting because of its immense size. The town of Orvieto is tiny, but the church is huge. Seems very disproportionate....




After spending the rest of Saturday walking around the town and sampling some of the local vino, we headed to an absolutely amazing dinner at a restaurant called Ristorante Zeppelin. They had a special "surprise" dining menu where one paid a set price for 3 dishes, but the cook decides what you are going to eat. After some deliberation, we decided to take the plunge. And what an amazing meal it was. My first course was a chickpea flan, with pecorino cheese mousse. Then for the second course, I had black truffle pasta. Finally, the third course was rabbit, stuffed with apple and herbs. I probably would never have ordered any of these items on my own, but they were so good. A very good time was had by all, that is certain....

the other thing that was interesting about Saturday night was the amount of people out on the town. It seemed that as soon as Saturday night mass let out, the town became overrun with people and did not clear-out of people until very late. Where these people were on Friday night, I don't know, but they were out in force on Saturday.

And then on Sunday we traveled back to Bologna. It was a very good weekend. I can't wait till my next out-of-Bologna experience....