May 27 - The Historic Hill Town of Orvieto, Italy
Today we are travelling by train to one of the more famous Hill Towns of Italy, Orvieto. We are departing on the 9:13, Regional Train, (ie makes stops, about 7), our train equipment is a 8 car push/pull electric engine, with both first and second class seats. The first class is actually and 6 seat compartment, nice but the windows rattle, and when passed by a Eurostart at 300kmh almost get blown in. Our arrival in Orvieto is right on time, 11:32.
Access to the town is by funicular (cable railway) straight up the hill (€ 1), takes 60 seconds. This town was created in the in Roman times, but existed long before. [http://www.comune.orvieto.tr.it/]
Orvieto, sitting on its impregnable rock had control over the road between Florence and Rome where it crossed the Chiana River. It was a large town: its population numbered about 30,000 at the end of the 13th century. Its municipal institutions already recognized in a papal bull of 1157, from 1201 Orvieto governed itself through a “podesta”, who was as often as not the bishop, however, acting in concert with a military governor, the "captain of the people". In the 13th century Pope Urban IV stayed at Orvieto in (1262-1264) he built the famous St. Patrick well, so that the city always had a source of water if the city ever came under siege during war. Of note the city was never attacked. Lunch spot
We had lunch on the Via Duomo, in an open street cafe, an omelette with mushrooms, cheese and truffles, to die for, and of course a bottle of Orvieto Clasico (a famous white wine of the region).
After lunch we explored several of the underground caves. The city of Orvieto has long kept the secret of its labyrinth of caves and tunnels that lie beneath the surface. Dug deep into the tuff, a volcanic rock, they are spectacular nature and has also yielded many historical and archeological finds. [http://www.pozzodellacava.it/ The underground city boasts tunnels, galleries, wells, stairs, quarries, cellars, unexpected passageways, cisterns, superimposed rooms with numerous small square niches, detailing its creation over the centuries. Many of the homes of noble families were equipped with a means of escape from the elevated city during times of siege through secret escape tunnels carved from the soft rock. The tunnels would lead from the city palazzo to emerge at a safe exit point some distance away from city walls.
Orvieto Street (Via)
After an afternoon of exploring tunnels wine cellars etc, it was time for some gelato (ice cream) and some rest time.
We found an excellent street side restaurant on Corso Cavour for pizza and two more bottles of red clasico wine, thus making this our first three bottle day.
After our dinner we retuned down the hill on the funicular which is across from the railway station. Upon our arrival the night train to Munich and the North arrives, with sleeping and dining cars. This was followed by a freight train, Northbound followed by a Southbound freight and local regional passenger train. Our return train to Florence is a Eurostar High Speed train, which switches off the separate high speed line comes into Orvieto picks up passengers and returns to the high speed line. We reached speeds of 254km + on our return trip, which was very smooth (silk like) and very quite, and only took 1 ½ hours to return.
A long day in the Italian Country side comes to and end around 11:30pm.
