Days 4 and 5

We left Florence in our new rental car on a rainy morning.  It was a bit of a shaky start as the car booking was for June 17, not May 17.  We prefer that the first moments of driving in Italy go smoothly instead of having a rocky start (rain, wrong car, and wrong reservation date).

The day smoothed out after a two hour drive to Orvieto.  It is such a beautiful small city and sits atop a 300 foot tall volcanic bluff with steep cliffs on every side.  We had been here a couple of times for just a couple of hours on two visits.  This time, we are spending two days in an excellent hotel called Hotel Duomo.  It’s in the heart of the city and very close to the Duomo.

It’s a huge cathedral right in our backyard.  

The front in quite spectacular and it is the main attraction in the city.

The city is probably no more than a mile long and a half mile wide at it’s widest spot, and most of the buildings remind us of the renaissance . . . 

or medieval times.

The city is even older than dirt, as the Etruscans founded the original city around 800 B.C.

During World War II, the town was spared from Allied bombing, thankfully.  After the Italians surrendered to Dwight Eisenhower and the U.S. in 1943 (yes, long before the Germans and Japanese surrendered), a request was made to not bomb Orvieto primarily because of the Duomo.  It wasn’t defended by the Germans, so our pilots left this unique city alone.

Having a couple of days to check it out, we toured the hidden side of Orvieto.  There are over 1000 caves under the city on this lava butte, all man-made.  In the time of knights and the bow and arrow, the butte city was a great place to defend against the barbarians.  However, water was a bit of problem.  Starting in Etruscan times, the inhabitants built downward and tunneled to the water.  We toured a couple of the public caves used also during the renaissance.

They used the excavated material to make bricks above ground for building houses and put their olive oil presses below.  Where they thought they would find water, they tunneled vertically like this well that is slightly less than 3 feet by 4 feet.  This hole is about 300 feet deep and was dug by men with hand picks.  If you question how could they build this, look hard and you’ll see toe holds which are located on both of the long sides. 

The flash didn’t reach the bottom, of course.

They had water thanks to the vertical tunnels, and they also collected rain water in the horizontal tunnels immediately below their houses.  

Man doesn’t live by water alone.  Barbarians loved their food, too, and commonly used starvation as a weapon.  The inhabitants of the city back in the city siege times figured out a very clever solution.  They dedicated some of the caves to pigeon raising, and it’s estimated one mile of caves looked like this:

and this:

Pigeon was the chicken of the day back then and the 5-6 inch holes were pigeon apartments.  The pigeons would fly out the window (these caves were just inside the cliff surface and a pigeon window was for their egress and ingress) and eat or bring foraged food back to their young.  No pigeon recipes were discussed during the tour, but we hear it’s not that bad.

All the caves conveniently register 15 degrees Celsius year round, and 80% of the caves are privately owned.  Most are used for wine cellars in today’s Orvieto.

We will only mention that the food is BETTER here than in Florence.  First, in Florence they make their bread without salt.  You would assume it to be a very small omission, but it’s not!  Thus, the bread for all you gluten eaters is excellent here!  Second, great food is inexpensive here compared to the big city of Florence - about half the price.  Here are couple of food pictures with short captions for you epicureans.

Smoked Goose Breast with Goat Cheese. 

Perfetto!

Gnocci with bacon, spinach, and truffles

Little finger nail size gnocchi

Nidi di rondine pecorino e miele caldo

Translation:  Swallows' nests cheese and warm honey

pasta with cheese like you have NEVER had!

There is a celebration of spring flowers here in Orvieto for two days.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get the message that a corsage was in order for my sweetheart.