Orvieto...

This past Saturday we made our first excursion into Umbria (another region of Italy...there is Tuscany, we live in Lazio, etc) to visit the hill town of Orvieto. It is pretty large as far as the hill towns that we have been visiting, but it is still a pretty small town. It is pretty impressive to walk through the cobblestone streets and then be faced with this HUGE Duomo...

This prickly church is amazingly detailed! The sculpture, mosaics, and stained-glass are almost overwhelming. Each of the 'pictures' on the fascade has been done with small 1/4 inch tiles...amazingly detailed...

Here is some of the details of the front...

The inside is very large and spacious...it was actually built to look larger than it is...the back portion of the nave is larger than the front causing an optical illusion...

The main reason such a small town has such a large church is the 'Miracle of Bolsena'. As the story goes...there was a priest who was skeptical about the eucharist actually becoming the body of Christ...during his blessing of the eucharist, it began to bleed and a linen cloth was soaked in blood...so they built this church. I even got to see the 'actual' blood-stained cloth...

Orvieto is also an Etruscan site. Historians think that Orvieto was some kind of mecca for the Etruscans, based on the number of tombs surrounding the city. The entire city lays on top of and entire underground network of tunnels and rooms...an underground city. We went on a tour of a couple of the tunnels...pretty cool! This pic is showing one of the actual 'houses' underground (notice the gabel roof)...

Later these underground rooms were turned into olive oil mills...

In some places, the tunnels and rooms can be 2 or 3 stories deep and even up to 5 stories deep...Here we are looking at a pigeon breeding room...they used pigeons for food (think little chickens)...brings new meaning to the term 'pigeon-holed'...

Overall, Orvieto was a pretty interesting place. It is known by the three C's...it's Cathedral, it's ceramics (I just happened to buy a jar for my home), and it's Classico wine (I purchased some and will have to let you know if I like it when we open it up!).

We ended up back at home earlier than usual...I think that we all are pretty tired from our siteseeing extraviganza! Hopefully we can catch up on some sleep and rest this week...we have a pretty exciting weekend planned...more on THAT later!

Have a wonderful day!
Ciao a tutti!