Orvieto or bust

We left Rome and the district of Lazio for Orvieto in the district of Umbria.  We walked down the hill and crossed the Tiber River and picked up the bus to Termini Station.  Here is a picture of a dozen of us  trying to figure which track our train is on and where the track is for our train??  Who knows Italian?  Not a soul in this group!  Another group went to Subacio and another to Ostia today.

Hmmmm, where's the train???

 So you can see we found our train and our track.  The train takes about one hour and twenty minutes. There was one casualty, I fell asleep while studying Italian on the train.  Our group was scattered about in one car since it was crowded.  I was sitting alone and someone from our group yelled out, "This is our station".  I bolted up and dashed out the door leaving my favorite thermos with ice water on the seat!!!  Once at the station we had to take a tram up the mountain to get to the town.  Once off the tram we had an 8 minute climb up a steep hill to the Cathedral.  From there it was up and down all day.

Orvieto

The turn in the road that took us up to the Cathedral

 The Cathedral is the only real attraction here, there is an underground tour but we did not have time.  The entire city rests on Tufa, a soft volcanic stone.  The inhabitants carved out an extensive maze of tunnels under their town in case they needed to escape a siege in the Middle Ages.  The Cathedral is built on the flat plain on top of the mountain.  Beautiful structure and well maintained.  It cost 3 Euros to enter.  The outside is more beautiful than the inside which is largely plain except for the frescos in the main sanctuary and the frescos in the a side chapel called the Cappella Nova or San Brizio Chapel, it had wonderful frescos some of which were painted by Fra Angelico and the rest by various artists.  That Chapel was certainly worth the admission price!  The opposite or North 'Chapel of the Corporal' contains blood stains on a corporal upon which a miraculous host began bleeding during Mass in the at Bolsena (a nearby town) in 1263, though they are no longer visible on the corporal.  They do not allow pictures in the Cathedral so I only have exterior shots.

exterior of Orvieto Cathedral

 The Cathedral is dedicated to the honor of St. Mary of the Assumption.  I am sure if they could find a way to charge you for viewing the exterior they would but it is too big, here are a couple of shots and some close up pictures.  The front exterior is completely covered in mosaic.

mosaic over the door

mosaic crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth at the peak of the building.

Rose Window

 The town had several working artists.  We saw many beautiful Majolica pottery stores, common in Umbria and Tuscany.  You could pop into their studios while they worked and of course their work is for sale. Here is a young Iconographer at work on a Icon of the Holy Family.

Iconographer writing an Icon

His icons for sale.  They were several hundred Euros each.  He also did some illuminations.

 After our tour of the Cathedral and stroll through town we had lunch at a cafe.  I had a four section pizza with artichokes, black olives, mushrooms, pork and spiced salami with a glass of Orvieto wine.  We also had a few appetizers, one of which was a medium sharp sheep's milk cheese served with local honey which was quite tasty.  The tang of the sheep's milk cheese and the sweetness of the honey was a nice play off one another.  Then we made our way back down the hill to catch the tram to catch the train to catch the bus to climb our own hill home!!    It seems, like life, Italy is a series of ups and downs!

This picture is from the lowest point in the town, a panoramic view!

Here we are coming down on the tram with another tram about to pass us going up

Orvieto Station.