Closer to heaven in Orvieto

I purchased my train ticket to Orvieto online a few days prior to my departure from Florence. The cost was $22.50, and the trip would take 2 hours and 10 minutes. I bid a sad arrivederci to the sweet Sister at the desk. She had summoned the taxi for me a few minutes earlier. The taxi cost almost what the train ticket cost - $21.21 compared to $22.50, which speaks to the affordability of the trains!

I had a bit of a wait for the train, but I'd rather be early than race down the platform at the last minute! There were a few English-speaking people in the waiting area to visit with until my train departed. Two police officers walked through the waiting area and seemed to randomly pick people to check their passports. On the reader board we could see that a few trains had been cancelled, and the word on the street was that the big bike race in Italy, the Giro d'Italia, was causing the disruption. Luckily, my train wasn't affected.

On the train I was lucky to be sitting with 2 American women from Minnesota, who were meeting a group in Orvieto for a week of painting. I was staying at one convent, and they were staying at another. Funny that a relatively small hill town would have more than one, but on the other hand, there was a prominent cathedral in Orvieto too, so that may have accounted for the proliferation of nuns in town, essentially operating guest houses for religious pilgrims.

I shared a taxi with the 2 Americans for the ride up the hill to the upper town. There might have been an easy way to get there by an elevator carved into, or pasted onto, the cliff, but not knowing exactly where our convents were located, we elected to splurge on a ride. We were sure we’d run into each other again, walking around town over the next 4 days, but we never did. I should have gotten their contact info.

I'm staying at Instituto SS Salvatore in Orvieto. I booked it through booking.com, and thought it was probably a former convent, turned B&B, but no, it was an actual convent, staffed by nuns. The location was great. Within a block or two there were several restaurants, and the entire town was an easy walk. 

My room has a queen-size bed, a bathroom, and another bedroom (which is locked), but obviously could accommodate a family of 3. It has a balcony, and a nice view of the garden. 

The fancy ironwork is on the entrance gate to the convent

The patio, the neighbors and the distant hills of Umbria from my balcony

I found a place for a late lunch, tucked into a tiny square up a little alley. Ristorante Antico Bucchero was a nice place, if indeed they had an old butcher. (After some research, I found out that bucchero is a certain kind of pottery found in the area😊. I thought an old butcher would be worthy of note too!) I had cacio e pepe, which is a classic Roman dish of pasta with a sauce made with melted cheese and seasoned with pepper. The grated cheese is tossed with some pasta water to create a smooth sauce. We've tried it at home, and it's tricky to get the sauce to come out smooth. They did a nice job with it here. The noodles seemed to be hand-rolled rather than put through a pasta machine, and I heard from a local that this kind of pasta is traditional here.

I had my favorite orange drink, a Spritz, with my lunch, and dessert and an espresso too. An Italian espresso is about 1 tablespoon of coffee in a tiny cup. Perfect to end a meal.

I walked the few blocks over to see the cathedral, Duomo di Orvieto. It's just so big, for this little hill town! 

The Duomo di Orvieto, built at the end of the 13th century

Orvieto sits on a foundation of tufa, 1,000 feet above the valley floor and has quite a long history, going back to 900 BC when it was a major Etruscan town. It was destroyed by the Romans in 264 BC, and uninhabited for the next 6 centuries. After the fall of Rome, and subsequent attacks by invaders from the north, people in the valley headed back into the hills, and rebuilt Orvieto over the Etruscan ruins. The town flourished in the Middle Ages. The population then was about 30,000, and today it is about 5,000, all in less than a square mile atop its hill.  At one time there were 50 churches in town. Now half of them are inactive.

The modern version of Orvieto is filled with restaurants and shops, some specializing in the famous local ceramics. There's a lot to occupy and entertain tourists! I'll check some of it out tomorrow.