More on Orvieto

We decided we needed a vacation from our vacation today so we stayed in Orvieto. We were going to hop a train to Perugia or Todi (I really want to see Todi – it’s about 50 km away but takes 3 hours by train – basically can’t get there from here). We might have to rent a car. So we got up and said “Meh – lets just goof off”. This for us means “Let’s just explore every nook and cranny of the town were in walking no less than 5 miles”.

Orvieto is an old fortified town on a hill overlooking southern Umbria. There are 4 main gates roughly corresponding to the compass points. As of this writing we’ve hit three of them. The one to the east is where the train station and funicular sit (you can drive or take a bus up to the town too but where’s the fun in that). When we got here yesterday we took the funicular up and the little orange bus to the Piazza Duomo (our hotel is the Hotel Duomo just off the big Piazza). The east gate has a number of structures intact from the medieval times and is quite impressive. Trav and Kelsey will remember these as the place we played and the location of the town well (a 100m deep well dug down through solid rock to ensure the town had water when under siege – complete with donkey paths going both up and down the well). The picture here was taken from the same spot we took one with the kids in 2005. The north and south gates are really just remnants and the only way you really know they are there is by the signage posted along the walls of the town. The last gate is in the medieval quarter. We’re headed there now. Bottom line is to see even three of these we put in a lot of miles. Glad we decided to have an easy day.

On our walk we wandered through the Piazza del Poppello (Peoples Plaza). It’s a daily fresh air market that sells food, cloth, clothing, toys and just about anything you can imagine. Why don’t we have more fresh air markets at home? I’d shop there. This same market has been in place since the 1400’s though I suspect maybe more than half the Fiat vans the vendors drive are newer. We tried a different Porchetta Panino there today and I still maintain the best one is from the little old lady just off of Piazza Duomo. It’s tough duty trying to find the best panino but someone has to do it.

Well Fran is getting ready to go out so I have to stop now. Sorry for the typo’s in this – I’m typing fast to get this in so we can go “vacation from our vacation” some more.