ORVIETO (Fri 5 June)

Woke up and went down to breakfast, only to be greeted by a room full of emo’s. And yes, they are the same the world over. But we managed to avoid them long enough to share a table with an American girl who is on her way out of Italy, into Croatia and eventually Thailand. Once again we shared notes, and as she was leaving Italy she gave us her very used copy of ‘Rick Steve’s Italy’ guidebook. If you have been wondering how we have been able to identify the American tourists from all the others, it’s because they are the one’s with the Rick Steve’s guidebooks. So now we can look just like them :-) Now we can turn up at all the same places as the American’s. Seriously though, we gathered some good tips form her and it looks like Rick Steve will be a worthwhile companion to our Lonely Planet.

Our first stop for the day was the Basilica down the hill (out of Assisi) the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli. This was very cool. As you go down through the middle of the church you see alcoves all the way down (five on each side) which have amazing artworks and frescoes in them. When you get to the front, you find that it isn’t the front, but there is a small stone church / chapel, complete, standing within the church under the cupola, and then beyond that you have the main service area and alter. The Basilica was built around this small church. Inside the small stone chapel (Porziuncola Chapel) there are about ten single seat pews for people to pray. To the right of the chapel is the Cappella del Transito, which once again looks like a small stand alone room, and this is the site where St Francis died.

On a lighter note, I did see a nun come out of the confessionary, and it made me wonder what on earth a nun would do that required a confession, but then maybe it was the Nike shoes she was wearing under her habit.

After we had seen everything that we wanted to see here we headed for Orvieto for the rest of the day. About 1.5 hr drive. We didn’t know exactly what to expect here except that it was another medieval walled city. What we were greeted with was quite a surprise. The entire city is built on the very edge, of a very high, crumbling cliff, which circumnavigates the town. We would have loved to have got a photo showing the breadth of it, but it was impossible to get a decent vantage point with the narrow roads and no stopping room. Walked up to the Duomo, which is the centre of town. Fantastic façade with the black and white striped main building behind it that we have become accustomed to. This seems to be a feature of the area, as we saw this in Florence and Siena. The Duomo is a huge cavernous and fairly empty place, with the black and white stone pillars running down the length of the inside of the building to the alter. The whole interior as pretty gloomy and it gives the impression that it is carrying the residue of several centuries of grime. St Francis is still prominent here and a number of frescoes illustrate the activities of the crusaders. According to what we read this Duomo took 30 years to plan and 300 years to build!!!

From here we wandered generally around the town. Somehow during the day the light became a little overcast which wasn’t the best for photos, but later on it became better. This is a very cool city and made even better by the fact that there are very few tourists (a little off the beaten track) at least that’s the way it was today. This was made apparent by their opening hours. We went to go to the tourist office opposite the Duomo to get some information, and their week day opening hours are 8:15 – 13:50 and 16:00 – 19:00. And this seemed to be typical throughout the town, with some places not reopening after lunch until 5:00pm. A very relaxed place, with a nice feel. Before leaving town we went for a short walk around the outside of the city wall / cliff. A cliff which you can see has had to have some serious restructuring and support works over the years. Orvieto was a pleasant surprise.