Orvieto

posted November 14, 2010 by Holly Hayes part of trip: The Great European Road Trip

I'm back! I'm very sorry about the long blog absence. The internet situation in Rome was horrible. Such a shame, too, because our hotel was otherwise really nice. The wifi never worked at all, and even when we used a cable (which we had to share), it only worked intermittently. Then it went off completely for two days. But now we are in Florence and the wifi is working well so far! Fingers crossed it will prove to be reliable.

So, I have some catching up to do! We took literally thousands of photos in Rome, so it will take awhile to choose some for the blog, but I hope to start posting something tomorrow. For now, I'll pick up where I left off last week: on Monday, we went from Pisa to Orvieto, changing trains in Florence.

Orvieto is a small hill-town in the beautiful region of Umbria. We stayed just one short night there, arriving around sunset and leaving the next morning, but it was a good stopover. The cathedral was a bit of a letdown because the weather was poor, photos weren't allowed inside (and they charged admission and the staff was cranky) but the exterior was lovely after dark and the town itself was much nicer than I had expected.

Orvieto Cathedral - part Romanesque, part Gothic, 100% stripey

Cathedral facade. The mosaics are fairly modern replacements, but the reliefs near the bottom are medieval and really spectacular in their detail.

Cathedral plaza

After I finished the night photos, we explored the town a bit and eventually found a place that looked good for dinner. I have very fond culinary memories of Umbria, as David and I ate really, really well in Spoleto and Assisi. I remembered the local specialties in this region were black truffles and wild boar, and was determined to have at least one of those for dinner. Happily, I did, and those two ingredients also made frequent appearances in shops throughout the town.

Street leading off the cathedral plaza

Boar: it's what's for dinner.

Black and white truffles

At the restaurant (whose name I don't remember), it was really hard to choose between the boar and truffles for dinner, but I went with the truffles. I think I chose wrong in this case. It wasn't nearly as good as the truffle dishes we had in Spoleto; the boar probably would have been better. But it was still pretty tasty. Sarah had four-cheese gnocchi, which was good but a little too rich.

It was pouring rain when we left the restaurant and the rain continued most of the night, so I was very grateful I had the opportunity to take the cathedral photos earlier in the evening! But I did put my hood up and go back up to the cathedral plaza later to call David. It was one of my most atmospheric phone calls ever. It was so quiet and beautiful up there in the rain, with the cathedral towering above me and the lights reflecting on the wet cobblestones.

View of the cathedral from our little balcony at the Hotel Duomo.

The next morning it was still raining, but a beautiful rainbow at the train station gave us hope for better weather. And indeed, we did have mostly sunny skies in Rome, which was great.

More on Rome soon - and Florence, where we will be for the next two nights. It is really good to be here - it is so much more beautiful and peaceful than Rome! And we had a magnificent dinner tonight near our hotel. I took pictures. :)

next: First Night in Rome

previous: Brief Note from London

Article Info

Page Title
Orvieto
Added By
Holly Hayes
Date Published
November 14, 2010
Last Updated
February 1, 2024