Civita di Bagnoregio. Never heard of it? Neither had we.

It's simply impossible to ignore history when you are visiting Italy.  At every turn, you are confronted with the wondrous past and you cannot take a single photograph which ignores the life of those who walked here before us.  We have shunned anything modern and new that we have come across, over the past few weeks, and considered those to be aberrations in this place which is so steeped in what it once was.  Our only concession to today's world is our need to connect to the damned internet - if only we could be without it, cursed and unreliable thing that it is.  All this serves merely as an introduction to yesterday's adventure, in which your humble bloggers travelled back in time once more.

We have only a precious few days remaining here in Orvieto and the weather has been so kind to us that it seems a shame to remain indoors drinking coffee, eating pastries and reading, those being some of our favourite things to do, admittedly.  I had been reading about a little town called Bagnoregio, which is pretty and old and despite having those features alone to recommend it, is more of a drawcard by virtue of its connection by footbridge to an even-smaller tiny wee village called Civita.  The bus ride cost a mere two euros and took 55 minutes to its destination.  We alighted in Bagnoregio and walked through the town and out the other side, to reach Civita.

Unfortunately, our camera is inadequate to take a good photo of the approach to Civita from Bagnoregio, so I have included this shot from the internet which may have been taken from a helicopter of what has been called "the umbilical bridge that connects Civita with ... the rest of Italy."

Despite appearance, it is not snow that can be seen in the photo below of the valleys around the rock, but volcanic earth.  How desolate and stark it looks.

Civita was founded way way back, in about 500 BC by the Etruscans on a volcanic outcrop and that rocky monolith is surrounded by stunningly picturesque valleys.  Due to erosion, massive pieces of the volcanic tufa have fallen away from the main area over the centuries, leaving Civita as a virtual "island", now reachable only by the footbridge.  It is known as a "dying city" because at some time in the future, the erosion will result in Civita's complete destruction, but in the meantime there are a few bars, art studios, a large church (of course) and various knick-knack shops;  twice each year a festival called Palio della Tonno is held in the town, culminating in a donkey race in the main piazza.  I'd love to see that.

We heard different reports of how many people actually live in Civita, but regardless of which story you listen to, you can count the number of residents on your fingers and toes.  Apparently, in the warmer months, a lot of tourists do visit, but when we were there yesterday there were only about 12 people visiting (including us) and as we drank our beer at an outdoor cafe, we waited for the tumbleweeds to roll through.

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From Lakeside to Hilltop

We have had a busy week visiting several towns in Umbria, the first few in a toy car which we hired from  Hertz, and the last with the usual help from our friends at Trenitalia.

Bolsena.  This small town shares its name with the beautiful lake upon the shore of which the town is found. Bolsena is about 20 kilometers from Orvieto, and the journey there on easily navigated roads is enhanced by the beautiful countryside which is alive with Autumn colour. As is to be expected with a car in a small Italian town, parking was always going to be the issue, but even that issue was solved after a few blind alleys and u-turns.

The coffee and pastries for elevenses were also a hit at only 3.60 euro (about AUD$5) for "due cappuccini e due brioche", our standard order.  In Italy, when you order a "brioche" it can mean almost anything, as long as there is pastry involved - sometimes it is a plain croissant but other times it is a flaky pastry filled with jam, Nutella, custard cream or even sweet ricotta studded with dried fruit.  The price is the same, regardless.  You are offered a paper napkin and you can choose your own - most people stand at the bar and swiftly knock back a tiny espresso and a brioche, hand the cashier (almost always a separate person at a separate little counter) a couple of euros, then fly out the door with a "buon giornata" (have a good day) as they go.
The big attraction in Bolsena is the lake itself, the third largest in Italy apparently, and with a colour so blue it almost looks a little fake. The other notable attraction in the town is the huge Church of Saint Christina, dedicated to the young martyr of the same name.

Montefiascone.  We arrived in this very small hilltop town within 20 minutes of leaving Bolsena, parked the car and found the elevator which took us most of the way to the main piazza, and then onwards and upwards until we found the doors of Cattedrale di Santa Margherita.  Doors locked and more scaffolding than you can imagine, no signs on the door welcoming pilgrims from foreign lands, and no indication that it would be open anytime soon. So, down the hill we go through the main piazza all the way to the bottom of the hill to visit Basilica di San Flaviano, a quick look around, and then halfway up the hill again before we settle on a place for lunch.

Over lunch we had been assured that the Catherdral would in fact be open at 3:00 pm, and the meantime we should take in the views of the countryside from La Rocca dei Papi  (The Papal Fortress), so, up the hill we go again. The views of the Umbrian countryside were indeed spectacular, as was this higher altitude view of Lake Bolsena, but alas, cometh the hours for the church doors to be thrown open, and ... nothing! So, down the hill we go, down the elevator, into the car, and off we go to Viterbo.

We arrive at the city limits of Viterbo as the afternoon traffic is starting to get heavy, the light is beginning to fade, the driver is getting cranky, and the navigator has thrown away her map. After 15 minutes of following the sign to Centro (indicating the city centre), and seeing nothing but traffic and the gradual illumination of street lights, we see a sign for Tuscany and promptly turn around and head north again hoping to find a turn off to Orvieto. Luck saves the day, the toy car is returned to Hertz after consuming just 7.00 euro worth of diesel, and we head up the hill again to Orvieto by furnicular, to the warmth of our apartment.

Perugia.  On Saturday morning we arrive at Perugia rail station and immediately catch a local bus to the top of the hill (and it's quite a big hill). The decision is also made that we are only going to see what is at the top of the hill, none of this up-and-down stuff for us. The first thing that happens to us after cruising along the Corso Vanucchi and poking our heads inside the Cattedrale di La San Lorenzo is that we are invited to a wedding. Whilst lurking about on the steps of the adjacent Town Hall building, a smartly dressed woman sees us and in halting English explains that the building is closed for a private function, but we should come inside and watch. The private function turned out to be a wedding, with the city official all smartly dressed and with appropriate coloured sashes, whilst the groom was in jeans and a T-shirt which had a printed tie on the front - no doubt kept for all formal occasions. The bride (from Ecuador) wore a cream-colored coat dress and looked lovely. Deb and I even had our photos taken for their family album.

The remainder of the day was spent investigating lots of small side streets, eating a massive pizza lunch in an outdoor cafe as the sun (and the shadows) rapidly moved overhead, a browse at the outdoor antique bric-a-brac market taking place in a local park and then a look inside the fascinating Rocca Paolina, a fortress commissioned in 1540, partly destroyed in 1848, and re-built in 1860. The original fortress was constructed over five levels and today the remaining chambers and corridors are used for trade shows and small exhibitions and accessed by escalators from street level.

Down the hill we go on the bus and onto a waiting train for the homeward bound journey to Orvieto via Terontola, and I have deliberately inserted the photo of the station just to let you all know what the end of the world looks like.

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What Nothing Looks Like, in Orvieto

We've been doing quite a lot of that "nothing" I mentioned in a previous post - just walking about, looking at things, soaking it up, resting when the mood strikes and eating simply. 

To use a religious analogy, it has been some days since our last confession, so this post serves only as confirmation that we haven't fallen off the perch and to share with you some of the deliciousness that is Orvieto.

Close-up shot of the counter of a little place where we like to enjoy the occasional plate of fresh cheeses and a glass of red to wash them down.



This is a wonderful local cheese called Burrata - it comes wrapped in its own little parcel tied with twine and unwraps to reveal a moist parcel of soft white cheese.  The outside is similar to mozzarella, while the inside is melt-in-the-mouth creaminess.

I almost managed to devour every morsel of this - the heart was willing, but the stomach was unable - it was a light, fluffy, cheesy polenta with a mixture of buttered porcini and other local mushrooms.  So good!

We dropped in to this little cave restaurant to have a light lunch, yesterday.  There was just one other person dining there.  We ordered a pizza and a calzone, with a little side salad, plus the obligatory couple of glasses of vino.  The waiter treated us like the most important people he'd ever served, the ambience in the cave was very romantic and the food was DE-LIC-IOUS.  Below are a couple of shots of our meal.

We've walked around the village a bit over the past few days; it's very pretty, as you can see.

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Just a Quick Note

Incredibly, this blog has had 1,085 page views - we are stunned by this statistic, visible to us at our login.  A few people whom we know in real life (imagine that!) have written to us privately to say that they are having trouble "commenting" on the blog - we're not into the technical side of this thing, but we think that you have to register as a "Follower" in order to post a comment.  Just letting you know, in case you are keen to make a note or observation on something we've written.

Cheers!
D1 & D2

What Lies Beneath

Orvieto is not just beautiful and interesting at street level.  Its underworld is a labyrinth of more than 1200 caves, passageways, tunnels, wells, stairs, cellars, niches and unexpected twists and turns, dug over several centuries out of the soft volcanic rock called tufa on which the ancient town of Orvieto sits.  Almost every building visible on the street, has a cave underneath it – these were used as a means of escape when the ancient city was under siege but were also workrooms where olive oil was pressed, cloth was created on looms, wool was softened in a complex process, waterways were re-directed to channel rainwater down from rooftops to provide a water supply if the people were under siege, ceramic pottery (majolica) was made and glazed in massive underground kilns and pigeons were cultivated for food.

To stand in these caves and try to visualise the Etruscans tunnelling underground several centuries B.C. to create these very precisely cut rectangular wells (with foot-and-handholds each side for climbing) and peaked ceilinged caverns is quite staggering.  Clearly they possessed exceptional engineering skill and considerable vision.

We visited two of the caves which are open to the public and were absolutely fascinated by their story.  Apparently many of the residents currently living here make use of their own “personal” caves under their homes for the storage of their wine, as the temperature is consistent, throughout the year.

The walls of several sections of the cave we stood in yesterday are pocked with a perfectly arranged grid of hundreds of square holes where pigeons were raised – a small window-space opening allowed these homing pigeons to fly out for food and return to their nests as required.  The baby pigeons were a valuable source of food for the residents at that time and still today in Orvieto restaurants, baked or roasted pigeon features on menus.

The final section of the tour took us to a large empty room, around which a low stone bench hugged the walls.  This area was apparently used as a bomb shelter during WWll, and the research I did after arriving back at the apartment evidences that although Orvieto itself was relatively safe from attack at that time, the valley below was often the target of both the Allies and the retreating Germans because of its network of roadways and train lines.  It must have been so frightening to sit in that underground cave, hearing the sounds of explosions outside and perhaps watching stones and rocks falling from the walls and ceilings.

The Pozzo della Cava (Cave Well) which we saw today was re-discovered very recently, in 1984, despite having been dug in the mid 16^th century.   In 1996 this 36-metre deep well was emptied of all the debris which had accumulated over the centuries, including a vast array of pottery, tools, primitive machinery and human skeletal remains, all of which were finds of considerable archaeological significance. 

We then walked on to explore another area below the cliff face which is the site of an orderly arrangement of Etruscan tombs. 

We think Orvieto is a stunningly beautiful town from every angle.  The cave visits over the past couple of days have shown that it is even beautiful inside-out.

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Life Lesson: It's OK to Do Nothing

Since arriving in Italy six weeks ago, we have been doing a lot of nothing at all.  It has been WONDERFUL.  We have had holidays before, from which we arrived home exhausted and needing a holiday. 

Travel is hard!  It all looks as though it will be OK at the start;  you've booked and you just want to get on with it now.  In the comfort of your own home, you take down the suitcases, pack and unpack and re-pack them several times before you're (still only relatively) happy with your choices, deciding that if you have forgotten anything, you will have to just buy another while you're away (if you can buy another - there's always the lingering doubt - maybe the socks in Paris won't be as thickly warm as the socks you have in your drawer at home - *insert apprehensively concerned emoticon here*).  Is the pent-up excitement starting to unravel, just a tiny bit?

You organise a ride to the airport to drop you there hours ahead of your scheduled departure time. You worry that there might be a delay on the freeway.  What if there's an accident up ahead?  You worry that there will be a delay at check-in.  What if my case is too heavy?  You remember that you have left your watch on the bedside table at home.  You are irritated by the bazillions of other travellers at the airport.  You look around you while sitting at the gate lounge and think, "How can all of these people fit onto an aeroplane without it going down?" (OK, that's probably just me).  You wait forever until it's boarding time, realising that your seat number will mean that you are boarding almost last of all the people sitting around you.  You consider trying to queue jump.  You wonder if you should have brought a walking stick and pretended to be one of those people who need to be boarded ahead of everyone else - you wonder if that lady over there thought the same thing and is in fact faking it, with that plaster cast on her ankle.  You finally board and then you wait some more, until the captain announces a further delay because the pax numbers don't match the check-in luggage number... and on it goes, like that.

Shall I continue?  Shall I talk about stopovers and worrying about missing a connection?  Shall I talk about less-than-brochure-quality hotels and lack of facilities and the difficulties of navigating public transport in a foreign language?  Shall I talk about how it's all worth it, in the end?  It is. 

My conclusion is that short breaks away from home might not be, but when you take a longer vacation, all of the above are insignificant in the scheme of things, and it's a long vacation we are taking this time. 

Staying for a month in one place means that it is worth unpacking your suitcase completely, hanging things in a wardrobe and folding clothes into drawers.  You can open the curtains in the morning and depending on the weather make or change plans for the day.  You can afford to take an afternoon nap for 2 hours (every day...) if you feel like it, because "there's always tomorrow" to sightsee. Staying in an apartment instead of a hotel while you are away means that you can wash and iron your clothes when they need it, you can go into another room to read quietly while your partner watches TV in another language in another room, you can make sandwiches for lunch and salad for dinner if that's what you feel like eating, you still have the luxury of someone else coming in once a week to change the bedlinen and towels, clean the bathroom and kitchen and vacuum the floors, while in-between you can leave everything just as you please because no-one is coming through that door.  I highly recommend a long break coupled with staying in an apartment, if you're planning your next trip while reading this blog.

Doing nothing while watching others doing things is a very pleasant way to relax in Italy, if you have the time for it.  Below is a list of some of the people I have enjoyed watching over the last few weeks:

• the barber who runs the shop near our apartment - most of the time he seems to be sitting in one of his chairs with his feet up, reading La Nazione or La Repubblica, or chatting with buddies who've dropped by;
• the old guy who sits behind the newsagent's counter - he must be 87 and possibly hasn't shaved since Berlusconi's first time in office - he doesn't need to look up to say, "One euro."  How does he know I don't speak Italian without even looking at me?
• the shop owners who diligently and aggressively scrub the doorsteps of their shops every morning with hot, soapy water and a broom, only pausing to greet passers-by, all of whom they know by name ("Ciao, Giovanni! Che freddo!" - "Hi, Giovanni!  How cold it is!");
• the old men who gather in groups in all the best and sunniest spots around town - what do they talk about, so animatedly?  How do they know where today's meeting spot will be?  My personal opinion is that Italian men live longer simply because they function in these groups on a daily basis.  They laugh and chat and observe and consider and relate in a closely networked support group of friends.  It's good for them.  I bet there are no old gents in psych counselling - they sort it all out with their amici;
• the guy who owns the porchetta caravan, from which he dispenses just-out-of-the-oven-and-sliced-in-front-of-you slabs of stuffed suckling pig - fresh bread wrapped around it, optional - the long queue in front of the caravan is testament to the popularity of this snack, even at 10:00 in the morning;
• my blue-eyed, filmstar-handsome vegetable guy at the market - it's probably getting a bit obvious to him that I am a great admirer of his zucchini, because he always winks at me when he hands me the change;
• my hairdresser (yes, I have a hairdresser here - it only costs 14 euros for her to wash and blow-dry my hair - why would I do it myself?) - Anna is quite short - I have to scrunch right down in the chair for her to be able to reach the top of my head - no such thing as a gas-operated chair-lifting device;
• the French chap who serves us at the local wi-fi connected cafe.  "So, what are you doing here in Italy, Antoni?" reveals the obvious answer:  "I fell in love with an Italian girl," he gestures, pointing to the barista;
• the lady who lives behind us who calls out, "Ciao! Buongiorno!" as she hangs out her washing in the mornings and sees us on the sun terrace; and
• the doting nonnas (grandmothers) who push their charges around in prams, wearing the broadest of smiles which we can interpret as, "Do you see how beautiful this child is?"

OK, that's enough.  I leave you with this pecorino tasting plate, which we enjoyed yesterday with a basket of fresh, crusty bread and two glasses of very good vino rosso.  The photo is not significant, save for me to underline again the point of this blog: sometimes the simplest things in life are the best.

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Florence

Having a day spare yesterday, we figured there was no better thing to do than jump on a train and head to Florence - and of course no trip to Florence would be complete without a visit to the area around Basilica di S. Lorenzo which is famous for the vast array of leather goods, mostly jackets and handbags. The various stall holders seem to know immediately that you are tourists, and that your language of preference is English, because they step out and greet you with some well chosen words that are aimed to entice you to their range of garments. If you don't see what you want on first glance, they are only too keen to usher you through the crowded street to their shop where the full range of product is available. The process seems to work because after an hour we walk away with Deb wearing a very stylish jacket to match the leather bags that she had bought in Padua and Venice.

The most notable landmark in Florence (with apologies to my namesake standing naked in another part of the city) is however the Duomo, which is the third largest church in Europe after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. The visual impact of the building is striking, and painted against the backdrop of another crystal clear blue sky, it's hard not to be impressed with all that you see.

There are a host of other churches and basilicas in Florence, and on this visit we chose to make our way to Basilica di Santa Croce, which among other things contains the tombs of Michaelangelo, Galileo and an honorary place for Dante, who for some strange reason isn't really buried here, but is so attached to the city that he gets pride of place in this very large church. On this occasion we also discovered that the scaffolding and sailcloth that have been so prevalent on the outside of so many Italian buildings, are now clearly visible inside as well, as the complete altar area is being restored.

As the day wore on we made our way to Ponte Vecchio to stare in wonder at the number of jewellery shops that line both sides of the bridge and all approach roads from every direction. Despite the fact that tourist season in Europe is well and truly over, there are still large numbers of people to be seen at this vantage point for this most beautiful city.

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Multiple Plots

What to do in Orvieto on our first Sunday in town? We had already determined the answer to that question the night before, so as soon as the outside air had warmed a little in the morning from the overnight cold, we set off on the three kilometre walk to the local cemetery. Getting there was an adventure in itself. First we had to find the escalator (who would imagine that a 1000-year old town on the top of a hill in Umbria would have an escalator?), and having found it, we travelled down through the solid rock until we emerged at the foot of the cliff face on the outside of the city wall with our destination in sight.

From there it was easy going, all downhill and on up the road to the cemetery entrance, where Deb stopped to ask Silvano (the friendly attendant) where the Jewish section was, knowing full-well that there was one, from previous research on a website called JewishItaly.com or some such thing. It’s fair to say that Silvano, however, didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but he did manage to connect with the word “Jewish” through her sketch of a Star of David on his writing pad. He immediately bundled us into his toy car and drove us at breakneck speed on a crazily zig-zagging narrow pathway to the top of the hill, where he proudly pointed at a very run-down little chapel, which may have been used for Jewish funeral services about 150 years ago, but the gates of which had clearly not been opened in a very very long time. The padlock was firmly in place  and we had to use all our limited language skills to convince Silvano that he didn’t need to jump back into his toy car and drive back down the hill to try and find the key.  What Deb really did want was for him to show us where the Jewish graves were, but despite wording the query every-which-way, we couldn’t make Silvano understand what it was we were asking.  Charades didn’t help.  Apparently the hand gesture for burial underground means something altogether different in Italy.

As we walked back down the hill through the cemetery, we couldn’t help but notice that all the burial plots (the first reference to the heading on this blog) were beautifully maintained and almost all adorned with fresh flowers. It was also interesting to note that a significant number of the plots (a further reference) were actually layered into the walls of the terraces, with only the end of the grave actually showing with the name of the deceased.  There were dozens of people tending to graves, washing them down, sweeping and carefully decorating them with fresh flowers - on a Sunday morning in Orvieto, apparently if you are not in church, the cemetery is the place to be.

Sunday evening was a plot of a different kind. We had seen billboards around the town advertising a performance of Trappola per Topi at Teatro Comunale Luigi Mancinelli , which translated means the world famous play “Mousetrap” by Agatha Christie was going to be performed at the Mancinelli Theatre. The theatre was built in 1844, and is very reminiscent of La Fenice in Venice, with a beautiful hand-painted ceiling and four levels of semi-circular seating looking onto a very large stage. Our seats were in the nose-bleed section on level four, and we shared the little compartment with four lovely ladies, and we all enjoyed the performance very much indeed. Did I mention yet that the performance was in Italian? It didn’t matter – we had done a little research before we got there about the plot and the characters, and we were able to piece it all together so that afterwards we could have a meaningful conversation about the performance of the various players. I have to confess that I also knew whodunit, thanks to Wikipedia. A great night out!

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