Now on to my day trip to Orvieto on the next Saturday. Orvieto is a small fortress town on top of a mountain a couple of hours from Roma. It has a pretty ancient history because of its strategic location while the Etruscan ruled Italy. Once the Romans took over the city was abandoned for all of the Roman Empire, and it only came back from a ghost town in the Middle Ages. The pope liked Orvieto and because of its papal influence this small town got a huge basilica built in. The church has some world famous frescos that I wasn't able to take pictures of. The church itself is too big to fit one camera picture of mine.
Here is another picture from the internet showing you how the front church facade is taller than the actual church itself, like almost all churches in Italy. What it seems is more important than what it is with any church.
The sheer size of the Orvieto Cathedral doesn't even compare to the level of detail it is crafted with. Everything is done really well. The sculping on the outside columns is really detailed. Notice the columns have spiral carvings that continually go around the columns AND the columns make an arch. And since the whole cathedral is dedicated to Virgin Mary (and since most people in the Middle Ages couldn't read), the mosiacs with the gold backgrounds show the story of Mary. Let's see below...
This statue of Mary holding some guy you might have heard of is right above the door to remind everyone who the church is dedicated to. Get used to these reminders.
The church has this circular sun-like symbol that lets in light. It also has two guardians on each side if the main door...
These are the guardians to the left of the door...
and to the right of the door.
There is a lot of detail on each column. All the way up and around each column too.
After seeing the outside the tour guide took my group inside for a look. The inside was pretty amazing to see. Let's explore...
This is just a base sculpture on the feet of a table. I really like animal sculptures so I had to take a picture of this.
After seeing the outside the tour guide took my group inside for a look. The inside was pretty amazing to see. Let's explore...
This is just a base sculpture on the feet of a table. I really like animal sculptures so I had to take a picture of this.
This is a famous sculpture of Mary holding a recently crucified Jesus with a carpenter there with the tools of the crucifixion in hand. It was all sculpted out of one piece of marble.
One of the roof sections. A lot of detail all over the various roof sections.
This is some stained glass which lines the walls periodically. Some of it has been restored as seen while the original stained glass turned brown. This is one of the few examples of stained glass in all of Italy, because churches in Italy almost exclusively have frescos.
And of course this is the opposite side of the front of the church. There is an altar where services take place behind where this picture is taken and important rooms that branch off in each direction; we were not allowed to take pictures in those rooms though.
After seeing the cathedral part of the daytrip was going to a local ristorante italiana and having a traditional italian meal. This means 6 servings of different italian foods served over a 2-hour period with dolce (dessert) being, of course, tiramisu. It starts with tomoatoes on bread, and there's pasta, beef, rice, cheese, oil and vinegar and bread, and tiramisu in that order. It was a lot. I struggled to eat but I did it. While waiting for the restaurant because our tour guide got us there a little early I saw a cat on the street. Since I like cats I take pictures of each cat I see. Here she is. I wish I could lie down on the street all day. She was fun to rub also.
This is some stained glass which lines the walls periodically. Some of it has been restored as seen while the original stained glass turned brown. This is one of the few examples of stained glass in all of Italy, because churches in Italy almost exclusively have frescos.
And of course this is the opposite side of the front of the church. There is an altar where services take place behind where this picture is taken and important rooms that branch off in each direction; we were not allowed to take pictures in those rooms though.
After seeing the cathedral part of the daytrip was going to a local ristorante italiana and having a traditional italian meal. This means 6 servings of different italian foods served over a 2-hour period with dolce (dessert) being, of course, tiramisu. It starts with tomoatoes on bread, and there's pasta, beef, rice, cheese, oil and vinegar and bread, and tiramisu in that order. It was a lot. I struggled to eat but I did it. While waiting for the restaurant because our tour guide got us there a little early I saw a cat on the street. Since I like cats I take pictures of each cat I see. Here she is. I wish I could lie down on the street all day. She was fun to rub also.
Here is another cat I saw on my way back from the tunnels. There was another black cat too...
... and here he is. Hard to photograph because he ran away quickly and I had to stay back from the group a lot to get a couple of pictures.
After the restaurant the tour took us through the underground tunnels in Orvieto. The caves are a constant 15 Celsius so it was like constant air conditioning from the hot day; really amazing. The view to the outside hillside was really amazing too. 
Each house had its own underground tunnel with pigeon holes to house the pigeons that they used to carry messages and eat (they still eat pigeons in Orvieto according to the tour guide). The underground tunnels are more extensive than the actual city above ground because the whole "dirt" is made of highly compacted volcanic ash rock that actually chips off if you pick at it, which i did. Since digging was so easy and they people needed to protect themselves from invaders on the outside when they ventured out to get water, an extensive network of underground tunnels was built. The first room we entered was a general room where they grinded corn and was an atrium to the different pathways. Then the tourguide showed us a map of all of Orvieto. The black dots are above ground structures and the red are underground tunnels; there are more than 1200 underground caves. 
The tunnels were pretty cool literally and amazing to see. I like the idea of each house having a pigeon hole under it; quite clever. These are just different views of different rooms with the pigeon holes in them of course. Some the passageways to get to different rooms are very narrow, but of course that didn't bother me. Only two caves were available for tourists out of the 1200 plus caves, and some are currently undergoing restoration.
I don't even know what was up there. It was probably really narrow to go in anwyays.
More pigeon holes. Every room had tons of then and then this was just a pigeon room. Pigeons used to be everywhere.
Here is one of the underground wells. I think it goes down 50 meters or something like that.
After the tour of the tunnels we met back at the cathedral, I bought a souvenir, I took some more pictures of the cathedral (below), and we went home. To get up and down the mountiain there's this slanted rail car that goes on one rail but then divides to a roundabout for a couple of feet only when the rail car on the approaches. Back in the day they would have had a water powered car (water running on a windmill I think). Here are some more pictures...
This is a carving of Hell at the bottom of the columns, hence the glass protecting it. Definitely one of my favorite parts.
This is what's called a Joshua tree, with Joshua sleeping on the bottom and he dreams up a family tree that goes all the way up.
People in the middle ages couldn't read, so sculptures were needed to tell Biblical stories. This of course is Adam and Eve with serpent and the forbidden fruit. Finally, something I can agree with!
More architecture and sculpting, which goes spirally upward. If the pope likes your town you get one of these.
Since I leave for Paris and London for a week tomorrow, that will be the next post. The time period from this Orvieto trip to now was more sightseeing and just going to school and going out, nothing too special like Orvieto. Stay tuned for Paris and London!
Each house had its own underground tunnel with pigeon holes to house the pigeons that they used to carry messages and eat (they still eat pigeons in Orvieto according to the tour guide). The underground tunnels are more extensive than the actual city above ground because the whole "dirt" is made of highly compacted volcanic ash rock that actually chips off if you pick at it, which i did. Since digging was so easy and they people needed to protect themselves from invaders on the outside when they ventured out to get water, an extensive network of underground tunnels was built. The first room we entered was a general room where they grinded corn and was an atrium to the different pathways. Then the tourguide showed us a map of all of Orvieto. The black dots are above ground structures and the red are underground tunnels; there are more than 1200 underground caves. 
The tunnels were pretty cool literally and amazing to see. I like the idea of each house having a pigeon hole under it; quite clever. These are just different views of different rooms with the pigeon holes in them of course. Some the passageways to get to different rooms are very narrow, but of course that didn't bother me. Only two caves were available for tourists out of the 1200 plus caves, and some are currently undergoing restoration.
I don't even know what was up there. It was probably really narrow to go in anwyays.
More pigeon holes. Every room had tons of then and then this was just a pigeon room. Pigeons used to be everywhere.
Here is one of the underground wells. I think it goes down 50 meters or something like that.
After the tour of the tunnels we met back at the cathedral, I bought a souvenir, I took some more pictures of the cathedral (below), and we went home. To get up and down the mountiain there's this slanted rail car that goes on one rail but then divides to a roundabout for a couple of feet only when the rail car on the approaches. Back in the day they would have had a water powered car (water running on a windmill I think). Here are some more pictures...
This is a carving of Hell at the bottom of the columns, hence the glass protecting it. Definitely one of my favorite parts.
This is what's called a Joshua tree, with Joshua sleeping on the bottom and he dreams up a family tree that goes all the way up.
People in the middle ages couldn't read, so sculptures were needed to tell Biblical stories. This of course is Adam and Eve with serpent and the forbidden fruit. Finally, something I can agree with!
More architecture and sculpting, which goes spirally upward. If the pope likes your town you get one of these.
Since I leave for Paris and London for a week tomorrow, that will be the next post. The time period from this Orvieto trip to now was more sightseeing and just going to school and going out, nothing too special like Orvieto. Stay tuned for Paris and London!
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