Orvieto, Italy - September 15 & 16 (part one)

I'm posting under Kevin's name because I started this and just realized it was under Kevin's name. I am lazy.

Orvieto was our last stop before Rome. We had lots of options, and originally looked at extra nights in Siena or checking out Asissi . . . then we went to Florence. Church overload. Church Art Overload. And I think we ate too much. Walking out of the Uffizi I was a little dizzy. I might have been having an art attack. But seriously folks, one more Madonna and Child and I was going to pass out. Then we found Orvieto. Pre-Roman Etruscan Ruins? Check. Caves and wells to climb down? Check. Pigeon eating? Check Check.

We also found Casa Selita, quite possibly the cutest 70 Euro a night B&B in Europe. We had our own balcony, looking over the hills of Tuscany and the room was spacious and comfortable. Seylita picked us up at the train station herself, and even made her own fig jam from her own trees for breakfast. YUM.


Here's Kev trying to do the crossword puzzle from the International Herald Tribune on the balcony. That sucker was tough. Too many British joke clues.


This was the view.

We got to use the balcony our first night there, and took a lovely stroll up through the olive orchard, along the street, up the crazy 4 level escalator into town (there is also an elevator) and ate a pigeon, wild boar ragu, and fresh home-made pasta topped with olive oil and freshly shaved truffles. More on this later, at least the pigeon part. Truffles and wild boar in Tuscany speak for themselves.

Now for the well. Orvieto has a really long, intersting history. You can read about it here, if you like. It was the site of an Etruscan (pre-Roman Tribe) city, completely abandoned for hundreds of years, and then in times of danger in Rome, the home of the Pope. They have a gorgeous Cathedral, but the city is definitely most famous for it's man made caves. Peope have been digging into the mesa type structure of soft volcanic rock under the city for centuries. They made caves for mining rock, worked in them (because it was tax free), stored food, wine and hid out when it was dangerous. They dug super deep wells with pickaxes. Read the wikipedia. It's cool. That concludes my tour.

It's me at the bottom of the well, It's me at the bottom of the well!
400+ steps down to the bottom of the well. Very deep. Now try getting that song out of your head.

This is the view of the well that the Pope had dug so that the city would have water even it was under seige by the enemies. Seige was a big deal. This place is on the top of a rock hill in the bottom of a valley. It's a tough place to attack. When they were under seige, they were also almost totally sustainable. Because they ate pigeons.


Pigeons were really important and are delicious. They reproduce every 20 days, so the people dug caves, made dove cotes (or pigeon nests) inside them with tiny windows to the outside. The caves connected straight to the kitchen so mama could walk downstairs, strangle a pigeon or two, pop them in the pot and dinner was served. If the city was under seige, the pigeons could fly out the windows and eat, then would come back to nest at night (pigeons are not very smart and did not realize they were in for a dinner trap). Every hole in this picture was a nesting spot, and the middle is the stairs up to the kitchen (cemented over because of landslides -- they dug too many caves and ground has become unstable on parts of the hill-- lots of homes/businesses still have private caves, this is just one that is now "public" for tours since it was fixed up after a landslide).