Day 7 - Sorrento - Orvieto

          We had another early start as we wanted to get to Orvieto as soon as possible and this was going to be one of our longest travel days with connections in Naples and Rome.  We took the circumvesuviana train back towards Naples with all the locals.  Despite Bernardo chastising me for making my friends travel in such a rugged way, I enjoyed this down to earth experience.

          After arriving in modern Orvieto we had to take a funicular tram to the top of the hill city and search for our hotel.  We made it to Orvieto just in time for everything to close for lunch.  This was by far the hotel with the best view (well – maybe Lake Como could compete).  We were greeted at our Catholic church-run hotel by Padre Tonino.  This is the man with whom I had emailed for our reservation.  When I had asked him if we needed to give him a deposit for our reservation he said that our email conversation was enough.  It was like a good old-fashioned hand shake agreement.  Our room had an AMAZING view overlooking the Tuscan hillside and a 12 ^th century monastery.  (It looked like a castle).  Padre Tonino was so accommodating and kind.  He asked me to collect everyone’s 70 Euro fee for the night and then agreed to wake up early at 6:30 am. the next morning to set us up a special breakfast since we had an early bus to catch. After leaving our luggage at the “hotel” we raced out into the “town” to find something to eat.

          Following our Rick Steve’s guide we ended up at a panificio in town that was just closing.  After some Italian charm and a conversation about cowboys and the great American frontier, the proprietor agreed to make us 7 prosciutto or salami sandwiches and a vegetarian for Sara.  They were super charming.  She told me that they didn’t even know they had been listed in the Rick Steve’s guide and that unlike most guides, they didn’t need to pay the book company to be listed which made the recommendation that much more credible.  We sat and enjoyed our lunch in the shadows of one of the prettiest cathedrals of our entire trip.  We’d come back later when it was opened.

           We climbed the nearby tower, nothing compared with the steps in St. Peters, but a beautiful vista of Orvieto and the Tuscany hills beyond.  Thy misty air muted the colorful hills.  Just to keep us on our toes, the bell tower went off as we were getting ready to leave making us all jump (except Jeff who still wasn’t going to climb anything taller than the stairs in the hotel).  By now the church had opened and we were able to get a look inside.  After this we walked across town to climb down into Patrick’s well.  A double helix well built in the 15^th century for the city to get water and protect it from the siege of the barbarians who were trying to get their hands on the Pope who was hanging out in Orvieto at the time (hence the beautiful cathedral).  Although architecturally interesting the well was, just a well.   It was a bit spooky to look down the well to the water 500 feet below as the windows were close to the ground with no bars or protection.

            We still had time to kill before the cathedral reopened so we decided to walk ½ around the city at the base of the walls.  We exited the city and descended to a foot path that led around the city.  The entire city circumference is only 3 miles.  The cliff height was impressive.  We passed others out exercising along the route, but it was mostly just the same scenery for 1 ½ miles.  After some discussion, we figured out how to re-enter the city on the opposite side.  By now it was dusk and time to start looking for a place to eat, which we’ve learned that for a group of 8 can be a task.  I enjoyed getting a bit lost in the twisted streets as we wandered around.  We eventually made it back to the main drag and found a nice restaurant with red and white checkered table clothes for our meal.