I've been in Europe for 8 weeks and finally took my first real day trip out of Rome! Destination? Orvieto. Orvieto is a small town build upon volcanic material called tufa in the region of Umbria in Central Italy. It literally sits on the edge of the hillside with cliffs rising up into buildings, and the entire town is situated above a labyrinth of man-made caves.

It takes about an hour and a half (perfect nap time) to get from Rome to Orvieto by train, and then a funicular ride takes you up to the actual town. The first left out from the funicular station leads you into a small park from which you have amazing views of the entire surrounding area of Italian countryside filled with vineyards (Orvieto is known for it's white wine). As we entered into one of the small main roads, we couldn't stop squealing because everything was just so cute. It's far removed from the touristy city center of Rome that we're used to seeing, and the little cottage-like houses were adorned with signs of regular life such as potters sitting in their workshops and laundry hanging from the lines cross from window to window. Our first mission was to get some good Italian coffee in us, so we stopped by a mom-and-pop coffee bar where the barista handed us yellow flowers (or what we like to refer to as "pollen sticks") that we had actually seen other people carrying around. We weren't quite sure what the significance was, but were excited to integrate with the locals and partake in the floral festivities. We were later told that the flowers are mimosas, and they were being handed out in celebration of la festa delle donne (women's day). According to the woman who was explaining to us, it's like a gesture of "thank you, women, for existing," and throughout the day we saw most people carrying bundles of these small yellow bunches.

We wandered around the miniature cobblestone streets passing by many butcher shops and little boutiques including a lovely lavender store and saw a peek of something down one of the alleyways. Following our curiosity, we ran into one of the most beautiful duomos I have ever seen. The mosaics and relief engraving is absolutely breathtaking, and we actually had to sit at a bench to look up and stare at all of the details running throughout the front facade. Having signed up for a tour to go into the underground caves, we decided to fuel up on some pork sandwiches (that was an adventure to find... though we ended up making a circle and coming right back to the store in front of the duomo), and shared some famed Orvieto white wine (Est! Est!! Est!!) with our traditional meal, battling the wind to secure a seat in front of the church. The underground cave tour wasn't actually as great as we thought because our guide rushed us through a couple of rooms. The caves were easily carved out by human hands because the volcanic rock is very easy to move (she asked us to touch the wall and it literally crumbled under our fingers). She explain that the caves were used for work while the people lived above ground, so we saw an old olive oil press and pigeon holes where they kept game to eat since it was a poor town during the winter (later turned into bomb shelters during WWII), and how each house today has its own private cave and entrance downstairs. There are over 1,000 caves that have been discovered but most are these private spaces so there are only a few open to public exhibition.

After we emerged from caves we decided to check out the inside of the duomo. I feel like we're very spoiled with all of the breathtaking baroque churches in Rome and have become somewhat church snobs because the interior of the Orvieto cathedral was quite bare and the simple frescoes on the walls were the only real decoration except for the ornate apse. The big spectacle in this church, however, is the Chapel of San Brizio located on the right hand side. It is filled with frescoes of Luca Signorelli's vision of the apocalypse, which was very rarely subject for painting in the renaissance era. I am actually writing my renaissance art term paper on "Deeds of the Antichrist" because it is a rare example of such scenes, and the image of Satan whispering words for the pseudo-Jesus figure to preach to the people is just so interesting to examine. The quality of his work really shows just how talented these great renaissance artists were, and exemplifies why Signorelli was called by Sixtus IV to decorate the Sistine Chapel. The facade was my favorite part of it though -- I could probably sit and stare at it for hours without getting bored. There are curved pillars and arches with mosaic tiles strewn throughout, beautiful figures among a backdrop of gold, and so many detailed statues. If you click and zoom in on the photo of the concentric square frames you can even see that each square around the round stained glass window has an individual carved head in it. I am very unsure as to how people ever  managed to create such beautiful things with their bare hands using such different materials from what is found today. As our professor was explaining, it's an entirely different world of technology that is now unfortunately lost though we live in a time of gadgets and electronic splendor.

After gaping at the beautiful duomo for just a little bit longer we headed towards the next big attraction, the clock tower in the center of the city. We climbed up hundreds of stairs and emerged to see views of the span of Orvieto and the green countryside surrounding it. We probably spent twenty minutes making circles around the small bell perched on top of the tower taking pictures while trying to battle the wind. It gave a lot of perspective as to how small Orvieto really is, and how charming its small streets are. Fighting the wind really tired us out (haha), so we treated ourselves to some gelato once back on the ground and wandered around the Piazza del Popolo and checked out the medieval church as well. We ended up way on the western side of the town overlooking the etruscan catacombs and then were swallowed back into the maze of small streets until we found the Pozzo della Cava, a cave used by potters. We were able to go down through many floors of caves and see all of the kilns and shelves and broken shards of remnants from the golden age of artisan pottery-making, another thing Orvieto is known for, and decided that we liked this set of caves much more than the morning tour. When we came back up to ground level the adorable old man at the counter smiled at us and told us "Vieni, vieni (come, come)," and took us into an extra room where there was a cutout in the floor where we could stand on top of the glass and see for hundreds of meters down into the caves. He then ushered for us to follow him again outside, where he opened up a little hatch and we looked down into the well we had passed (and thrown coins into) while we were down in the caves. He pulled out a cup of water he had held behind his back and poured it through the grates, and as we watched the water descend through the well it magically dispersed into hundreds of individual droplets and showered down into the pool of turquoise down below. We couldn't find the words to express how cool it was an just kept saying "Wow, grazie mille, wow" as he smiled at our excitement and waved to us goodbye.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with more wandering until a man at one of the churches we entered told us about the cool exhibition of ancient materials that is below the duomo. He told us we were young and would be able to make it there on foot before closing so we hurried in that direction and just made it in to see the wonderful tapestries depicting scenes from the miracle of Orvieto (the story is that a priest was doubtful of the actual presence of Christ in the consecrated host of the Eucharist, but one day as he was raising the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ the bread actually started to drip blood. There is a linen cloth with the stains of the blood that is guarded in a golden box inside the duomo and it is apparently taken out for display to the public twice a year). We were almost locked out of the city as the guards started locking up from the inside but made it out to take a quick break before dinner to watch the sun set and illuminate the duomo from a little cafe. Seeing as the Italian norm is for restaurants to open around 8 pm, we spent our time before then checking out the papal well until we ducked into a small pizza joint before taking the last funicular down to the train station. Coincidentally we hopped onto the same car that our other friends from Rome were sitting in on their way back from their day trip to Siena, not knowing that they were on the same timed train, and spent the ride chatting away about the cool things we had seen and the relief we felt to arrive back in Termini after a long day spent on our feet. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to go to Orvieto because it's one of those palaces (of which there are too many) that is so cool and so charming but I would have never gone to unless I was in a situation like this where I'm spending an extended time abroad in one place. Moral of the story: day trips are fun and exploring these age-old towns makes me love Italy even more!