Italy: Orvieto

DUOMO DI ORVIETO

Yesterday we traveled from Rome to Perugia via Orvieto.  It was a pretty ride and a combination of winding country roads and some time on the highway.  We spent several hours in Orvieto, focusing mainly on the striking 14^th century Duomo di Orvieto.  

This cathedral, unlike others of gray stone, has beautiful mosaics on the front façade. The side exterior walls and the inside have a striped appearance from alternating layers of white travertine and blackish basalt. 

In style, this cathedral is Italian Gothic.  Dedicated to St. Mary, its history is related to transubstantiation, the transfer of the element of communion into the actual blood of Christ.   A traveling priest found that his Host was bleeding so much it stained the altar cloth.  This cloth is now stored in one of the cathedral’s chapels. 

 It is one of the most distinctive and loveliest large churches I’ve seen anywhere. It sits high on a volcanic or lava neck on a small piazza.

We also stopped by the original church here. Orvieto was a poor town surrounded by farms and the church was small. It has been rebuilt to some extent, but the contrast between this building and the duomo funded by the Vatican is great.

PERUGIA

From Orvieto, we went on to Perugia, capital of Umbria, where we will stay for several nights.  Here we enjoyed drinks at one café and then dinner at another, both in the center of the main thoroughfare. Compared to Rome, it was wonderfully calm and less touristy. At one end of the street were a crowd of people and some classic race cars; occasionally a low slung car rumbled by on one side.  

Locals and others strolled past and it was fun to people watch.  We even engaged with a young man masquerading as a cow.  We didn’t why, but he and his cohorts provided some entertainment. Later we learned it may have been part of a graduation exercise.

FOOD

In Italy, almost all restaurants and cafes serve only Italian food.  Not other cuisines.  We’ve had several pizzas, ranging from good to so-so, and pasta dishes.  Most noteworthy for pasta for the Chief Penguin and me has been the tagliolini with truffles.  In one case, a mix of black and white truffles, and yesterday at lunch, pasta generously dressed with black truffles.  White ones are not fully in season yet.  

Our other treats were roast lamb or lamb cooked over a wood fire and gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce for the C.P.  I indulged in vitello tonnato, paper thin slices of veal covered with a tuna sauce (consistency of thin mayonnaise) topped with capers, and served cold.  I first had this dish in Rome more than 40 years ago and for me, it’s a must at least once every trip.  

Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.) Header photo is of the piazza around the Duomo Di Orvieto.