To greener pastures

After finding our coach and allocated seats ( and lugging our nearly 30 kgs of luggage each with us) – we settled back to watch Italy flash by.

Reaching speeds of 160-200 km/hour, the journey took less than two hours through increasingly spectacular scenery to Orvieto.

Google maps soon had us trundling our way to the Hertz depot where we had one of the easiest car rental transactions in recent history – if you’ve read previous blogs you will know about our US experience last year and previously…

We had been allocated a Ford Focus wagon which suited our needs perfectly and was even equipped with inbuilt GPS, an unexpected bonus. As we stowed our suitcases we felt a little sorry for two American couples trying to squeeze into a small Citroen next door and thought “we’ve been there!”

We left our car with Hertz (avoiding any parking fees) and caught the funicular up to the ‘old’ Orvieto, a city which dates back to Etruscan times.

Restaurants were beginning to open for lunch and we joined the masses wending their way up the hill. It must be a nightmare at the height of the tourist season but this week is also very popular with locals because Easter this year falls very close to Liberation Day on the 25th – a short week as in Australia.

We found a great restaurant a little out of the way and had a superb duck and fig dish (that Russell has promised to try and replicate at home 😉) as well as a nice local white wine and then set off to find the Duomo.

Cathedral of Orvieto

The main structure is striped in white travertine and greenish-black basalt in narrow bands but the facade is particularly striking and includes some intricate 14th century sculpture and stunning golden detail, more details here if you’re interested.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orvieto_Cathedral

Judgement Day mural

Orvieto‘s attractions warranted much more time- we never got to see the underground tunnel network – but we still had some distance to cover and weren’t sure how late the supermarket would be open for our ‘start up’ supplies so we somewhat reluctantly headed down to the car.

I slipped pretty easily back into left hand drive mode and we made it to San Quirico d’Orcia just after five. Our house is situated in the pedestrian only area so after finding the public parking zone we pushed and pulled those bloody suitcases up the hill and with some relief at not having to move them again for a week, into the house.

A brief inspection of the house ( gorgeous) and we were off to the local Coop, along with the towns whole population it seemed…. armed with the essentials we made our way back and opted for tea and toast before the ‘lag’ caught up with us.

From our front window

I wonder if Easter Bunny will find us tomorrow?


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