Orvieto and arrival in Florence

by

Orvieto and arrival in Florence

Since we leave Roma today, its time to reflect a litte. Aviva said at one point that Rome is beautiful but messy, which captures well the feeling of the place. At one point on Capitoline hill (it was 11:30A), all the bells in Roma seemed to be chiming at once, making a wonderful racket. Its been warm here, in the 80s F I’d guess, and so I’ve been sweating a lot. Lots of sun, which is nice for the outlook but quite warm when walking around. And its soooo poluted; guess they should use that same gasoline / ethanol / ether mix we use in Chicago.

The train ticket to Orvieto from Rome

The train ticket to Orvieto from Rome

We took an hour train ride to Orvieto. Its a real hill town – you take a funicular up to the town from the train. This funicular is a cable train that goes up the hill at probably 30 – 40 degrees, They pack the car full of people.

We dropped our bags at Hotel Duomo and then had lunch at a nice restaurant to the left of the Duomo.

Card for the Hotel Duomo - looks like a nice place and the people were very helpful

Card for the Hotel Duomo - looks like a nice place and the people were very helpful

We shopped a little and then went inside the Duomo of Orvieto. The facade is one of the most interesting I’ve seen with lots of carvings near street level and paintings further up.

Inside it was very plain at the front, but the alter and two chapels at the back were amazing. The altar has frescoes from floor to ceiling on both sides and the back.

We then visited the museum for the Duomo, which was small but nice.

We shopped a little more; I found a multi-card digital photo reader, something not available in central Rome (I guess all the Luddites live in Rome then).

We got on a train and spent two more hours getting to Florence. We checked into our hotel, Hotel Calzaiuoli, which we like a lot. But, we have a room on the street and so we’re changing in the morning for one in back – the streets of Florence are noisy. Dinner at a fast cheap place (fast-food Italian), then back to clean up and crash.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Revisions:

There are no revisions for this post.

Leave a Reply