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March 2004

Hill Towns of Tuscany and Umbria

David Aaronson
2005-09-30 12:33:13

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Orvieto

Orvieto sprawls down a hillside in western Umbria. Cable cars, trains and buses run from the lower town up to the top of the mountain where medieval Orvieto is. You can also park just outside the city and walk in (up). This is Orvieto's central square where we had our morning gelato (it could be a tradition) (1). This time around David had pear , Melanie had zabaglione and we both had chocolate which is one less colored bit of text to put on this page.

Orvieto's cathedral is something to see. Something like this (2). Alternating black and white marble layers make it rather distinctive from a distance.

The facade is supposedly just as spectacular, although it's hard to tell with all this scaffolding (3). There appears to be some brightly colored paintings under there. Like many of the hill towns in central Italy, Orvieto's shops sell sausages, wines and pottery - all of them made locally.

The narrow streets are nice to wander (4) but we found Orvieto to be a bit more crowded with tour groups than some of the other towns, possibly because of it's easy proximity to the main Rome-Florence highways.

Montepulciano
From Orvieto we headed towards Siena and the Chianti wine region of central Tuscany. Our next stop was Montepulciano (5), mostly famous for wines of the same name.

Montepulciano has several stores in cave-like cellars on the lower floors of buildings. Local wines, cheeses and sausages can not only be purchased here, but sampled as well! Be sure to check out the wild boar sausages made in the region. Also of local origin is the cheese known as Pecorino which comes in two basic varieties before being flavored with any number of herbs and spices. We left Montepulciano with enough supplies for several days worth of picnics.

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