Pigeon stew anyone?

Sunday 25^th May

We left Passignano with the sun shining via a drive around Lake Trasimeno headed towards Orvieto. We stopped briefly along the way to look at some sculptures at Campo del Sole and had a look along the lakeshore at Castiglione del Lago. The roads were relatively quiet presumably because it was a Sunday and people were at church.

The sculptures at Campo del Sole. 
These were done between 1985 and 1989 by 
famous contemporary Italian and foreign artists.

We arrived in Orvieto around 11 and quite easily parked the car only to find that we still had a long walk up the hill to look at the church – yet another town built on the edge of a cliff. Thankfully there was a bus so that saved us the walk. The outside of this church was just stunning with a lot of inlaid tile work on the pillars (I’ll include a photo or two) and some beautiful carved frescoes. The church was closed when we arrived due to Sunday services but when it opened we had a quick look inside and decided it wasn't really worth looking further.

Views from top of Orvieto

The church at Orvieto - the outside is one of the most beautiful
we have seen. We have been trying to think of the most
impressive and think there is Milan, Segrada la Familia in Barcelona,
and this one.

The dog photo for the day.

Just a small part of one of the frescoes on the church.

The inlaid tile work on these twisted pillars
look like quilt patterns in the making.

There were so many different expressions
on the faces in these frescoes.

More of the inlaid tile - quilt patterns?

Here we took an underground tour of some of the caves under the city. The story is that the people who built in the town dug down to get the building materials to use to make their house and when the house was finished they had underground space for storage or workrooms. They never actually lived in these caves. Most of the houses had one and they were not joined to each other. At the moment there are only 2 caves open to the public because the rest are privately owned. Back in the middle ages the caves under the houses at the edge of the cliffs had niches carved in them which were used for pigeons to roost. Pigeon was the main source of meat during the middle ages and is still to be found on the menu in some restaurants in town.

The pigeon holes in the caves under Orvieto.
These caves open to the cliff face so the pigeons
are able to come and go.

We then enjoyed a long lunch in Orvieto and struck up a conversation with a young English couple who were there holidaying with their baby. The time flew and we soon had to move on to wander the rest of the town. By the time we did this the town was a lot quieter – it appears that all the tour groups had left.

One of the lovely streets in Orvieto.
This one had shops of local artists.

Now we are at our B&B near San Gemini for 2 nights. You never know what you will end up with when you book something online, even though they have photos and descriptions – this place is an old 1890s farmhouse and is at the end of a rough dirt track but the room is lovely and our windows open on to farmland and open space. Really relaxed feel.