Dear Readers,
Thank you to those who responded to my survey. I am still tabulating the results. That was a joke! I had been concerned that I might have been overwhelming you with too many reports, but it seems you are enjoying them. So thank you.
Today was a day of unexpected adventures. It started with us getting in the car and setting up the GPS to go to Orvieto. (As an aside, modern technology is really terrific.). I was shocked to see that it would take us 90 minutes to get there. My tour book said it was 32 miles. Turns out it’s 32 miles as the crow flies, but there’s no direct route!
So off we went. Part of the route was on the autostrada. When we entered it, apparently we went on a lane that was the equivalent of Easy Pass instead of the lane that gives you a ticket. We just kept going, BUT when we were exiting the autostrada, we had no ticket to insert in the machine to make the gate go up! It looked like there was another lane that might get us out, so Marty backed up and we went there. Also, no luck! Finally, Marty in his limited Italian managed to talk to a guy who spoke no English via the machine. I think that in the guy‘s frustration with us, he finally just lifted the gate from wherever he was!
Eventually we got to Orvieto and found a parking area right outside the medieval city. The parking meter machine wouldn’t take a credit card. Luckily, Marty had enough coins to put in. There was no sign to indicate the name of the parking area. I had a really bad feeling that we would never find it again. To be continued.
Off we went to visit yet another medieval town. I was getting a little tired of them by now, BUT I loved Orvieto. As we walked along, I noticed these mailboxes.
Our first stop was the Duomo. We were blown away by it. It is just magnificent, both inside and outside. Here are some photos of the outside.
Here are pictures from inside.
As luck would have it, as we walked through the church, there was an organ recital going on.
Next we went to the archeological museum.
I had several other places on my list, but I thought we should just walk around and soak up the atmosphere. Which is what we did. One of the places we passed was a small sandwich shop. It looked so inviting that we went inside. No gelato today. We shared a roll with boar salami (something we had never heard of before) and pecorino cheese; it was quite tasty. (We would have preferred some mustard on the sandwich, but just like last year in Burgundy, not to be had!)
Knowing that we had a fairly long ride ahead of us (and not really sure where we had left the car), we started walking toward where we THOUGHT it was. And thus another adventure ensued. I thought the car would never be found. We walked and walked and I’m sure we were getting further and further away from the car. Eventually we stopped a car that was coming our way. Boy, were we lucky. The driver was a young Ukrainian woman who spoke quite good English. She seemed to know where the parking areas were so I asked her if she would take us there and she did. It was so far from where we met her!
So now we’re on the way back and we’re congratulating ourselves that we know which lane to go on the autostrada to get our ticket. Not a problem UNTIL it’s time to get off the autostrada and after inserting our ticket, we can’t figure out where to put the credit card and by now there’s a line behind us. Finally, I saw where to tap the card (rather than inserting it) and it was smooth sailing from there to the hotel. As I said, a day full of unexpected adventures and, in a sense, isn’t that what traveling is all about!
Our last dinner in Umbria (but not in Italy) was quite delightful. It was in the old town in Spoleto, perhaps 5 minutes from our hotel. They started by giving us 4 different kinds of bread (why?) and an amuse bouche (but I guess they call it something else). We shared eggplant Parmesan to start (different than from any I’ve ever had). Marty had tortelono (large tortellini; all of the pastas are larger here) with boar ragu (delicious) and I had rabbit; (I had never had that before; it was OK). And we shared a dessert with vanilla gelato and peanut brittle. It was a lovely end to our sojourn in Umbria.
We have one more day on this adventure. Stay tuned.
❤️
Irene