Sunday, November 2, 2008

10/28/08 Orvieto

Yo trabajo y trabajo y trabjo. Yo no me gusta trabajar cuando yo quiero mirar el campo de la Casella, pero mis ojos no trabaje para mi y yo no miro nada.

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, (I did Spanish work), and then got on the road to visit the ancient hill-town of Orvieto.

We got to drive on windy roads and along what we thought were grottos (caves). We also got to drive for the first time without my eyes. I couldn't read the signs until we were right on them. My glasses were still on because my eye was still hurt from when something happened to it in the middle of the night (had a read spot in my eye from where something rubbed). Ahmee and Poppy did just fine without my eyes though, and we made it to Orvieto without any problems. While in Orvieto we got a looksee at the well named the Pozzo di San Patrizio (Saint Patricks well), went and admired the Duomo of Orvieto, ate lunch while watching the tourist groups walk through, went through the Etruscan Museum, and walked back to the car (peering through shop windows as we went). Ahmee's cold wasn't all the way gone but her day of tea drinking and rest helped her out significantly and this day wasn't too trying on her.

The Pozzo di San Patrizio was a true engineering marvel for me. This well was dug because the Pope was interested in the church there on this hilltown, and he knew that it was likely the town would go under siege. So he had a well dug (despite the fact that Orvieto is on top of a plateau). This well has two staircases, one for going down and one for coming up. These staircases were used by donkeys who hauled water from the well. Windows were open into the center of this well so that the visitor could see all the way down and all the way up. I didn't like these because I could easily have fallen right out of the window. Even though we could've walked all the way down to the bottom of the well and back up we decided that 60 steps was enough and we headed back up to go look at the Duomo of Orvieto.

This Duomo was striped like the Duomo in Florence. This Duomo also had a very spectacular entryway. There were four carvings that depicted different scenes from the Old and New Testaments. What was truly wonderful about this church was the interior. Inside they were holding mass in the smaller chapel on the left hand side so that when we walked in we could hear singing (this time I knew I wasn't imagining it whenever I saw other people standing near the entrance to the chapel.

Just across from this chapel there was another that held the reliquary of the Miracle of Bolsena where "real blood from a consecrated host supposedly fell on the altar cloth of a church in nearby Bolsena". This chapel was filled with gold and rich colors. Even though I couldn't make out the details I could still tell there was plenty of gild and color in an almost full-blown gothic style.

After the Duomo we went across the square to the self-serve cafe where we ate pizza and watched the tour bus groups rush from one place to the next and move in huge mobs. We finished our food, got a few gifts as we rubbed elbows with other tourists (we kept our mouths shut this time), and then we started to head back to the car (Poppy was worried that our parking ticket had expired and that we'd get a ticket or our car would be towed). We went slowly, looking in all the shop windows, the churches, and the gardens that came our way.

We then got in the car and drove back to La Casella where we ate the dinner Ahmee had prepared the night before that had never gotten eaten (was turkey with 17 cloves of garlic-was meant to be chicken with 50, was still excellent), and where I worked and then fell asleep at about 9 o'clock.

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