Category: Umbria

Today was a day of Funiculars and Churches. We visited Todi and Orvieto which are two towns perched on top of steep hills and full of churches.

At our wine tasting last night we sat with an Australian couple who spoke highly of Todi and really recommended we visit it. Ton and I talked about it on the walk back to François but had decided to pass. But when I looked at the route from Montefalco to Orvieto it turned out it passed thru Todi so it became a no brainer to stop for a couple of hours.

The hill Todi is located on is quite steep and it began with an 18 degree climb for about 2 kilometers where I used all of the gears François has including first for the last 100 meters or so. It was the first time he has ever struggled so much taking on a hill. Once we parked in the lot we still had to take a Funicular up another 300 feet or so to the main part of town.

If the weather had cooperated the views would be stunning, but it was fogged in. At the end we caught a little break and Ton got a picture of the valley below the town thru the fog which is at the top of the article.

The main square in town was nice as was the cathedral. The town was pretty quiet and with the gray skies and the gray stone of the towns buildings we were looking for a little color. The Church of Nunziation filled that void with its interior. It is a beautiful church. After the church we decided to head back down to François and over to Orvieto.

After settling into our air we walked over to take the funicular about 500 feet up from the train station to the platform at the base of the town. Our first stop was the Duomo or Cathedral. It took over 300 years to complete and there have been multiple renovations that have resulted in new art being added to the exterior.

It is one of the larger cathedrals we have visited and it is considered one of the most beautiful Gothic Cathedrals. The combination of art work and stone bas -reliefs is quite impressive.

The main hall of the interior is sparsely decorated except for a series of large sculptures of Saints that run down either side of the worship area. The columns are quite large and geometrically aligned so that they give the impression of a forest.

While the main hall is sparsely decorated the two chapels that form the cross in the design of the cathedral are spectacularly decorated by many of the masters of Italian art.

A lot of time now we make a quick pass thru a Cathedral and move on. But the chapels in the Orvieto Cathedral grabbed our attention.

Each panel was fascinating. They were painted by several masters of Italian art including Michelangelo’s teacher. The art in the Orvieto Cathedral was said to be the inspiration for Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine chapel.

We spent so much time looking at the paintings that we both walked out of the Cathedral with sore necks from looking up. Ton had a hard time selecting the pictures to send me from the many she had taken. I think she was also getting a little revenge on the Assisi Cathedral for forbidding photos.

We spent another hour or so taking in more sites in Orvieto. It is a much larger city than I expected. But the architecture was much like that of other cities we have visited lately.

We returned to our Sosta (aire) by the rail station for the evening to try to figure our next stop. Last night we were in a quiet Sosta next to vineyards, tonight we are parked about 200 yards from a high speed rail track between Rome and Milan with bullet trains going by at 130mph every 10 minutes or so. Not quite as charming.

Today we visited two small Italian towns famous for their wine and olive oil, though that is a claim made by many Italian towns. The first stop was Bevagna which Ton said was known as a relatively flat town to walk as it is located in the valley.

We spent about an hour giving Bevagna a pass thru. It was a nice town and worth a walk. We then moved on to our destination for the day Montefalco. It is known for a red wine that is only produced in a very small area between Montefalco and Bevagna. Sagratino grapes are not widely grown because it produces relatively little fruit.

We found the very nice municipal Sosta in Montefalco at the base of the town. It was a throwback to our early days traveling in Europe as it only cost €5.75 for a night including electricity. Towns often provide these facilities to attract tourists to stay in the town hoping they will spend some money. In our case they were right as we ended up spending well over €100 between lunch and our visit to a winery.

Ton had found a winery near town that offered tours in English with a light snack. We headed over there to see if they had any space, and luckily they did. We had a couple of hours to kill before the tour so we headed towards the town center to see if we could find a place for lunch. There was a nice cafe right on the main square so we ordered a lasagna and a cold plate of local meats with bread. We intended it to be a light lunch but we forgot about Italian portions.

After our light lunch we returned to François to rest before heading over for our winery tour. I almost fell asleep, but at 3:15 we set out for our tour.

Montioni winery is a new winery having gone into business in 1987. They started out as an olive oil producer in the late 1970’s. They produce mostly red wine, and of course specialize in Sagratino wines. The tour was pretty brief before we sat down for our wine and light snack.

The wine was very good. We were joined on the tour by an Australian couple and a young man from Germany. We were all on extended vacations and enjoyed talking about our experience in Italy. We asked where the German guy was staying and he said the name of a village. The Australians asked him if it was nice, and we all laughed at his answer, he said it was charming but after two weeks of charming Italian villages they were all starting to feel the same to him. The reason we all laughed is both the Australians and Ton and I had had the same thoughts in the last few days but didn’t want to say it because we were not Europeans. So it was good to hear it from a European.

After the visit we headed back to François for a relaxing evening in another charming Italian village.

After a lot of walking yesterday, we decided today would be a day for logistics. We were up bright and early to get our laundry done, but despite arriving to the washers at 8am someone had beat us to the punch. We went back to François and took care of some other cleaning and sipped our coffee. By 8:30 we had our load in the washer which was a Maytag complete with American English labels on the buttons to push. Right after we put our load in two other people showed up with dirty clothes so we were not the only ones who decided today was laundry day.

By 9:15 the washing was complete, but we were now waiting for the dryer to be freed up. Unlike the Maytag washer the dryer was Italian and European dryers take a much more leisurely approach to drying clothes. This one didn’t even have a display to show how much time was left so we had no idea how long the wait was going to be or how long it would take to dry our load. I spent the next hour waiting for the peoples clothes in front of us to finish and helping a Belgian woman understand the workings of the Maytag including explaining the American term Permanent press to her.

Finally the dryer stopped and we gave the person whose clothes were in it a 10 minute grace period to turn up. When they didn’t I went to open the door but could not get it open. The original button or handle had broken off and it was jury rigged with a cord to pull on. But I was pulling pretty forcefully and could not get it open. I tried pulling straight, up and straight down to no avail. So stymied by the door I trudged off to the office for advice. When I explained the problem to the maintenance guy there and told him I was afraid I would break the latch, he just laughed and gave the most Italian answer, Pull very hard, and if you break the latch it will be good so that we can finally get the door fixed.

So back at the dryer we pulled very hard and the door popped open. We unloaded the clothes, and loaded ours. While Ton was loading the clothes I cleaned the lint filter, and replaced it. When I closed the door to start the dryer it would not latch, so I thought I had actually broken the latch, so now I trudged off muttering bad words about Italian appliances. When I got to the office they gave me another token for some reason, and said they would send help. While I was doing that a German guy wandered by and saw Ton trying to close the door, he quickly figured out that I had replaced the lint filter the wrong way and it was preventing the door from latching, so by the time the maintenance guy and I arrived the dryer was going. It was now about 11:00 am.

I started checking the dryer every 1/2 hour and at 12:30 it was still spinning away. I opened the door and checked and the clothes were pretty dry, but not up to Tons standard of dryness. So I continued the dryer watch.

We were under some time pressure because the restaurant at the campsite has been tempting us since we arrived. It has been very full for every meal, and the menu and prices looked good. It is open for lunch from 12:30 to 2:30 and I was beginning to wonder if we would make it.

Finally about 1:15 Ton pronounced the clothes dry. After folding the clothes and putting them away we headed to the restaurant at 1:45. It took approximately 5 hours and 45 minutes to wash and dry one medium sized load of wash. I hate laundry days.

The lunch was as good as advertised, we each had a first course with me picking a Polenta with sausage, and Ton having spaghetti. Our second course was a plate of sausages that we shared. My Polenta dish was huge as was Tons spaghetti, so it took a while to finish up the grilled sausages when they came. We were done with our lunch about 3:30. The nice thing about Italian restaurants is they will never push you as meals are for socializing and enjoying the food.

We finished cleaning up François and relaxed after our laundry ordeal.

We slept in this morning and woke up to the good news that the Oregon Ducks had won a thriller against Ohio State, so the day began on a happy note. After a hearty breakfast and a good cup of coffee we headed down the hill to Assisi to go to the St. Francis of Assisi Basilica.

We had thought of going to the Basilica tomorrow as the weather was supposed to be better for pictures, but when we checked the website for the Basilica it said they were closed for a special event. It turns out that Assisi is hosting a meeting of the G7 committee for disability on Monday. As a result the security at the Basilica was extremely high with every type of police officer in Italy present from the local police to the national police called the Carabineri represented, even the Finance Police and the Italian Army had a couple of representatives on hand.

We arrived at the end of the last mass of the day so we had to wait until it was over before entering the church. We spent some time wandering the grounds, and came across a garden attached to the Basilica that had some nice artwork in it.

The Basilica is divided into two churches, the lower one contains the remains of St. Francis who is the male patron saint of Italy. You usually have to pay to enter but we were lucky that it was free today.

Ton was very frustrated by their no photo policy. She thinks that most people will have only one chance to visit a place like this and as long as they are respectful and do not use flash what is the harm in allowing them to preserve the memory. The lower church has really beautiful art work by some of the greatest masters of Italian art. It is quite beautiful, but you will have to take our word for it.

The upper church is larger than the lower church and is used to hold the masses on site. The art work is not as impressive as the lower church, partially because the upper church was heavily damaged during the earth quake of 1997 when the main dome collapsed.

Assisi is built on a very steep hill and you are either walking downhill or uphill. So after our visit to the Basilica we found a place advertising €5 panini’s. We shared a table with two women from Peru who convinced us to try a glass of the local wine (it did not take much convincing), we enjoyed our conversation in Spanglish about Italy and Assisi.

We spent some time people watching on the streets of Assisi. Today we heard much more Italian being spoken, though American English was a close second.

Finally after stalling as long as we could we decided to make the long climb back to our campground. Today we probably climbed the equivalent of 1000 feet as well as 15,000 steps. So when we made it back to François we were ready for a rest.

Today we shifted south about 150 kilometers into Umbria. We had discussed staying in Tuscany a bit longer but decided we would probably have an opportunity for another day or two as we headed north towards Amsterdam at the end of the trip.

We had an easy and relatively quick drive down and though we were a little slow in getting going this morning we still arrived in Assisi around 1 pm. After a little adventure with an unexpected very narrow archway on the road near the campground that required pulling in the side mirrors and sucking in our breath as we just squeezed thru with inches on either side we were settled into a nice campground near the city.

Today was about the nicest day we have had since we have arrived in Italy so after getting everything set up we decided to head into town. It was about a 1 mile walk into town on a nice trail that paralleled the road into the campground. As we were walking along the trail we saw a small VW RV coming towards us. Ton said I didn’t know this was a road, and I said it isn’t its a walking trail, I’m not the only one who blindly follows his GPS even when it leads him to places he shouldn’t be. As they pulled even with us I smiled and pointed back up the trail and said the campground is in another 200 meters and I think you will fit, I got a look of relief from the wife and a thanks.

Assisi is an important town to Italian Catholics as it is the home town of St.Frances of Assisi. There are 11 churches in the town and it is a place of study for Catholic Clergy who are very prominent walking around the city.

We visited two of the churches today and we noticed that there were several tour groups in each church. Apparently it is a popular stop for Catholic tours. It is only a couple of hours north of Rome so it is an easy day trip.

The town survived WWII mostly intact as the German garrison commander was a devout Catholic and declared the city an open city as the allies advanced on it, so it was taken by the British without a fight. But in 1997 the town suffered severe damage when it was hit by a large earth quake.

The town is divided into a lower town and an upper town. The lower town is the more modern and open, while the upper town is full of the narrow steep allies of a typical medieval city. A couple of hundred feet above the upper town is a major castle that we decided could wait until tomorrow.

We gave the town a good once over and were thinking about the walk back to the campground. But I knew we had to climb two or three hundred feet on our way back so I suggested we fortify ourselves with some wine and cheese before we took off.

We stopped at our second Michelin starred place for the wine. The wine was good, but the service was not great. This is the second time we have splurged for a Michelin place and the second time we were disappointed. Next time we will stick with unpretentious.

The walk back was all uphill but quite pretty. For the first time on the trip François was actually a little hot on the inside and we had to open up all of the windows. We are not complaining and hopefully we will get a few more days like this.