Orvieto and Florence Day One

The next morning we literally raced to catch our train to Florence. We were running with all our luggage just like they do on Home Alone. I was singing "Run Run Reindeer" and trying not to laugh as everyone stared at us running down the train station. Ky and Eddie were arguing over which train we were actually supposed to board. Luckily, our travel agent, Kylee, didn't lead us astray. Here she is holding up he ticket, proving that she was indeed correct.

No matter where we traveled on the train, it took less than 5 minutes for Conner and Eddie to fall asleep.

On our way to Florence, we made a pit stop in Orvieto. Orvieto is a little town set atop vertical cliffs of tufa, or volcanic rock. There is also a wall of tufa surrounding the entire city. In order to get into town, you have to take a mini tram, or gondola to the top. Apparently there is an entire labyrinth of caves and secret passageways underneath the city. Many of the homes of noble families were equipped with a means of escape from the elevated city during times of siege through secret escape tunnels carved from the soft rock. The tunnels would lead from the city palazzo to emerge at a safe exit point some distance away from city walls.

 

Once we arrived, our first stop was the Pozzo di San Patrizio, a deep well with a double spiral staircase leading to bottom. It was constructed in 1537 and is 200 feet deep. It was quite the workout climbing back up to the top! 

A view from the very bottom.

We couldn't get enough of these shots. Something about Italy is just so romantic

After our visit to the well, we explored the city.

We found a local farmer's market that sold fruit, cheese, meats, clothes, purses, dish rags and whatever else you could think of. It was fun to be among the locals. There were hardly any other tourists so we felt like we got to experience what it really felt like to be an Italian.

As we wandered the streets window shopping and looking for lunch, we stumbled upon a beautiful Italian nativity. Kylee and Eddie bought a small one for her mom, and after much persuasion, I convinced Conner to let me buy the larger nativity. (I told Kylee if Conner wasn't so hungry, he wouldn't have been so hesitant to let me buy it). So, since we wanted to be able to buy other souvenirs, we thought we better feed our husbands. We loved the two old Italian women we bought the nativities from. They didn't speak a lick of English, but somehow we hit it off. We asked them where we should eat (mostly with silly hand gestures) and they drew us a map to what we soon found out was the the most expensive restaurant in Orvieto (or so it seemed). We decided to keep looking. We finally agreed upon a small restaurant where we shared two pizzas. Turns out, all of the restaurants in Orvieto were expensive. We ordered one bottle of water, but secretly kept refilling our glasses with our own water bottles. I wish I could say this was the first and only time we did this, but it soon became our tourist trademark.

On our way back to the train station, we stopped to view the Duomo, or cathedral. The cornerstone to the Duomo was laid in 1290 but took almost 3 centuries to complete. We didn't have a chance to go inside, but the black and white striped cathedral was definitely the most interesting that we had seen.

We picked up our luggage at a small hotel that had allowed us to store it for a small fee, and headed back to the train station. We wanted to make sure we weren't running after the train this time. Turns out, we had to wait for the train...for over an hour. Rick finally led us astray! His book said the train came every hour. Unfortunately the train only comes every 2 hours.

We arrived to a wet, rainy Florence at about six thirty. We started talking to a girl on the train who was a foreign exchange student from the United States who kindly walked us to our hotel. This hotel or "hostel" of sorts was the one place we had decided to share a room. We were nervous what we would find, but it turned out to be the nicest place we stayed! That night we ate at a popular restaurant called ZaZa's and explored Florence by night.