Day 3

Today we were up bright and early for the first part of our tour of Orvieto. We started out at the restaurant with cappuccinos as usual. Then we headed to the farmer's market. The market is incredible, its out in a large open square with tables of almost anything you can imagine. Predominately there are fresh produce, meat, cheese and other food product booths. The quality of the food is the most incredible part. When we had our first lesson in Italian cuisine we got to work with some of of the fresh herbs that grow wild around here. We also got to use some truly amazing tomatoes for a sauce. The farmer's market had a huge array of extremely good looking produce, that was all locally grown and organic. I've uploaded many pictures to facebook with some of the food. The strawberries were awesome, the zucchini with the blossoms on them were amazing to see, the artichokes were fresher than I have ever seen in the states. There were booths of dried fruits and nuts, the candied kiwis were awesome. The peppers are all huge, at least 4 times the size of what we see in the US. We were only allowed to spend a little of our time exploring because we have a lot to do, but the market is every Thursday and Saturday and it is supposed to be bigger on Saturday so we are all planning a return trip then. Before leaving the square though we stopped at a local pastry shop of course, then at a chocolate shop where we were given samples of grappa and then we were off to the Duomo. The cathedral is an amazing piece of architecture. The level of detail cannot be easily captured on camera in less than thousands of shots. It is a huge structure that has frescos, and sculptures telling biblical stories all over. The inside of the Duomo, you can't even take pictures of unless you do not use your flash because the paint is sensitive to light. After we were finished there we headed on a tour of the caverns below Orvieto itself. Once upon a time the valley where Orvieto now stands was covered by volcanic ash and rock from a nearby explosion. Over thousands of years, erosion caused the natural formation of an elevated rock which would become a perfect elevated position to build Orvieto as a fortress. The volcanic rock that sits beneath the city eventually became sought after because of the ease in which you can mix it with water to create a cement like mixture which was used to build the buildings in Orvieto. So there are huge tunnels created by mining, there is an even older cave that was used in the winter for a warm place to make olive oil, using huge mill stones. Also every building in Orvieto most likely has or at one time had its own cave. Some of the caves were used for storage, a lot have water shafts, and a lot we saw had pigeon holes for breeding. The caves with pigeons were attached as basements for houses so in tough times the residents could go down and kill one for dinner. That was also helpful if there was a siege on the town. The view from the cave was amazing looking over a cliff you could see a medieval looking castle which i took several pictures of. Another awesome thing was the huge amount of rosemary growing everywhere in this area. All of it had blossoms on it. While we went into the caves Chef Polegri stayed outside to pick some along with some wild dill. After we left there we went straight to the tour of Orvieto. There is an elevator that only goes to a second floor then there are tons and tons of steps to the top. It is a rough climb, even if you are in shape, but it is well worth it. The tower you can see all of Orvieto and the surrounding countryside for miles. The weather has been perfect here for touring. Its been mostly sunny, sunny all day today, the wind gets pretty rough sometimes, but I don't mind it at all. After the tower we headed back for lunch at the Zeppelin. We had a artichoke rissoto and a large fresh tomato, stuffed with fresh mozzarella and topped with balsamic vinegar. I took a great picture of that you should check out on facebook. We were allowed a break for an hour and a half, which most of us took the time to get a short nap. Then we met up again and headed for an old Etruscan well. It was designed to take donkeys all they down to the bottom and back up with water. However to make it easier the steps wind in different directions like a DNA strand along the sides of the well so that there is a down path and an up path so that people don't run into each other along the way. This was another rough climb. Going down is no problems, but the well is at least 100 feet down and there are 250 steps in either direction. After our walk up the tower earlier in the day, a lot of us had to take our time and stop briefly every once in a while to let our legs rest. At this point we had all decided that we were really ready to be done walking for the day. So we went to a wine shop for tasting of some classic Orvieto wines. There was the Orvieto Classico, a red wine, and a desert wine that they served with almond biscotti for dipping. The generosity is amazing here. Without motive they served us the wine for over 2o of us, gave us lots of bread, fresh parmesan, wild boar sausage, and an awesome red onion jam that I will have to bring some home with me. Afterwards they topped it off by letting us see their wine cellar. The bottles there are all very old. They stopped making wine themselves in 1988 and do not sell the wine that is in the cellar. It was basically a cavern, lined with casks, and shelves or holes in the wall where wine bottles were stacked. The amount of dust and mold was insane. The further you went down into the cellar, the older the wine. The owner then offered to open up a bottle of wine made by his father. It was a 47 year old red wine. Right there in the cellar he pulled it, cracked it open, checked to see if it was just vinegar at that point and then we all got a bit to try. The smell was indescribable, but it didn't smell like wine. It had a lot of sediment in the bottle, but it didn't taste bad. It was definitely a good experience, from now on I can say on April 1st, 2010 I had a 47 year old bottle of wine. We all joked that if we got sick from it, there was the April fool's prank. After the tasting we had time off before dinner so we walked around and looked at all the different shops. There are tons of small shops all around Orvieto that you could spend days exploring. We also saw a street performer in the streets, juggling....he wasn't really good, but interesting to see that. Dinner was fresh pasta with a pork and beef ragu and then homemade Italian sausages with beans...the sausage was awesome. After dinner we all were free to do what we wanted. I came home only to crash pretty early after our long day of walking and my early class Friday. Then there was of course more overnight drama, but I am trying to stay out of that.