Day #29 in Orvieto

March 23, 2013 - Saturday

I'm officially been in Orvieto for one month! It's so weird that I was on that plane (sitting in that airport for hours...) four weeks ago. Today was easily one of the best days in Orvieto so far. There are still eight of us at the monastery right now because everyone is still gone. We slept in and some people went to the market. We had a plan to leave around 11 to hike to "The Rock." We didn't really know what this was or how to get there, but we packed a huge picnic lunch so we weren't too worried about it. Thankfully we bumped into Alessandro on our way out of the monastery and he gave us some good directions and told us to "watch out for the holes." Like... what? So we continued on walking out of Orvieto.

It's crazy to me how quickly we can go from busy, crowded streets (or at least they're crowded on market day) to walking right into the country. So we started walking to La Rocca. It was easy to figure out how to get there even without Alessandro's directions, because it's the huge, raised rock in the middle of some fields and grassy landscape. We got a little bit lost on the way. We weren't actually LOST but we got stuck on a road that took us around the rock for a little bit before we actually arrived at the rock. We then climbed up the narrow stairs and suddenly we were at the top! There were a bunch of trees and HOLES! Like holes that go from the top of the rock to the center of the rock. Scary. There were these flimsy little ropes around the holes so you knew they were there, but they weren't very sturdy... we then walked over to the spot where you can sit and enjoy the view. And from the rock we had a beautiful view of our home, Orvieto! And we could see the huge duomo just perched in the middle of Orvieto. It looked especially big from where we were. After taking a few pictures, we began our picnic feast. And it was seriously a feast. We had two huge loaves of bread, fresh mozzerella and parmesean, oranges, apples, and tomatoes for everyone. We had pesto, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, two types of wine, a kiwi for everyone, dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Laura and I wanted to buy a roasted chicken from the market that morning but unfortunately we weren't sure how long the hike would be and it probably would've been cold by then (it still could've been good though). I'm pretty sure we ate for about two hours on top of the rock. It was delicious and the weather was beautiful. A few of us even got sunburns which was actually nice - I don't think I've ever said that about a sunburn before.

After a few hours of laying in the sun and eating ALL of the food, we started back down the rock and then journeyed back to Orvieto. We took a shorter path this time - it was probably an hour and a half on the way back and it took a little bit longer to walk to the rock. It was mostly uphill on the way back though, as we had to climb back up all the streets to the top of Orvieto. Since it was close to sunset time by this point, we walked to "Sunset Park" on one side of Orvieto to watch the sun go down. I've done a few of my drawings in Sunset Park before for class. It's one of the best spots in Orvieto!

We finally walked back to the monastery after and entire day of walking around, and it felt so nice to just sit down and rest before dinner. Locanda didn't serve us lunch or dinner today, so that's why we went on a picnic and we were on our own for lunch. There's one Chinese food place in Orvieto, so we decided to go there. Weird, I know, but nobody wanted to have pasta again. So we went to the Chinese place which was odd because there were Egyptian, Chinese, and Italian paintings on the wall and it was very confusing. The menus were in Italian, but then had English translations but these translations were a little bit... off. Like they just didn't make sense. It was like all of these Chinese food names had to be translated to Italian, then English. But it was manageable and everyone ordered a bunch of different things. I ordered some pinapple rice thing which was good until I found a hair in it. Laura insisted that it was my hair in the rice but then she had some of her rice (we shared a plate of rice) and she found a hair too. But she said that must've been HER hair. Needless to say... I was a littleeee bit sketched out and I managed to eat a little more of my chicken before I decided that it was sketchy as well. Everyone else seemed to enjoy their meals though so maybe it was just me...

After dinner, everyone CRASHED. Which is normally me but Laura and I immediately looked and each other after dinner and we both just said "gelato." We tried not to get too excited about the idea though because it was late and we weren't sure if the gelato place would be open... BUT IT WAS! Once again, I got baccio and cappuccino - two of my favorites. I would've gotten the cinnamon apple kind but that was at a different gelato place. Maybe tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from the day!

The little park on top of the rock

One of the holes that Alessandro warned us about!

Walking back to Orvieto (you can see it behind me)

View of Orvieto from the rock! See the duomo? It's huge.

Walking down from the top of the rock

Taking a break on the walk back

Laura running back to Orvieto

The sunset from Sunset Park