when skies are grey : Day #50 in Orvieto

April 13, 2013 – Saturday

Even though yesterday was a little bit chilly, today was so hot! Well, it’s cool when you’re walking around the streets and it’s always cool in all of the buildings (like… always) but in the direct sun it is incredibly warm. When I woke up this morning, I wrote another essay because I’m trying to get all of my essays done so I can study for my final exam on Wednesday! After writing that essay and eating breakfast, Jenna and I went to the market to look around. While she was buying fresh fruit, I ran off to the dried fruit stand and bought some dried strawberries even though I was going to try and save my money. The dried strawberries are so good though! Like strawberry fruit gummies but even better because they’re real strawberries. Soon it was time for lunch (even though I had just had breakfast at 11:30…) so we made our way back to Locanda and had some pasta with red sauce, pork, and lentils. After lunch, Laura and I went back to the travel agent because Laura is coming to Cinque Terre too but she was on the pilgrimage when the rest of us bought our train tickets. The travel agent was closed but we made the trip worth it by getting gelato at chocolate store. The chocolate store has always been there but they only bring out the gelato when it’s springtime. So of course, we had to check it out even though my mom just told me on the phone last night that I need to stop getting gelato every day… sorry Mom. I’d say it was the best gelato I’ve ever had but I say that every time.

After gelato time, I went to the Necropolis with Jenna, Genevieve, Victoria, and Rebekah. The Necropolis is one of the tourist-y things in Orvieto that we always forget to do even though it’s on our “Key to the City” card that we all bought at the tourist center on Day #1 in Orvieto. Anyways, the Necropolis is on one side of Orvieto out of the wall, and I’d never really been over there until today. Here’s an except from the brochure because it’s give a better explanation: “The necropolis known as the Crocefisso del Tufo is located on the northern slopes of the cliff of Orvieto and, together with the necropolis of Cannicella on the south slope, forms one of the largest funerary areas of the ancient Etruscan city. It takes its name from a rock-cut chapel and crucifix in the face of the cliff just above the necropolis. As we see it now, the necropolis is the fruit of what can be called a city plan of around the middle of the 6^th century BC that however respected the prescence of older burials, which were discovered intact during the archaeological excavations. The organization of this area, certainly predetermined by the city authorityes, planned for a subdivision of the space into homogenous ‘lots’ lined up along a street that ran along halfway up the hill parallel to the cliff. Despite variations connected to contingent phenomena or factors, the resulting picture is one of an extremely regular and orderly plan, with more or less rectangular tombs lined up in groups along streets that crossed at right angles and were as level as the slope of the land permitted.”

SIXTH CENTURY BC??? Like WHAT! They are so old! We walked in a few of the tombs and they felt old - plants and moss that were probably there since the dinosaurs. Seriously, they looked like plants that you could see in The Land Before Time or something. So we spent some time wandering around in the necropolis, which took almost two hours.

That was the most exciting part of the day because then we returned to the monastery where I had to continue writing essays and reading for class on Monday. And studying… hmm. We had “take-away Locanda dinner” again which was nice because I could just roll on downstairs to the kitchen to eat instead of walking up the street to Locanda. Sometimes I think that living in the monastery is making me lazy because everything that we need is located in this building (food/refrigerator, kitchen, classroom, etc). I’m not complaining though because it’s great! It just takes more effort to actually leave and go out into town… usually just to get gelato or dried strawberries.