A Stroll Through Churches and Chocolate

Sabato Stroll number two went fabulously.  We journeyed to Perugia and Terni for this particular stroll, which are both in the Umbria region of Italy (Arezzo is in Tuscany, if you didn’t know). 

Our little group arrived in Perugia at about 915 and we then took a bus to the top of the city.  From here, our group split in two.  My group, led by Colin, went to see the Duomo, the Etruscan Well, and finally the Temple of the Angels.  The Duomo and the Well were a bit of a letdown after the overwhelming beauty of the ones in Orvieto on our last Sabato Stroll.  However, it was still an adventure!

We walked through the residential part of the city to find the Temple of the Angels, which was in the middle of preparations for what we believed was a wedding (there seemed to be a lot of them going on in Perugia this weekend!).  It was a beautiful little church with a wonderful courtyard out front that must have been quite the luxury way back when.  While enjoying the sun outside the church, we noticed a tower that we decided to explore.  After climbing some seriously treacherous stairs, we arrived at the top for an amazing view of the city and the surrounding countryside.  It was absolutely beautiful, made more so thanks to the sun that has been rather elusive over the past month. 

 Finally, we headed back toward our meeting point to catch the train to Terni.  After taking an elevator that we thought was our mini metro (thankfully a sweet Italian lady pointed us in the right direction), we arrived at the metro station. The mini metro was actually surprisingly cool.  They were incredibly modern, with independent cars that traveled down the tracks.  I have to say, we were ridiculously excited about this part. 

Next, we hopped the train to Terni, the home of St. Valentine! We went to the church of Saint Valentine, unintentionally interrupting the beginning of a mass, so we had to make a quick exit.  However, most of us were really only there for the chocolate festival, so no big loss. 

The chocolate festival was so much fun.  There were vendors everywhere, selling chocolate, wine, food, and other sweets and treats.  It was remarkably crowded, especially considering Terni isn’t a huge town.  We certainly didn’t overindulge ourselves (for the most part) but we definitely bought some wonderful chocolates.

I got several pieces with dried fruit and some of the others managed to find some chocolate covered strawberries before they sold out.  Colin and I also tried what tasted like the baby of a churro and a cinnamon roll.  They made it by wrapping dough around a wooden spool, baking it, and then rolling it in cinnamon sugar.  It was incredible, although very, very hot.

The chocolates kept coming, with some made with such intricate details that they seemed to come to life.  Some were definitely homemade, but I think quite a few came from a market of some sort.  Too many stalls had the exact same things for there not to have been a market.

Church of San Valentino

 By the end of the festival, we were all a little hyped up on sugar and ready to head back to Arezzo and get off of our feet!  It was a pretty cool day, topped off with delicious chocolate! 

Stroll (aka Race) through Orveito

Orvieto, just another small town in Tuscany, or is it? We had our first Saturday Stroll yesterday and it was so much fun.  Orvieto is definitely a small town, but there was so much to see and so little time to see it, despite the fact that we were (mostly) all up before 7am to catch the train.  Some people rolled out of bed a little late, although none as late as Leanna who planned the trip! Colin’s phone call woke her up at 7:20 and it’s a 20 minute walk to the train station.  She barely made it to our train before it left at 7:43. 

Once we got to Orvieto, we took a tram up to the top of the hill. Once there, we walked into the old castle courtyard to see the amazing views of the countryside/city below.  The fog and clouds made it hard to see much, but it was still a great view.  We got some great pictures and then headed into the city to find some caffeine and the Duomo (the city’s cathedral) so we could buy our tourist tickets. A few of us got a little lost from everyone else because we got distracted taking pictures, but we eventually found the Duomo and it was beautiful:

 

 After we bought our tickets, we walked through the interior of the cathedral, which was just as amazing as the outside.  It was massive inside and the frescoes were magnificently preserved.  Everything was in such amazing colors and the contrast of the bright paintings and the black and white walls and floors was incredible. We didn’t have much time inside because we had a tour of the city’s underground, but one could definitely spend hours staring at the frescoes and still not take it all in.

Orvieto has a huge underground, with over 1200 caves beneath the city. They had a variety of uses, including storage, bomb shelters, quarries, and olive oil making.  We visited two of the caves, one that was a quarry/olive oil press and another that was a pigeon roost. Getting into the caves was rather interesting, especially for those of the group that were over 6 feet tall.  The olive oil cave wasn’t so bad, but getting into and through the pigeon roost was definitely interesting. At one point, we ascended a very steep and narrow staircase that wasn’t bad for me, but Connor (who is about 6’5”) barely made it up.

 We also went down into a well on the edge of the city that is 175 feet deep. The stairs were steep and set at an awkward incline, but we all made it to the bottom and back up.  It was a little daunting, especially with the damp steps and having Colin and Michael racing through the well, but it was a lot of fun.  We definitely got some good pictures out of it too.  After we escaped the well, we attempted to find the Etruscan Necropolis ruins just outside the city, but we got lost several times in the process. We went to the museums by the Duomo instead, which were cool but were just expansions on the Ivan Bruschi museum that we had already seen here in Arezzo.

However, we did get directions to the ruins and we managed to find those as dusk started to fall.  The walk to the ruins wasn’t horrible and the Necropolis was breathtaking.  I was really grateful that I had taken that Roman Religion class last semester because I knew a lot about the necropolis and why it was outside the city and how it was used.  We spent a little time walking through the ruins and enjoying the sense of peace that the ruins radiated. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time before we had to rush back up the hill and through the city to catch our train back to Arezzo.  While the walk down to the ruins hadn’t been horrible, the race back to the top was brutal.  The stairs and inclines were almost cruel at this point in the day, and by the time we go to the top we were all wheezing.  On the bright side, we made it back to the train with time to spare.

The cliff that we had to run back up from the ruins

It was a really fun and exhausting day.  We all walked almost 12 miles throughout the city and were on our feet from 7am to 8pm other than the hour train rides and the hour for lunch.  Definitely need a plan before we set out on our next Saturday Stroll.