After a lazy morning, (one where we actually figured out where to turn the hot water on, so it will be a good hot water shower tomorrow!), we headed off on one of our ‘planned’ day trips. There is a lake nearby, so we decided to visit that, and also some old towns that gave great views of Umbria. Yes, we crossed the regional line and left Tuscany for Umbria.
We drove into Castiglione del Lago to take a look at Lake Trasimeno. I said how big the lake was, and Mark made a true enough statement that if we had a lake that big in Australia, we probably would have just dammed it and by now emptied the lake.
Mark says: It’s a funny thing, it is a very pretty lake and the town which juts out onto a promontory also looks great, but I think we’ve been spoiled by the beauty of Lake Como as Lake Trasimeno really just doesn’t compare. So we drove on to Panicale which sits high on a hill to the south of the lake in order to get some better views and photos of it.
Our next stop was Orvieto which sits about 300 metres up a hill and has magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. Like of many of the towns throughout Umbria and Tuscany it is heavily fortified. Orvieto’s distinguishing feature is the more than 1200 tunnels or catacombs that the locals have dug underneath town since the time the Etruscans first settled (long before the Romans). We only discovered this once we arrived in Orvieto so were not able to get on to a guided tour, which is the only way you can visit them. We walked around the town for a while and eventually found its Duomo. The travel guide says it is ‘among the greatest of Italy’s Romanesque-Gothic cathedrals’ due to its façade. So we took lots of photos but decided not to go in, we’ve seen many duomo’s on this tour!
Michelle says: On the way up to Orvieto, we stopped for lunch at ‘The Igloo: Happy Food Café’ which sounded like a good plan to me. We had yet another Panini (I am a little over paninis) and I ordered what I thought was an iced chocolate. Turns out ‘calda’ means hot, not cold at all. So I had a hot chocolate. This is a new obsession now, I needed to ‘drink’ my hot chocolate with a spoon! It was divine! Orvieto itself was a great walk through – the streets were like walking back in time – very medieval to say the least with old buildings and narrow windy streets.
Back to Mark: We headed east, this time to find Todi, another town on a hill looking down over the Tiber valley. Like Orvieto, this town is of Etruscan origin. We stopped at a Renaissance church, the Santa Maria della Consolazione, which was built in the 16th century, to capture the views of the valley before finally heading home for the night.
Michelle says: Yep, I don’t have much more to add than that. I’m still fixated on the hot chocolate!
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