Orvieto

Two weeks ago we took a day trip to Orvieto with my ISA group, Orvieto is a small town an hour and a half north of Rome, its very small and reminded me a lot of Siena, it has a beautiful church in the center of the town that is dedicated to Mary, I don't know if you've noticed but I feel like EVERY church in Italy is dedicated to Mary, I know this sounds bad but all these churches are starting to blend together, and my interest in them is becoming less and less. When I told my mom about this she said "you have ABC syndrome, just Another Beautiful Church."

Orvieto's ABC

The really amazing thing about Orvieto's church is that it was built to be a suitable place to house the Corporal of Bolsena, which is a miracle that occurred in 1263. The story tells of a traveling priest who was doubting the truth of transubstantiation (the change of bread and wine turning into the body and blood of Christ), well one day during mass he witnessed his Host bleeding so much that it stained the altar cloth. The cloth is now on display in the church, being Catholic it was an amazing thing to see.

The town of Orvieto was built on the very top of a hill and has miles and miles of underground tunnels. The tour guide took us through some of them and told us that the tunnels had three main uses: 1. they provided safety when other towns were attacking, 2. they provided a cool place to work and lots of olive oil was made here, and 3. they used the first floor tunnels for 'pigeoning' where they cut thousands of holes into the walls and pigeons would roost, mate, and lay eggs, they would would then sell the eggs and also sell pigeon meat. We called the first floor tunnels the pigeon brothel.

holes carved into the walls for the pigeons, A.K.A. the pigeon brothel

The rest of the day we walked around the town and tried the local cuisine. Orvieto is most known for its olive oil and black truffles (don't get your hopes up, I thought the tour guide was referring to chocolate, but APPARENTLY black truffles are mushrooms, yuck!)
After an amazing lunch we climbed the clock tower to see the whole town, the view was not as amazing as Florence's but it was still beautiful.

Maddie and I at the top of the tower

view of the whole town