Orvieto

A Texan woman we met in Spello told us to visit Orvieto, so for our last day at the lake, we decided to take the train over there. Interesting town, but I forgot my camera, so no photos to share. But Michele bought a postcard that I shot and have added it to the blog so that you can at least get a glimpse of the duomo. Not much to report really except that it's like a lot of the towns in the region and was built high on the hill. So, to get there from the train station, we needed to buy a bus ticket for 1 euro which included a ride in the funicular straight up the long steep hillside before transferring to the bus which copleted the climb to the summit. We walked slowly back down to the funicular visiting the town in a very brief fashion. Of particular interest in the town's history is the time when Rome was being sacked in the mid 6th century and the pope and other nobility decided it was time to high-tail it out of town to find a place a little safer to live. The pope commissioned the building of a palazzo there, and in order to ensure that the town would have an adequate water supply, they dug a well 53m deep and constructed a double spiral staircase (ie two spiralling walkways which ran parallel down the inner walls of the well but never intersected each other). They used donkeys to haul the water up. Not sure how they kept the donkey's business out of the water, but it surely must have been a concern.

Spello and Assisi

Anyone looking for a quiet and inspiring place in which to write would probably do well to rent an apartment in Spello for a year. An ancient village in the 3rd century B.C., Spello became a Roman town (Hispellum) in 43 B.C, and was crowned "Splendioissima Colonia Julia" (the most splendid Julian Colony) by emperor Augustus. It was granted the right to hold its own games and festivities by emperor Constantine, and, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, it was wiped out by the Lombards in 571 A.D. We met a wonderful elderly lady on the train from Livorno to Firenze on Saturday who told us before parting ways that we must visit Spello before leaving Lake Transimeno. So, today, we took an early train from Torricella (the train actually stops here in the mornings), and honoured her request. Michele and I were amazed at the beauty of the city and the brilliance of the city planners over the centuries. In the afternoon, we visited Assisi on the way back. The city of Assisi is nestled up on the hill way above the train station, so we took the city bus up to the very top near the old castle built 1000 (one thousand!) years ago. It is in remarkably excellent shape, and the skill of the architects who built it is almost impossible to believe without seeing it. We also got to see the funerary of St. Francis in the crypt of the cathedral. It was encased very solidly behind several layers of stone so that it would never be distrurbed. Very interesting arrangement and very special to be there to see it. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the cathedral, but it's definitely worth a visit. I honestly believe that we could never possibly get tired of visiting the towns of Italy tand witnessing, firsthand, the rich history and architectural and artistics accomplishments of the people who lived here so long ago and gave so much of their lives to leaving behind such a rich legacy. The people, the food, the lanscapes, the wines and oils, the coffee, the gelati...what a perfect mix of experience. We love Italy!

Lago Trasimeno

well, today we passed through Passignano again, but, this time, on bicycles we borrowed from the hostel. Our passage through this little lake side town was not executed as planned, although it had definitely been an option when we embarked on our circumvention of the lake around noon. Our intention had been to cycle around the southern side of the lake for about 25km to Castiglione del Lago and take the ferry to Isola Maggiore and then another ferry to Passignano which would leave us a final leg of 5.5km to get back to the hostel. As fate would have it, however, someone in the park administration responsib le for the ferry operations had made a rule that no bicycles are allowed on the ferry. The rule might have made sense if there had been throngs of passenegers seeking passage to the island, but this afternoon, it was only Michele and I. So sorry. Speaking of sore...what was sore, were our butts. Whoever designed the bike seats we had must have had buns of steel, because only cheeks that hard could have remained impervious to the torture those seats inflicted on our unseasoned behinds. Michele got rather creative stuffing her sweater into her pants and even contemplated at one point, to our insane hilarity, raiding the bails of hay on the roadside fields to add to her stuffing. We laughed so hard when she told me that, that we both had tears running down our cheeks. I spent a lot of the time simply standing up on the pedals. Not the ideal way of pedalling, but it saved my butt from annihilation. So, rejected as potential passengers on the ferry from Castiglione, we had to decide whether to return by the way we had just come or to continue with our circumvention of the lake. A quick review of the map lead us to the conclusion that we more or less half way around the lake, so it was a pretty easy decision to complete the full circuit...another 25km of excrutiating torture from our bike seats. It turned out to be the right decision. although there was no more bike path, we had good paved roads which we shared with extremely courteous drivers. Amd more imprtanrtly, near the town of Tuoro sul Trasimeno, we were able to see the fileds and hillside where Hannibal crushed the Roman army lead by the deeply incompetant consul Flaminius in 217 B.C.
In the end, we arrived back at the hostel with sore butts but happy hearts that we had completed the circumvention otherwise unharmed.