Exploring Italy: Orvieto + Bologna

This past weekend was our first full weekend in Florence. Many of us had class field learning experiences to attend one day out of the weekend, for me this took place on Saturday in Orvieto. With that in mind some friends and myself planned a day trip for Friday to Bologna.

Bologna was a town I had never heard of before and probably would not have thought to visit without their plans. It was a beautiful town where we spent most of the day wandering the streets, stopping in shops and exploring the markets. We stopped at a tent to grab drinks where I ordered a Spaghetti Stout, I found it funny they named it spaghetti when it had nothing to do with spaghetti and instead had a malty coffee flavor. If you’re ever in Bologna 10/10 would recommend.

 

Here we also climbed the tower of Bologna which happens to be the tallest leaning tower in Italy– contrary to popular belief that the leaning tower of Pisa is the tallest.

 

Our greatest adventure was probably when we missed our train back to Firenze after being at the train platform an hour before the train was scheduled to arrive. Leave it to us– the group that got pooped on by pigeons in Rome– to accomplish this. For those curious as to how we managed, there happened to be multiple “platform 3″s that we were unaware of. We made it to the ticket office 20 ,images before closing and got onto the last train to Firenze for the evening. I was grateful to share this experience with others that could laugh about it as opposed to being stressed out alone.

Setting my alarm clock for 6AM was difficult after our late arrival from Bologna the night before but I had to be at the train station (1/2 hour walk) at 7 for my field learning in Orvieto. Orvieto is a town in Umbria that sits atop a flat rock cliff, allowing for beautiful views of the countryside and the vineyards that make it up. The town was small but rich in history.

We first toured St. Patrick’s well. It is famous for having a double helix stairwell so that the paths of the mules hauling water did not cross.

Next we toured the caves of Orvieto. We only saw a small portion of the caves as there are hundreds beneath the town. I was blown away as to how large these caves were,  it really could be run and was, as an underground town.

Orvieto was home to yet another beautiful church. The detail in the architecture amazes me, especially when I think about the tools & technology used when they were built.