The rain has returned and is expected to last through the rest of the week. Tina Bonacci ’94 organized a day trip to the Medieval city of Orvieto in the Umbrian hills. There were 12 of us, speaking all three “official” languages. Her knowledge of Rome and its transportation system is invaluable. After a week I still get confused by the Metro. Not only did Tina get us to Termini (Rome’s amazing train station) via Metro but facilitated our purchase of tickets (a daunting task when the kiosk machine uses only Italian…and prompts for a series of responses in Italian) and negotiated the crowds to get us to the correct train – which did not list Orvieto but its final destination – Florence.
Every visitor to Rome should experience Termini…it is an amazing place. It is as crowded as LAX or any major American airport. The interior looks as modern as any American airport and it bustles with as many people as one would ordinarily expect to find at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. The trains themselves are in very good condition and about as comfortable to sit in (or not) as American trains. The ride, however, was amazingly smooth (an experience I don’t typically associate with the few times I’ve been on an American train). The 90 minute trip zipped by and, before we knew it, we were in Orvieto.
Tina ushered us through the process of buying a ticket on the Funicular and the connecting bus which would get us to the top of the plateau on which sits the medieval portion of Orvieto. We were instantly transported back in time (I know, cliché but true!) to the thirteenth century. We took the tour of the city’s underground caves (there are over 1200 of them, that archaeologists know of) which were carved out of the volcanic ash that covered the plateau over 200,000 years ago. They were used for a variety of purposes from the raising of pigeons (don’t ask), water storage, olive oil production and defense against siege. One fabulous example of this last purpose occurred during the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Pope Clement VII fled Rome and took refuge at Orvieto (oh, those crazy Catholics!).
We arrived a little late for mass in the “Duomo” – the city’s Cathedral…but the entertainment value was phenomenal! In this enormous church, there were, maybe, 100 people (locals apparently sat in the half-dozen pews directly under the transept, while tourists were relegated to orange plastic chairs lined into about two dozen rows farther back in the nave. The priest’s homily lasted a good 20 minutes and contained a fair amount of haranguing of the few people who appeared to understand him. As he was speaking a VERY elderly woman went from one pew to the next with what appeared to be a collection basket (it looked more like a hat to me and I DON’T want to know where it ultimately ended up). You could not receive the parish bulletin until you coughed up some coins and she clearly expected them to add up to more than a Euro. It’s important to understand the visual here. In the US, an usher passes a basket or a container on the end of a long arm, so as not to disturb the worshippers in the pew. This woman walked through each pew and expected you to get out of her way as she climbed over you. She was a little slow so that, by the time the consecration of bread and wine occurred, she was just getting to our pew. It was obvious that we were expected to remain standing until she had passed through.
Mass over, Tina arranged for us to have lunch at a wonderful restaurant near the edge of the plateau. I had the best veal I’ve had in a long time. We also were treated to the local wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the plateau – une vera bont`a! The trip back was as pleasant as the earlier one and more than one head was nodding off soon after we left the train station.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
This is the place to be if your city is being sacked...
The rain has returned and is expected to last through the rest of the week. Tina Bonacci ’94 organized a day trip to the Medieval city of Orvieto in the Umbrian hills. There were 12 of us, speaking all three “official” languages. Her knowledge of Rome and its transportation system is invaluable. After a week I still get confused by the Metro. Not only did Tina get us to Termini (Rome’s amazing train station) via Metro but facilitated our purchase of tickets (a daunting task when the kiosk machine uses only Italian…and prompts for a series of responses in Italian) and negotiated the crowds to get us to the correct train – which did not list Orvieto but its final destination – Florence.
Every visitor to Rome should experience Termini…it is an amazing place. It is as crowded as LAX or any major American airport. The interior looks as modern as any American airport and it bustles with as many people as one would ordinarily expect to find at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. The trains themselves are in very good condition and about as comfortable to sit in (or not) as American trains. The ride, however, was amazingly smooth (an experience I don’t typically associate with the few times I’ve been on an American train). The 90 minute trip zipped by and, before we knew it, we were in Orvieto.
Tina ushered us through the process of buying a ticket on the Funicular and the connecting bus which would get us to the top of the plateau on which sits the medieval portion of Orvieto. We were instantly transported back in time (I know, cliché but true!) to the thirteenth century. We took the tour of the city’s underground caves (there are over 1200 of them, that archaeologists know of) which were carved out of the volcanic ash that covered the plateau over 200,000 years ago. They were used for a variety of purposes from the raising of pigeons (don’t ask), water storage, olive oil production and defense against siege. One fabulous example of this last purpose occurred during the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Pope Clement VII fled Rome and took refuge at Orvieto (oh, those crazy Catholics!).
We arrived a little late for mass in the “Duomo” – the city’s Cathedral…but the entertainment value was phenomenal! In this enormous church, there were, maybe, 100 people (locals apparently sat in the half-dozen pews directly under the transept, while tourists were relegated to orange plastic chairs lined into about two dozen rows farther back in the nave. The priest’s homily lasted a good 20 minutes and contained a fair amount of haranguing of the few people who appeared to understand him. As he was speaking a VERY elderly woman went from one pew to the next with what appeared to be a collection basket (it looked more like a hat to me and I DON’T want to know where it ultimately ended up). You could not receive the parish bulletin until you coughed up some coins and she clearly expected them to add up to more than a Euro. It’s important to understand the visual here. In the US, an usher passes a basket or a container on the end of a long arm, so as not to disturb the worshippers in the pew. This woman walked through each pew and expected you to get out of her way as she climbed over you. She was a little slow so that, by the time the consecration of bread and wine occurred, she was just getting to our pew. It was obvious that we were expected to remain standing until she had passed through.
Mass over, Tina arranged for us to have lunch at a wonderful restaurant near the edge of the plateau. I had the best veal I’ve had in a long time. We also were treated to the local wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the plateau – une vera bont`a! The trip back was as pleasant as the earlier one and more than one head was nodding off soon after we left the train station.
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