Orvieto, a fun city to visit in Italy

How do you get there? Once there what you do.

September 25: As per our tour itinerary, we are moving to Orvieto in Umbria

As I continued to have throat problems and mild fever, we decided to call a doctor to the hotel. Our tour director had found this doctor (Dott. Guerreiro Andrea) on Saturday and he promptly showed up at the hotel this Monday morning. He looked at me, tapped my chest and looked into my throat and prescribed me some antibiotics and cough medicine. He had a pleasant personality and could speak English quite fluently. Since it is more like a home visit, the visit charges were 100 euros. The pharmacy was close by and Zithromax was a common enough FDA approved antibiotic which means four more days sans vin.

We had our lunch at Lampada one more time as it had guaranteed vegetarian dishes. As usual I was not disappointed.

Orvieto is about 75 miles north of Rome. We left Rome around 2:30 PM and we arrived at one of the entrances of Orvieto. It has a couple of entrances from the highway and this is not the main entrance but where tourist buses park.

We carried out suitcases on the cobbled streets of Orvieto under shades of oak and chestnut trees. Orvieto is about 1000' above sea level and I recall the road to the hotel was steep as well part of the way.

We arrived at the Grand Hotel Italia situated almost in the center of this historic town. The hotel, as I recall, was comfortable. Room assigned to us was on the 3rd floor. There was a lift as well, but we took the stairs. The hotel staff were friendly. I especially liked the coffee and breakfast room at the entrance where one could have different brews and of course the famous wines of Umbria.

The rooms were spacious, and our window commanded the view of roof tops and the narrow streets down below.

Today was supposed to be an exciting day and we were going to experience the making of pasta at one of the local restaurants called Zeppelin. It appears that this restaurant excels in this activity.

Here are some photos of the day and later a few videos.

Lampada Buffet

Orvieto Municipal Building

The Dodecagonal Bell Tower and Church of St. Andrea and Bartholomew

Group entering Zeppelin

Getting seated and wine is coming in..

Singing after wine and pasta ...

Pasta making with the chef

More photos here:

From Rome to Orvieto:

https://youtu.be/jdldKMHdd9M

Pasta 1 Preparation _Demo at Zeppelin, Orvieto, Italy

Pasta 2 KneadingRolling

Pasta 3 PreppingCutting 

Pasta 4 Fettuccine Cutting demo

Pasta 5 Singing after wine and pasta

Pompeii: I knew it was a terrible tragedy, but not this terrible...

September 21: We will be visiting Pompeii excavations for the better part of the morning; have lunch at Sorrento and get a distant view of Positano on the way back. 

Maiori to Pompeii Ruins

Pompeii was our first phase of the visit on September 21, 2017 and we started around 8:30 from our hotel in Maiori. I was quite excited after listening to a briefing on the eruption of Vesuvius that happened in the past with a video and pictures by our accompanying experts, Dr. Andrew Becker and Dr. Trudy Becker.  However, words fail to describe the extent of devastation that followed the eruption. The populous city was completely buried in earth and rocks within a matter of 2 days after inhabitants, human and animal, were burnt to death.

Pompeii ruins (Scavi de Pompeii)

Vesuvius eruption : Source : https://www.ancient.eu/pompeii/

Pompeii is about a little over 45 miles from Maiori and takes about an hour. We traced our route part of the way back to when we arrived from Naples. Then we followed a highway and our bus was parked at the entrance ' Piazza Esedra'. Facing the gate, we could see the Naked Man statue on the hill on the left.

   

We were met by our local guide, Signor Niccolo, a slightly-built energetic guide who mixed lot of information interspersed with jokes. He did an excellent job and left a lasting impression.

We followed him through the passages; the walk along the ruins; visiting some landmark locations such as the House of Menandro with the garden in the courtyard and decorative frescoes; the bakery with milling devices made of lava and the baking oven; the tiled Stabian public baths; the forum and the granary where the various body casts of folks and animals are stored.

Entering the ruins  

The street towards house of Menandro

Inside the house of Menandro 

Courtyard garden: House of Menandro

(Source: Ray Austin)

Main street with gaps for carriage wheels

  

The bakery showing the mills used for grinding

(Panificio di Popidio Prisco)

House with the lucky (naughty) symbol in its façade (Source: Al Kehew)

The Stabian bath (Source: Al Kehew)

Forum with the granary on the left and Vesuvius in the back.

Roman dog (cast) from the ruins    

We only saw a small portion of the ruins. Besides what we saw there are many objects unearthed and now on display in museums in Naples; the British Museum and other places.

Three Graces in Pompeii

Romans traded with Arabia, India (pepper and spices) and China. According to Pliny the trade was so large that Rome had a deficit and the Indians demanded gold.  An Indian Ivory statuette of what is wrongly attributed to the Indian Goddess, Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) was found in Pompeii. The statuette is perhaps that of an Yakshi (a demi-goddess) from the Gandhara period.

 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii_Lakshmi

Ivory statuette of Indian origin found in the ruins

I very strongly recommend this site, (Google has done a great job) if you want to literally re-visit Pompeii, or recollect what you saw when you visited:

https://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/pompeii/principal-streets/street-view

For video specific to our visit, view it on You Tube.

 https://youtu.be/-e2X6kGZI78

We are moving on to Sorrento...

HAPPY NEW YEAR  2018