Ciao, Antonio

We left the Antonio, the Parsifal, Ravello, and the Amalfi Coast today and began our trek back north. The drive was easy; mostly motorway the whole way. Originally, I had wanted to focus more on country roads and driving through the smaller towns, and that works for the most part. But when you're staring 400km in the face, and you want to get some sightseeing in at your destination, you just can't afford to take 8 hours on the "scenic" route.

We had lunch somewhere near Rome at another Autogrill. Our focaccia sandwiches were good, and so was Michele's grilled vegetable plate; with eggplant, zucchini, and yellow bell peppers.

We got to Orvieto around 2:30 or so, and after fumbling around the old town trying to find the piazza on which our B&B was located, we got all checked in to the "B&B Le Soffitta e le Torre." The proprietress, Maria, was very welcoming. The B&B is on the top floor of a building overlooking the Piazza del Popolo. The rooms seemed to be very recently renovated and showed the beams in the ceiling. I figure this building was built at least 3 centuries ago.

Now, Orvieto doesn't have that much going for it, but it does have a first rate cathedral with some absolutely amazing sculptures and frescoes inside. One of the side chapels has a series of frescoes by Luca Signorelli that just take your breath away.

Orvieto also is somewhat famous for all the caves that were dug into the soft "Tufa" stone under the city. The city offers a tour of 2 of them and we were all three very pleasantly surprised. There are over 1200 known caves under the city and if your house or building has a cave entrance, the cave is yours.

We had dinner in a small trattoria. I had papardelle with wild boar ragu again (yummy, again).

We retired fairly early. Driving up to Florence tomorrow via the Val d'Orcia and the Chianti Road. We are on a bit of a time crunch because Alessandro, who runs our B&B in Florence, leaves at 2:30 to go manage another property.