Orvieto!

On Saturday I went to Orvieto with two of my roommates.  We took a bus to the train station, and then we took the train to Orvieto.  It only took about an hour and a half to get there by train, and we felt pretty accomplished getting there all by ourselves!  The first thing we see pulling up to Orvieto is this huge hill with some sort of ruinous castle looking thing on the top.  

We got off the train, whipped out our cameras in true tourist fashion and started snapping pictures the second our feet hit Orvieto soil.  We made our way out of the train station and decided that whatever was at the top of that mountainous hill was probably what was worth seeing.  So we started the long, tiring journey.  It took us about forty-five minutes to climb the hill, it was pretty steep. It was quite reminiscent of Assisi.  

So we made it to the top of the hill and guess what we found!  We saw a tram running straight up this ridiculous hill directly into the castle thing.  We were in disbelief for a second, but quickly decided that by trekking up the hill we were much more appreciative of the sites.  After entering the walls of the castle we discovered that there was an entire city inside!  We chose a direction and just started walking.  There were so many little shops, a lot of them were ceramics and things like that.  Finally we walked around the corner and saw the coolest looking church ever.  I will put a link up soon so you can be amazed too.  We went inside and listened to the little machine that tells the history of the Duomo.  The inside was really nice so we stayed awhile and then set off to find some food.  We decided on a little restaurant and had a nice lunch.  After that we just wandered around some more, looked in a lot of shops, and walked around a little garden thing we found.  

Finally it was getting late so we decided to walk back down the hill and check train departure times.  The walk down only took about ten or fifteen minutes.  It was a thousand times better than the hike up.  Once we got on the train home, I pretty much passed out and slept until we arrived back in Rome.  We caught a bus back to the Tiziano and that was the end of our day.

I have not done anything too amazing and exciting since then.  I am home this weekend because I have a midterm on Monday and a lot of work to do.  Several of us are staying in Rome, so we just hang out and see the sites.  That is all for now, but we are all going to Southern Italy on Tuesday.  We are staying until Saturday, so I will try and update everyone Sunday or sometime soon after.  Hope all is well!

Ciao for now! 

        Allie