No, this is not Orvietto! This is Orta, another hilltop village that we drove by on our journey to Orvietto. It is just a better picture than what I had of Orvietto...
Here Barb is taking a look over the wall at the valley below Orvietto.
As you can see, it is rather a long way down!
Here is a stitched image of the valley from the walls of Orvietto. Click on the image for a much larger view!
Audrey often finds herself attracted to fountains (and water features generally!). Here she is enjoying a fountain in the gardens above the wall at Orvietto.
One of the most important sites at Orvietto is the basilica. Here I have stiched together a number of photographs to present the whole front of the church. Click the image for a larger view, and enjoy some of the paintings on the front of the church...
The basilica at Orvietto is famous for featuring two colors of stone in its construction. Apparently this was considered quite stylish at one time, and indicated the wealth of the community - that could actually afford to bring in two types of stone to construct such a building!
Orvietto also featured a large community of artists working in ceramics. There were several pieces that we would have liked, but by this point we were seriously short of suitcase space to bring things home.
As we left Orvietto, and continued to drive to Florence, we passed many Tuscan farm sites such as this one. Many appeared to be abandoned - which was a bit of a surprise - but apparently young families prefer to live in the urban centers and are walking away from the farms. Many of these farms may be quite marginal, economically.
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