We had left Tuscany for the charming and ancient central hill-towns of Italy, in our case Orvieto, which had utterly captured our hearts in 2015.
It was luck that brought us there that first time. Having had too much fun in Tuscany, we were not going to get to the Tivoli Gardens in time. As we approached Orvieto, I recalled reading about it, and I remembered its wine. That was a good enough excuse to make the turn into an unexpected wonderland. We changed our later plans to return en route to Genoa instead of taking the coastal route, so this was our third visit to Orvieto.
After that extraordinary dinner at Tar-Tufo in Siena, we arrived pretty late in Orvieto. We wound our way up the hill until we were near the grand piazza near the imposing Duomo. That's where we were stopped by two carabinieri (like State Police, but friendlier and more heavily armed) at the dreaded ZTL.
The ZTL is the limited traffic zone found in many, many crowded Italian city centers. A red circle on a white sign indicates the edge of the ZTL, and underneath it are often numerous signs that indicate the times of effect, etc. Violating a ZTL is expensive - a year after returning from Italy in 2015, I got a ticket from Pisa for about $100US, and if you don't pay it, then you can never rent a car in Italy again.
The photo to the right is not mine; I got it from the internet. You can see there's a lot of information there. In addition to the ZTL, it's only for certain hours, except on certain days, with exception for three types of drivers. It's monitored by camera when you exit. It is really hard to read everything you need to know on these things when there's a possibly legitimate driver behind you eager to get one with his business.
So now we're in a fix. There's a ZTL between us and our hotel. But it's a legitimate fix, so maybe the cop can help.
He was, or more probably acted like, an affable chap, and after discovering that his uncles live in the same Neapolitan town as my ancestors (Pomigliano d'Arco, I was thankful to know how to pronounce it!) he accepted that I wasn't there to blow up the Duomo and said "Follow me". His English was very good.
He led us halfway down the hill, and then took an invisible turn and led us back up the other side of the hill, then through a winding maze to a small piazza where he told me to park in a loading zone and call our host from the Torre Polidori B&B (who knew we'd be late, but failed to tell me about the ZTL).
We got into the B&B, and immediately arose our next adventure. I was very careful to make sure that every hotel and B&B that we got while we had the rental car had some sort of parking arrangement. The B&B Torre Polidori had such an arrangement, but it had been developed by Rube Goldberg.
The parking space is in a big garage halfway down the hillside, connected by a road and an elevator. You drive down the road and park the car, and then take the elevator up to an isolated box in a charming neighborhood, late at night. Smart folk delivered all of their bags first... Our host reluctantly offered to come with me, or I never would have found it.
Now all this is not very foodie related, and it's not part of delightful afternoon drives in the country, but it is important to know if you want to explore without the confinements and conveniences of a package tour. There's a ton of good information on the internet about driving and parking in Italy, and you can be pretty well familiar with it with an evening of research while the snow is falling long before you go.
Orvieto is mightily defensible on its imposing butte, but not so suppliable with good food. Pigeon is important in historical menus here, and is sometimes found on the menu here. Of course Lorna was never going to allow that!
After much patient (and some impatient) deliberation, we had a brilliant dinner at Il Cocco. Actually we had several brilliant meals and breaks in Orvieto - it's very easy to have a good time here! With regard to shopping, I bought a beautiful olive wood cutting board, and Lorna has some colorful pottery from Orvieto.
But the best thing about Orvieto is its vistas and magic spaces. Let me get lunch and other random dining out of the way before, belly-full and thoroughly wine-ated, we are open to magic that only happens in certain spaces where the ley-lines cross.
For lunch, we had a cute and insanely flavorful tomato budin (a sort of pudding made from fresh summer-ripe tomatoes), the best eggplant parmigiana ever, and a Rapunzel salad that was a revelation.
Naturally we had to return for dinner at Il Cocco, and it was excellent: tortelloni, ravioli with butter and sage, chicken with fresh-shaved local truffle, apple cake, Zuppa Inglese, and black and white gelato truffles.
About the ravioli: this was a vegetarian choice for Melissa, but I knew the flavor combination would be classic and wonderful, because it is also used in the delicious Pork Chops with Butter and Sage. I love that simple recipe!
About the Zuppa Inglese (English soup): this is a classic 19th century dessert that has fascinated me for ages, especially since it was the most epic of my early culinary failures with Richmond and Annette. The key is a sort of custardy trifle made as red as the British flag by the addition of Alkermes, a cochineal-colored liqueur unavailable in this country due to the beetle connection.
About the Rapunzel salad: The children's story includes a reference to Rapunzel's mother craving rampion, a leafy green that was best grown in a place that her husband should not have been, leading to the story. Well it seems that rampion or rapunzel is all the rage in Italy today, as we had numerous salads of it from Orvieto to Sicily.
The San Andrea Bar was a great base of operations for me while the ladies were shopping and exploring. They have good coffee, and an available power outlet to recharge the phone. It has all the ambience of the NYC Port Authority, but I was there to work, not to be charmed. The location was great, too, near our room but also with easy access to shopping and strolling.
Because Orvieto is atop a great steep-sided hill, you naturally get great vistas from all sides. Just going for a walk is likely to bring you to the edge of the plateau before long, and the view is a fine reward. My favorite is south of the Duomo, where you look down upon some ancient abbey or castle. I never bothered to learn what exctly it is, because I don't need to know; standing there looking down upon that old structure is not unlike standing before the Eiffel Tower, where you have to pinch yourself and say "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore."
But even better than the vistas are the secluded gardens and alleys, odd corners and inexplicably large open spaces.
There's a steep downsloping road just beyond the Torre Polidori, with residential areas on either side. By chance, Lorna and Melissa explored the southern side and I the northern side. Later, we got together and showed each other our discoveries. It was a very fun afternoon!
Orvieto is more than just an excellent way to pass a summer afternoon; it's a real city and market center. During the day, I discovered that the right lens of my glasses was badly scratched. Within minutes I found an optometrist who was able to replace the lens in an hour for 25 euros! And across the street was a shop with fresh truffles and local wine. Do I wish I lived in Orvieto? Maybe not forever, but an AirBnB apartment for a month does open up some exciting possibilities. There are worse places to be.
I don't understand the weird mix of private and public space, in Orvieto and everywhere in Italy. Sometimes you see a public piazza of incredible dimensions, that in the USA would have been carved into developed properties long ago. Then you see an obviously cherished space that has been protected from development adjacent to a jumble of over-developed properties stacked one atop the other and subdivided into "hotels" of three rooms each randomly distributed among the floors of a seven story building.
The next day we were bound for Pompeii and Sorrento, but we had time for a leisurely exploration of Tuscany and Umbria first, of which we took full advantage.