Cathederals, Underground Caverns, and Amazing Veiws: January 13 in Orvieto - Austin K

 

Today was the second day for the group in Orvieto, and it was all about the hidden underground rooms that can be found all over the hilltop. Almost all of the places we visited were created by the Etruscan civilization, which was the dominant group of people in Orvieto until the Roman conquest in 264 BCE. I will not go into heavy detail about our visits as my classmates who covered this day (Eden and Lilyanna) have done an excellent job covering what we saw today, and I invite everyone to read their posts as well.

The first thing I must mention about the day’s adventure is the fantastic view from the top of the hill. The first picture I attach here is of the view from directly behind our lodging for the day, and it is where we started on the adventure for today.


From here, we traveled down to a nearby archeological site. Unfortunately, I did not take any good pictures of this site, so I cannot show what was there. After spending over an hour underground, we moved on to our next tour, and on the way, we walked by the Duomo di Orvieto, or in English, the Orvieto Cathedral.

 

While not an official part of the day, we spent a few minutes standing by the area while waiting for our tour. Construction of the Cathedral started in 1290 and finished in 1591. However, due to it not being the primary focus of the day, I do not have any more facts about the Cathedral.

Our next stop for the day was the official Orvieto Underground. The class saw an old olive production room, an Etruscan well-turned garbage chute (the room which this was a part of is pictured here), and artificial pigeon nests for raising the birds for meat. This tour concluded in a few hours, and after that, our day was over, and we could do whatever we wished for the rest of the day.

The readings for the day were quite interesting, as they dealt with sexuality and masculinity in both Roman and Renaissance contexts. In our class discussion, we focused on ideas of warfare and its contribution to Roman ideals of being a man, as well as a very long discussion on the ability to use modern-day words and understanding to classify historical views of homosexuality. This was an excellent discussion, and it would be impossible to distill everything that was said into this short paragraph. We did not come to a consensus either. It was a fantastic discussion, and I look forward to seeing if any of the rest of our classes that we have on the schedule will relate back to the class today and build upon this discussion.

 

Overall, this was a fantastic day, and to get the opportunity to explore the ancient underground remnants of a city which has outgrown the need for such an extensive underground level was fascinating and an experience I will not forget for a long time. I look forward to the next adventures we are set to have as we continue our travels throughout Italy!

 - Austin Karr

 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Digital Scrapbook of My Time in Italy

Image
It's astonishing to think that our incredible adventure through Italy is over! We started in Venice and worked our way south through Orvieto, Fontecchio, the Amalfi Coast, Rome, and many places in between. Here, I will share some of my favorite pictures and memories from each location. Venice We started out in Venice where we took tours of various sites such as the locations of historical factories and the Venice arsenal. While in Venice we had a free day, and I went to the islands called Murano and Burano. Murano is known for its beautiful glass and also has a really nice glass museum.  the island of Burano ~ known for its colorful buildings a canal in Venice a sunset we saw while on the taxi boat on the way back from Burano a cat crossing a bridge in Burano   a gondola! Venice is full of tiny walkways and beautiful bridges and canals the group I went with to Burano Orvieto After Venice, we continued on to Orvieto. Orvieto is a small town perched high on a hill. This location...
Read more

Environmental Hazards in Italy

Image
      While in Italy, we discussed and visited a few locations that have had notable environmental hazards. The most prominent one, and one which most people who haven't ever even been to Italy, is the eruption at Pompeii. We took a trip to Pompeii and got a tour of the site and it was shocking to me how huge the site was. It seemed like it stretched on and on and would take hours and hours to explore the whole thing. It was so interesting seeing everything that was preserved at this site. So many things were excavated and are still being excavated to this day. It was very interesting in the article about the Pompeiian vineyards reading how they were able to make casts in the holes left by decayed organic material in order to learn about not just the people, but also the plants and animals in this area. For instance, they were able to make casts of the roots of trees to identify them and could even see the mathematical precision the romans used, planting vines exactly fou...
Read more

Looking Back on Italy- Emma Penick

Image
      After spending three weeks in Italy, I learned so much about the History and Present day culture. In terms of what I was expecting, there were some things that certainly were how I thought they'd be. For instance, the views. The beauty of Italy was just as incredible if not even more so than I was expecting, which given that that's what I was most excited for, was definitely a wonderful thing to experience! In my first post I also talked about the food, and while there were many tomato centric dishes, as expected, there were also a plethora of dishes I had never heard of that were absolutely amazing! My favorites of these were the pistachio pasta and the truffle pasta.      One thing that I was not expecting how BIG the portion sizes would be!  Though, by the end I did get used to having bread, then pasta, then a main course, then a dessert, somehow! Also the fact that there would be bread available at basically every meal, I never thought ...
Read more