10. Getting Down

Wednesday, June 13
Late Morning

I managed a very pleasant dinner last night in a fancy trattoria so far off the beaten path that I was the only person in the ristorante for the entirety of my meal. The owner/waiter hovered over me in the nicest way and made sure my every need was served. It was fine, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. After dinner, I took a walk through Orvieto then headed back to my room for a reasonably early crash.

For now, the laundry battle has been engaged. I'm currently sitting here in a small (very small) and crowded lavanderia in Orvieto Scalo. Getting here was a piece of cake - two buses with an immediate connection followed an equally immediate connection to a cab. The cab was the one problem in that, like most small town cabs in Italy, they enforce a high minimum. In this case, it's a minimum 10 Euro charge to anything within 5km. If the lavanderia had been farther away, it would have been a much cheaper cab ride.

This lavanderia has four washers and two dryers, a not equitable situation guaranteed to cause a logjam. When I got here an older couple was waiting for their load to complete drying. Thank God they were here since the instructions to use these particularly complicated machines were not translated in a way I could deal with. The two of them helped to get me through the process in spite of our lack of a common language.

I sat back and watched the season finale of "Mad Men" and waited for the wash to finish. Suddenly, the tiny shop was filled with women, all battling for washers and dryers. I managed to get mine into the dryer amid the jealous stares of old ladies then went to put money in the machine. The smallest I had on me was a 20 Euro note so I put it into the dispenser and waited for the change. It didn't come. I realized too late that the machine gives credit, not change. I went next door to the office where the proprietress, a middle aged woman with a decent command of English, came over, opened the money trap, got me my change then made sure my machine was going.

A few minutes later, a young American woman came in with her laundry. She was as confused as I had been earlier. I managed to help her out, paying back the earlier "pay forward." We eventually fell into a conversation. She is visiting Orvieto with her husband, an air force pilot stationed at Rammstein AFB in Germany, and her mother. Both were tagging along as well as her two daughters, aged 2 and 4. At least for a few minutes, the Americans got to dominate the lavanderia.

I'm now waiting for the dryer to finish its job and for the remaining little old ladies to stop glaring at me. Of course the next task is to get back. This part is not going to be so easy.



Late Afternoon

I was wrong. Getting back proved to be just as easy, even if a little silly. I asked the proprietress for the best way back to the train station. Not wanting to steer me wrong, she made me come to the window so that she could point the way.

"No more five minutes," she said. "Cinque."

Her English slipped irreversibly into Italian at this point, but it seemed clear to me.

As soon as I got down to the street I spotted the bus stop. There was another middle aged Italian woman with long dyed black hair not quite covering the chip on her shoulder. She was reading the schedule posted on the stop and muttering a blue streak to herself. After a minute she realized that I was there so started complaining to me - loudly and very fast.

"No parla Italiano," I said and reached out my hand as if to say stop. For some reason, she thought I was reaching for her and jumped back. When she realized that I wasn't on the attack she went back to her muttering.

The bus came after about ten minutes. I sat down for the five minute ride to the station.

It didn't take that long.

We turned the corner that was maybe fifty feet from the bus stop, went another hundred yards and turned into the train station. Apparently what the proprietress meant was that it would take no more than five minutes to walk. I didn't get too upset about the 10 Euro cab ride since I had no way of knowing this before getting in the taxi.

Just like the ride down, every connection was waiting for me as I got to the stop. All told, the laundry adventure lasted less than two hours. There may be a record in that. At least an Italian record.

I spent a few minutes online setting up my hotel in Rome for the first two days then headed out for a light lunch and a walk. To accomplish the former, I stopped at the Cafe Clan Destino (yes, that's what it's called) and got a fresh fruit salad and an ice tea, both of which taste infinitely better here than back in the states.

The latter needed some direction so I went over the map for places I hadn't yet been. One, the Chiesa di San Domenico, was fairly close so it looked like a good prospect. I followed the Corso Cavour to Via di Cavalotti, a narrow side street that leads to the Piazza XXIX Marzo. No, I have no idea what significance the date March 29th holds. In any event, it isn't much of a piazza, just a little alcove on an otherwise quiet street.

Next to this, though, is the Chiesa which more than holds its own. A 13th Century church, it houses the ashes of Cardinal deBray and an even more interesting relic: a crucifix said to have spoken directly to St. Thomas Acquinus. I can't say that I know exactly how this worked since the crucifix said nothing to me. It is, though, a rather extraordinary object. Shaped more like a tree than a traditional cross, it's branches/wings convey the idea of Christ's ascension as well as His death.

The Chiesa itself is like most Medieval churches. Extremely tall and topped by a wood-beamed ceiling, there is very little architectural ornamentation. This is provided by the accouterments of the statues, altars and standalone confessionals. Although the center of the church is aimed toward the altar, the sides break into impressive ancillary chapels for more reflective worship.

I really loved this church, but this was not an opinion shared by the only two other tourists who showed up while I was there. They walked into the back of the church and looked for about five seconds. The man said to his wife, "This isn't much," and the two of them walked out.

After leaving the Chiesa, I headed back toward the Piazza dell' Duomo. After I had been sitting there a few minutes, around 20 cyclists came into the Piazza and took up residence in one of the few shaded areas. All wore identical blue and white riding jerseys and shorts. A few minutes later, another flock of cyclists, these wearing identical yellow, green and white, descended on the piazza. Any hope this would turn into a Sharks versus Jets knife fight were quickly dashed. Like all cyclists, they speak the same language and were quickly quaffing beers (good for carbs, you know) and bragging how each had the tougher climb to get to the town. Eventually, they all gathered together for a group shot in front of the Duomo then went off their respective ways.

So did I. I headed back to my room for a hoped-for Skype with Bridget. On the way, I stopped at a little shop to pick up something for her. Now, with any luck, we'll Skype soon then I'll make it back to the Piazza dell' Duomo for a 5:15 tour of the Orvieto underground.


Late Evening

After a quick Skype with Bridget I made my way to the rally point for the subterranean tour and purchased my ticket. I had to wait for around twenty minutes but sitting in the Piazza dell' Duomo is hardly something to complain about.

There were eight of us on the tour, not counting our guide, Ariston. He is a thin young German with brown hair down to his shoulders and piercing blue eyes. He walked us down the slope toward the edge of the mountain then a few hundred yards along the mountainside walkway to the entrance to the first of the two caves we would be visiting.

Dug over several hundred years into the clay that supports the city, the underground functioned as a world within a world. So far, they have uncovered over a thousand of these passages, enough so that no one can walk more than three meters above ground without having one of the caves 10 to 20 meters below their feet.

In the first cave, we went through the area where olives were pressed, wine was made, and wheat was milled into flour. Since the caves were man-made and dug from clay, the scratch marks left by the original tools are still quite visible. Also included was a well. Our perch was thirty feet down from the top of the well. It then went another sixty feet below us.

Ariston kept up a running commentary, freely admitting at times that he couldn't remember what he had just told us two seconds before, an admittedly common problem when you have to repeat the same things over and over each day.

The first cave was surprisingly spacious. The second one was not. Just before we entered, Ariston addressed the group.

"To get into second underground," he said, "we must go down 55 steps and are not so regular. Also, if any of you are of claustrophobia, you should please to be last."

The woman behind me gulped audibly.

The staircase down into the cave narrowed with each step, making it in effect a funnel. Once inside, I was struck by how much daylight there was. Windows had been carved into the wall of the mountain. The reason, though, had nothing to do with light. It had to do with the thousands of orderly rows of 6"x6" holes dug into the walls throughout this section.

The holes, it was explained, were dovecotes, small nests for pigeons. This wasn't because of ancient bird fanciers. The pigeons were harvested here for meat. The windows were so that the adults could fly out and retrieve food for the young. This area also contained kilns for pottery and several cisterns.

Throughout both caves, darker areas are illuminated by single high-beam lamps. The result is to expose the different colors of clay that are striated throughout. It also made for a strange quality, as though the caves were somehow generating their own light source.

By the time we got to the far end of the second cave, I think it is fairly safe to say that everyone was glad to note that we could exit straight to the exterior walkway rather than brave again that claustrophobic staircase and the many low entrances.

At end of the journey we found ourselves on one of the overlooks so a number of us hung around to enjoy the view. Afterward, I went off in search of dinner.

I checked a few places, but many didn't open until 7:00. Since that was a half hour away and I was hungry, I decided to try out a place that I knew was open all day and evening. After a very nice asparagus-laced lasagna, I'm now officially ready to crash.