When I was a kid, I had bouts of what Nora assures me was typical adolescent self-doubt, especially upon notching one or another success. If I scored a game-winning goal or basket, I wondered if perhaps it had all been orchestrated by my parents. Perhaps, I thought, a manila envelope of money changed hands in the parking lot so that the goalie could be instructed to step aside and leave an open net. If I got an A on an especially tough test at school, perhaps a similar seedy transaction took place in a side street near the school.
I was reminded of this at various points on our trip as Nora and I riffed about the possibility that some grand orchestrator – a Wizard-of-Oz-like travel puppeteer – is in fact overseeing our trip. In Nepal, we laughed at the possibility that this master orchestrator, growing concerned about Nora’s famously slow pace on downward slopes and hoping to shame her into going faster, sent out an order from mission control: “Alert! We need her to speed up! Send past the porter in flip-flops again!”
It came up again one night in Orvieto when, after family tennis, we sent the boys with a key back to the apartment for some iPad time, and Nora and I had a drink on the piazza next to the cathedral and then watched as dozens of miniature, antique Fiats of all different colors rolled in and lined up in the shadow of the cathedral for a little impromptu car show. This is the perfect embodiment of Orvieto: Just when you think you’ve seen all of its delights, another one surfaces. The town was so incredible – and so, well, delightful – that it must be the work of the master travel orchestrator sitting in a mission control center: “Alert! They’re tiring of home-cooked meals procured, in rudimentary Italian, from the local butcher, produce stand, and bakery around the corner from their apartment! Send in the Fiats!” Or: “Alert! The funicular ride up onto the medieval hilltop from the train station seems a little less cool than the first few times they rode it! Set up a tennis club in the shadow of the cathedral with a kind, English-speaking tennis pro, and give him an uber-Italian name, like Giuseppe!” Or: “Alert! They just discovered the last of the amazing gelato places! Cue the procession through the cobbled streets of hundreds of townspeople in elaborate period dress for the annual celebration of the cathedral’s relic!” Or: “Alert! The novelty of their family tennis matches is wearing off! Cue the ‘Republic Day’ concert with opera singers in front of the cathedral at sunset and limit the audience to roughly 100 townspeople but with just enough room for them!” Or: “Alert! They’re having dinner out on their apartment’s rear balcony as the sun sets. Send in the swallows to circle the church steeples!”
Here’s a photographic love poem, of sorts, to Orvieto, with some commentary on what you’re looking at:
Orvieto from a distance, on an afternoon walk up to a local vineyard for lunch.
First home-cooked meal in more than a month, on our rear balcony.
“Gelato guy” was the only shopkeeper in town who spoke reliable English. For the first week, we ate gelato three times a day so we could pump him for information. Once we knew our way around town, we pared back to twice a day. On our last night, we said goodbye.
The alley near our house with a broken-down Fiat, but no one cares because it’s not like any other car could fit, right?
The town duomo, visible around every corner.
Fiat convention!
Best gelato in town, in my view, but *not* Gelato guy’s!
The military part of the town procession for the Corpus Domini celebration.
But, amazingly, the soldiers (which also included archers and crossbowmen) were only about a quarter of it. Can’t leave out the burghers, clergy, lords, guilds, drummers, or trumpeters!
Eventually, the procession moved inside the cathedral. . .
“Flag Street,” on the way from the center of town to our apartment, decked out for the procession.
Delicious pizza in every piazza.
The lovely, generous, and oh-so-Italian-and-straight-out-of-central-casting tennis pro, Giuseppe. “Boy, you must hold racket like this!”
“Boy, come here. You must keep eye on ball!”
Saying goodbye.
My Father’s Day card in Orvieto looks suspiciously like the Mother’s Day card Nora got in Santorini. Kids had bridge on the brain.
Orvieto from the top of the town clock tower.
Last turn before our apartment.
Orvieto cityscape.
Town on a rock.
Door to our apartment.
Our six — yes, six! — garbage cans and the weekly schedule for putting a different one out each night. We ultimately became pretty “indifferentziato” about which trash went into which bin.
Arty shot inside the cathedral.
Gates of the city.
Last dinner in Orvieto at the incomparable Palomba. This is the pasta course. The mains are still to come.
Sad, final walk home down flagless (Corpus Domini now over) “Flag Street.”
Fanatical Sabbatical 