Sylvia's Scenario

On Day 14 of our 17 Days of Best of Italy Tour, we had the option of leaving our wonderful lodging arrangements at  Altarocca Wine Resort   for a half day of touring Orvieto, the most grand hill town of all of Umbria, with our guide, Anna.   We opted to go with Anna for more sightseeing (s ince I didn't having any spa appointments at the resort).  And we're glad we did because the views were well worth it. The town sits majestically on its throne a thousand feet above the valley floor and thankfully there were escalators to take us up and an elevator to take us down. The main attraction in the town is the Duomo  which is known as Italy's liveliest, most colorful, Gothic facade.  The four broad marble pillars in the front are carved with biblical scenes that tell the history of the world.  Each pillar is topped by a bronze symbol of one of the Evangelists:  angel (Matthew), lion (Mark), eagle (John), and ox (...

The first hill town in Umbria that we visited was Assisi with a population of 25,000, the hometown of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and ecology.  The town of Assisi has a modern part that sits in the flat valley where the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels is located and then up in the hills is the old part of town where the famous Basicia of St. Francis is located, known as one of the most artistic and religious highlights of Europe. Only 3,500 people live in this part of Assisi.   We started our visit in Assisi with the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels.   This is where St. Francis lived, worked and died.   This massive church was built in the 16th century around a humble, tiny chapel called the Porziuncola ("small portion") Chapel, located inside the church directly under the dome. St. Francis was given a little land with this fixer-upper chapel by some local monks and this is where he lived after he founded t...