More Cheese than a Dad Joke

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Yesterday we stumbled upon the delicious gelato de neri, last week we stumbled upon the quirky Gubbio and today we stumbled upon Orvieto cathedral. We had been planning to go to Orvieto since before we left Australia because we wanted to visit the Itlian home of a friend of Toby's. We hadn't planned on spending any time in the town but John, who we were visiting, suggested that we go to the cathedral before going to is place for lunch.

We hadn't realised that this week is THE holiday week for Italians. The main reason for it being this week is that August 15 is the feast of the assumption. We also hadn't realised that the feast of the assumption was today. So when we got to the cathedral and the doors were literally shut in our faces, we couldn't understand why. In fact the cathedral was only shut to visitors as they were having mass and was reopened later in the afternoon.

The town of Orvieto is yet another pretty medieval hill town in Umbria. But the cathedral is like no other and definitely worth a trip to see. A local priest noticed the communion host bleeding and to celebrate the miracle the Pope ordered a cathedral to be built. The outside of the cathedral is amazing. Pope John Paul ii said that any cathedral in heaven would have the exterior of Orvieto cathedral. Inside is just as amazing with artwork by Fra Angelica and Luca Signorelli. We had to wait until after we had visited John to get inside, but it was worth the trip back.

John and Anna live half the year in Sydney and half in Umbria. The house is pretty unassuming, although beautiful but the views are magnificent. They have their own olive grove and vineyard, which keeps them in oil and wine. They have even had black truffles from the property. The swimming pool is amazing. It is an infinity pool with views across fields to Orvieto on the hill. It was a pleasure to swim in and Harriet and Fiona were almost sad that it was lunch time and they had to get out.

We ate and chatted in the garden. John had prepared a simple Italian meal which certainly did not mean bland or unsatisfying. The tomatoes and basil were home grown and the pasta fresh. We drank wine from the vineyard and covered our pasta in the oil from the olive grove. What a life! Lunch even contained gelato and a recommendation of where to get more in the town if we wanted it. Luckily we went inside to get the gelato because the sprinkler system came on soaking the table. It missed us by seconds.

After we had gone back to town and visited the cathedral we booked to see the underground caves. We had to wait so we got a drink in the piazza and chilled watching the world go by. The caves are all man made to provide more space for the people of the town from Etruscan times through to medieval. We saw caves where olive oil was pressed as it was too cold up above but a constant temperature below, caves where pigeons were farmed for dinner - still a local delicacy, and caves where people sheltered during world war 2. Orvieto itself wasn't bombed to preserve the town but the towns below were targets. It was cool in the caves but still hot when we came out.

As we were driving home we heard an Italian song on the radio that has been getting quite a bit of airtime. It is called DJ something and the song has small bits of other songs from the 80's to today in it. Harriet has decided she likes the first song which is by Depeche Mode. She found the original and played it to us, along with a selection of other 80's music over dinner, which was a homemade 4 cheese pizza. Fiona thinks it had more cheese than Toby's jokes.

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