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Orvieto

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This past Saturday the 18th we went to Orvieto for the day, our last train trip outside of Rome. It's very close, only an hour and a quarter by train. The town was founded in the middle ages, and is located on top of a steep hill in the countryside of Umbria.


The duomo is really interesting, with striped stone walls




Other civic buildings in Orvieto


One of the best parts of Orvieto is the view from the city onto the surrounding countryside. All around Orvieto are these hills and farmlands.


We walked down into the Well of St. Patrick, a deep well with a heliocoidal ramp built by Antonio da Sangallo in the Renaissance to provide a secure water supply for the town. The second picture above is the view from the bottom, looking up.


At right you can see the steep fortified side of the hill on which the town is built.

We walked around for a few hours, ate lunch, and then went back to Rome - a nice break from the city! Going on day trips has been really easy thanks to our train passes; the passes have probably been the best purchase we made for the semester!

This week (April 20-25) are final exams. I'm planning to go visit more sites in Rome and hopefully to go Tivoli on Saturday, and then Sunday the 26th I return home to Sarasota. I'll post a couple more posts with the pictures from this week, but after that will be the end! I hope you have enjoyed my blog this semester; stay tuned for the final posts!

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