Orvieto

I have an American friend, Steve Brenner, who is raising his beautiful family in Orvieto, Italy, for the quality of life and the family values. (He also runs a great hotel/hostel in Rome called The Beehive and curates private apartments at Cross-Pollinate.) Occasionally, Steve produces wonderful little videos celebrating that essence of small-town Italy.

In this fun little clip about the local pasta shop, just watch the fingers stuffing the tortelloni. Feel the passion, the love, the community…people living their lives intentionally, celebrating quality, struggling with how to feed the kids in a healthy way, and embracing that good old “small is beautiful” ethic.

 Steve writes: “I’m a big fan of making my own bread and pasta and think it’s worthwhile for everyone to learn — it’s easy, cheap, and for most people, what you can make at home is much better than anything you can buy from a store. However, it’s another story when you live next to a fresh pasta shop like La Bottega del Tortellino. For years we’ve enjoyed their ricotta and spinach ravioli at least once a week. We’ll get a few portions of tortellini to serve in broth, or the potato and taleggio cheese ravioli, which we’ll toss with butter and sage. Yes, this is what we get to eat when we’re too lazy to cook — fresh pasta, usually made that day. This video is a hometown story about changing careers, becoming professional pasta makers, competing with big business, a changing food culture in Italy, and of course, pasta!”

You can see more of Steve’s work on the Cross-Pollinate blog — and be sure to also check out his video about my evil twin, Nick Steves.

Orvieto Cathedral’s Chapel of San Brizio is one of the most jaw-dropping pieces of art you’ll see in Italy. Painted by Luca Signorelli (who inspired Michelangelo), it’s a twisted and vivid look at the psyche of the late 1400s. It’s so fun to be updating my guidebook to Italy with a good local guide (David Tordi helped me in Orvieto). I slipped in a busy day of research in Orvieto after saying good-bye to our film crew in Assisi and before reporting for guidebook duty in Florence. And I’m glad I did. I love Orvieto.

This is Day 21 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

While it gets plenty of tourists, Orvieto (two hours north of Rome) is a town whose historic and artistic importance is underappreciated. Orvieto was a thriving Etruscan city centuries before Christ. The Romans had it under siege for two years before defeating it. Since Romans didn’t need to bother with hill-town defenses, the city lay in ruins for 700 years until Rome fell. Due to the chaos that came with the power vacuum left by the fall of Rome (rampaging barbarians chasing the meek out of the valleys), hill towns were once again in vogue. So medieval Orvieto was born on the ruins of the Etruscan city that once capped its hilltop. Today, the entire bluff is honeycombed with Etruscan caves and exploring them is fascinating. Here’s a quick look at a very old and very deep well — one of many such 2,500-year-old sights in Orvieto.

This is Day 20 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

A fun stop in Orvieto, just two blocks from the cathedral, is Giuseppe Rosella’s Il Mago di Oz (Wizard of Oz) shop. Like eccentric artisans all over Europe, he has a one-track mind and enjoys the challenge of getting visitors into it. With a little touch and a wave of the hand, anyone can turn on and off his trippy little wonderland. Readers of my guidebooks are sure to connect with such characters wherever they travel. Why? Because I like them.

This is Day 19 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Romania, and beyond. Find more at blog.ricksteves.com.

My Orvieto guide was excited to surprise me with a visit to a very special and obscure site: the underground, fresco-covered, Etruscan tomb of the Hescanas family, which dates back to the fifth century B.C. It happened to be a tomb I knew very well, as for many years (back in the 1980s and 1990s), I would bring my tour groups here. We’d knock on the farmer’s door, and the old man would bring us through the fields, where we’d climb underground into this amazing tomb carved from the tufa rock in the middle of nowhere. We also filmed here in 2000. Today the farmer is gone, his house is abandoned and overgrown, and a local group of archaeologists has the key to the Hescanas tomb. And with the help of my guide, Manuela, I enjoyed a wonderful bit of tour guide nostalgia.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.