Day 3 - Discovering the City under the City...

Our afternoon outing was a guided tour exploring the Etruscan caves that lay beneath the city.  It is the incredible story behind Orvieto... the City that sits over hundreds of caves that was built for food and water storage as well as making wine.  It was also where they dug wells to the water table as there was no natural resources on the Rock of Orvieto... in other words, no rivers or dams.  What blew my mind about this tour was realising the technology that they used to build cellars, wells and waste tunnels was rather advanced for this time, their building skills were nothing short of remarkable.  The other thing that was rather interesting was that they are still discovering caves to this day.  I find this truly remarkable... from jars and pottery and things they discovered in the waste tunnels... have told many stories and it is a fascinating story.

 

Christina our "wealth of information" tour guide... it was an incredible history lesson

 

The thin tunnel down the side of the large well is actually the water well and it was dug by one man with a basket on his back...  pretty fine craftsmanship if you ask me.

 

Pottery jars - these were the main color paints they used in the Etruscan era



A beautiful wine cellar - I so wanted to go down there to explore

Waste Tunnels - where lots of pottery and wealth of info found in these tunnels

After our time together down in the grotto's it was so awesome to be walking the streets again at sunset on our way to dinner.  I have so many highlights from my trip but the walking was definitely one of them - they completely energized me.  I took so many pictures and I wish I could share them all.  But here are some of my favourites.

 

I love this shot... I love the nickers on the line... talk about airing your laundry for all to see!!!
 

 These two shots are two of my favorite photographs... I know it seems impossible to choose from over 1200 photos but I just love the positioning of them and the glow of the street lights at dusk and capturing the buildings... they are just so beautiful to me...

 

I am thinking about choosing a selection of my pics to make them into postcards.