Via Romea Germanica Day 106: Ficulle - Orvieto

For the pilgrim, what purpose may the city serve? For the pilgrim, only streets make sense, not the houses – houses tempt one to rest and relax, to forget about the destination. 

Zygmunt Bauman, From Pilgrim to Tourist (1996)

Our night at the "luxurious" Affittacamere Fratini was not entirely a restful one. At 3:30 am we were awakened by the sound of traffic outside our window. Why so much traffic, in such a tiny village, on a Monday night? And it seemed to be mostly heavy trucks. Suspecting a problem with the motorway in the valley below, I looked it up on autostrade.it and in fact discovered that the A1, Italy's biggest and busiest motorway, was shut from 11 pm until 6 am for roadworks. All the traffic was detoured onto the SP71 - which passed right below our window! 😫

Happy to see this sign, after a night disturbed by heavy vehicle traffic 

I would recommend that future pilgrims check the schedule for roadworks on the A1 before booking... or check out the competition, Affittacamere Relax, where at least the name promises a more restful night!

We did eventually get back to sleep, and when we arose in the morning the motorway had been reopened and everything was in order again. We breakfasted at a nearby café and bakery, then set off through the centre of Ficulle and out the other end of the town, passing by the church of Santa Maria Vecchia, which was unfortunately shut - I would have liked to see the ancient Roman stone monument to Mithra kept inside the church.

Today's stage unfolded along a broad gravel road winding through fields and vineyards. After eight kilometres we stopped to take a break at a crossroads beside a collapsing builing that used to be an inn on the road to Rome. The hooks and chains that suspended the pots over the giant fireplace were still visible in the half-collapsed construction.

We continued downhill among the vineyards to cross the motorway on a viaduct. Then we crossed the valley floor to Allerona Scalo, the non-descript modern extension of Allerona, a medieval village perched on a hilltop high above, stopping in a café; the others had an espresso and a snack, but I ordered a tuna sandwich with tomatoes and mayonnaise - even though it was only 11 in the morning: after a month of walking every day, my body demands food whenever it gets a chance!

We passed under the raised high-speed railway line, crossed the river Paglia on a road  bridge, passed under the railway line again and continued parallel to it, coming to Ponte Giulio: a semi-industrial development that conceals, among its warehouses and parking lots, an ancient Roman bridge that was restored by Pope Julius II in 1506 and thenceforth named after him. A massive earthquake in June 1695 altered the course of the river, leaving the bridge standing uselessly in the middle of the plain, where it was abandoned to decay. Only recently has it been subjected to a conservative restoration,  sponsored by the enterprise that has its headquarters next to the old bridge and is named after it: Ponte Giulio, maker of accessible bathroom fixtures. 

We sat on the grass next to the ruins of the bridge to take a rest and eat whatever snacks we had with us. The Via Romea Germanica route then followed the highway the rest of the way into Orvieto - unfortunately, for it is not pleasant walking along the side of a highway with cars and trucks speeding past and automotive dealers, gas stations and warehouses on either side. Coming closer to the city, after the village of Sferracavallo the road began to climb very steeply, heading up and up in a long straight line. Orvieto is built on the flat summit of a butte made of volcanic tufa or tuff stone, at an elevation of 280 to 325 metres above sea level and 20 to 50 metres above the level of the surrounding countryside. Garages and storage cellars are cut right into the stone - and have been since Etruscan times, a history you can discover if you take the fascinating Orvieto Underground tour, which we did in the summer of 2003 (mainly to escape that summer's infamous heat!).

A bit of history: Orvieto

Inhabited since at least the eighth century before the Christian era, Orvieto was the site of a prominent Etruscan temple, Fanum Voltumnae, to which the faithful came annually from all over Etruria to celebrate their religious rites and games. The city grew and flourished in the seventh and sixth centuries BC as a centre of trade and military power thanks to its position dominating the valley. The Romans called it Volsinii, and later Urbs Vetus, meaning ancient city (already!), and destroyed it in 264 BC, deporting the surviving inhabitants to nearby Lake Bolsena, where they founded the city of Volsinii Novi, which became Bolsena. In the early Middle Ages the town was built again under the name Urbs Vetus, which became Ourbibentos and then Orvieto. 

The medieval quarter 

The church of San Giovenone, built in 1004

Sant'Andrea

By the end of the 13th century Orvieto was a thriving city of 30,000 people. On 15 November 1290, Pope Nicholas IV laid the cornerstone of the city' magnificent cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, built with stripes of white travertine and greenish-black basalt. In the following decade, cathedral authorities called Sienese architect and sculptor Lorenzo Maitani to stabilise the building and design its façade; he also enlarged the choir and planned a transept with two chapels in the years between 1308 and 1330.

The cathedral requires payment of a ticket costing almost ten euros, with no exemption for pilgrims, and we had both been before, so we settled for a visit to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, open for worship without a ticket and accessible via a side entrance; the chapel has some lovely frescoes of its own, and from here we could peek into the main nave. 

It's impossible to see Orvieto in a couple of hours between taking a shower and eating dinner, especially after walking more than twenty kilometres and climbing a very steep hill! I would recommend pilgrims on the Via Romea Germanica take a final rest day here, one week before arriving in Rome, to see the city properly. And I would recommend staying at Casa per Ferie San Lodovico, if your budget is not too tight - the former monastery is now run almost like a hotel, with similar prices, even though it is still owned by the congregation. The last three nuns were moved elsewhere, as the enormous 5000-square-metre property was too much for them. The rooms are available to the general public, not only pilgrims, and the monastery is located in a quiet and relatively tourist-free part of Orvieto. I wish I had planned to spend two nights here! But with only one more week's walk to Rome, and new companions to walk with, this is no time to rest and relax: we must keep in mind our destination!

Ficulle - Orvieto 22.5 km