Joanne's long walks: Via Romea Germanica Day 107: Orvieto

La luna,
cavalca un'onda,
in un mare... secco,
illuminando... una spiaggia,
non di sabbia.
Calanchi... di nuda argilla,
giocano con ombre,
per raggiungere
solo silenzi.

(The moon,

riding on a wave,

in a sea that is dry,

lights up... a beach

without sand.

Gullies... of bare clay,

play with shadows,

reaching only silence.)

- Realino Dominici, La notte nei calanchi

Today's stage was one of the most spectacular on the Via Romea Germanica, between medieval towns perched atop steep cliffs of tuff, dropping down into lush green gullies and then climbing up again to another clifftop village.

We walked out of the city of Orvieto, on the road for a short way and then along a path beside the medieval aqueduct, into which a hole has been cut so cars can drive through.

A bit of history: water in Orvieto

How do you get enough water for 30,000 people to a city perched on the top of a cliff, without a river? This was a major problem in medieval Orvieto. In the late 13th century, at the same time as the building of its great cathedral, the city of Orvieto undertook the construction of an aqueduct, completed between 1273 and 1276, to bring water from the uplands of Alfina into the city.

But after the black plague struck the city in 1348, the population and the economy abruptly declined, and the aqueduct began to deteriorate without maintenance; in the 15th century, stretches had to be replaced with wooden tubing or terra cotta pipes.

Following the 1527 sack of Rome, Pope Clement VII took refuge in Orvieto, where he commissioned the construction of a well that would provide the city with its own reliable water supply even in the event of a siege. Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane came up with the perfect design, ensuring that mules going down the 248 steps with empty buckets would never cross paths with mules climbing back up with buckets full of water. Since 1800 the well has been known as the Pozzo di San Patrizio, because of a legend that Saint Patrick had a bottomless well from which one could climb from hell through purgatory and up to heaven.

We didn't visit the well on this trip, but it is one of the top sights to see in Orvieto - if you don't mind walking down 248 steps, and then back up again!

We had plenty of walking down and up again on this stage, even without going down the well. After descending steeply from Orvieto, we climbed just as steeply up again, on a road paved with flagstones, to the Capuchin monastery and then to the 13th-century castle of Rubello, built on the site of a Roman fortress. We would have liked to explore, but it is private property and was completely shut.

Just a little further down the road, coming into the town of Porano, we came across a man working in his garage on the construction of a presepe: a miniature nativity scene. In this Italian tradition, the Holy Family often occupies only a small corner of the scene, the rest being a representation of traditional local buildings, with miniature people engaged in a variety of occupations, fully furnished homes and shops, food on the table, and so on. Nowadays many presepi incorporate electrical lighting and mechanisms that make the scene come to life: this man was working on a vat of "boiling" water, realistically recreated by adding tiny bubbles, which he said he would complete with pots and pans of food cooking. I asked if he would sell it when it was finished, or install it in a church, but he said he does it just for fun. His whole garage was full of miniature buildings and scenes!

We stopped at the local bar for a coffee break, then took a brief detour into the old town centre of Porano before continuing on our way.

Leaving Porano behind, we continued out into the fields of rich volcanic soil, crossing from Umbria into Lazio: the last region on our itinerary, the region containing the city of Rome!

We began to see "hobbit holes", garages and tool sheds cut into the cliffs of tuff along the side of the road, as we came into the town of Lubriano. When we reached the town centre we were awestruck at the view: there in front of us, across a deep green gully, Civita di Bagnoregio was outlined against the sky.

Our next task was to descend into that gully and climb up the other side to Civita. My guidebook recommended asking the locals for information on the state of the trail before attempting to do so, and I found the ideal people to ask: not locals, but other hikers, coming in the opposite direction! I spotted four people wearing large backpacks similar to our own standing outside the local bar, and went over to ask them about the trail. But they were engaged in conversation with an older man, obviously a local who was enjoying telling them his stories. I finally managed to join in their conservation and discover that they were walking a different route from ours, but had just come up from the gully, where they said the trail was fine. The older local man added some details about which way to go, then went back to telling the other hikers stories while they ate their picnic lunches. I later discovered that the older man was Realino Dominici, "il poeta dei calanchi": author of the poem chosen for today's quote; in fact, author of four published volumes of poetry! And I didn't even take his photograph, or ask him to write a line on my credential.🤦‍♀️

Following the route suggested by the hikers and by Realino Dominici - who mentioned that he was born and grew up down in the bottom of the gully - we descended a steep gravel road to the stream at the bottom, where we turned off the road onto a path and met two brown cows: an animal one wouldn't expect to meet on a forest path in the bottom of a gully, but there they were, right in the middle of the path, and one of them had very sharp horns! Cows are peaceful creatures, however, and these ones lumbered off and stood aside as we approached. Our path then began to climb up the other side of the canyon: we could no longer see Civita, up above us somewhere, but the views of Lubriano behind us were amazing!

The long climb was nearly over when we came to the "Bucaione", a tunnel carved into the rock in Etruscan times, which brought us out just below Civita. A short stretch on a narrow path above a steep drop took us to the chapel of Santa Maria delle Carceri, carved into the face of the rock in what was previously an Etruscan temple or tomb. This is where a section of the town of Civita collapsed into the valley below during the earthquake of 1695.

Civita di Bagnoregio, often referred to as "the dying city", was originally larger, and had five city gates, only one of which remains, the other four having collapsed and crumbled into the gullies below as the rock underneath the town erodes away.

Civita now has only ten permanent residents, but is heavily visited by tourists, who drive to Bagnoregio, park, and pay five euros to walk across the 300 metre long concrete bridge constructed in 1965 to connect Civita with the larger town of Bagnoregio. If you come by foot and "in the back door" through the Etruscan tunnel, you don't have to pay! 😄

Porta di Santa Maria

View from the walls of Civita

We walked across the bridge (for free - the ticket office is at the other end) and up the road one kilometre to Bagnoregio, where the enterprising citizens have opened plenty of B&Bs and holiday rentals, taking advantage of their vicinity to famous Civita. But Bagnoregio is itself a town well worth visiting, also dating back to Etruscan times, with plenty of medieval alleyways and squares; Civita and Bagnoregio were originally parts of a single town, separated as a result of the terrible earthquake of 1695.

Our accommodation is an apartment on the clifftop edge of Bagnoregio, "A Casa di Anna", with a fantastic view from the veranda where the bathroom was added onto the building (as in all old houses); we christened our bathroom "Il Bagno Regio" (The Royal Bathroom). The view is not of Civita - otherwise the flat would have cost a lot more than we paid for it - but of a green valley.