(Orvieto, Italy)

Our first full day in Orvieto was dominated by caves and pizza.  We started our “Underground Orvieto” tour by learning that there were more than a thousand caves under the old hill town of Orvieto. However, there is a geological reason for both the hill and the caves: due to the combination of ancient volcanic activity and high water levels, Orvieto’s hill consists of a soft volcanic rock called tufo (“tuff”, in English).

People settled on top of the hill for defensive reasons, but they eventually ran out of room. However,the soft tuff gave them a way out: they could move their businesses underground and convert more of the above-ground space to housing. With this information, the reasons for Orvieto’s extensive system of caves became much more clear.

As the underground temperature is constant year-round, it was ideal for the production and storage of wine and olive oil.  Caves near the edge of the hill were used to house dovecotes (dove or pigeon houses):  as a result, pigeon is a fairly common delicacy in the region.  Other underground activities included quarrying, well digging and pottery making.

We saw all of this on our tour.  It was surprisingly comfortable and spacious underground, although there are only a few parts where the caves are actually connected.  People would dig down under their houses but there wasn’t much need to connect the caves.

Later in the day, we visited a privately-run series of caves called the Pozzo della Cava (Well of the Caves).  While these caves were nowhere near as large as the municipally-owned caves we saw earlier, it was interesting to see how a commercial twist (in the form of a well-placed gift shop) could be added.   Also:  a 38-meter deep well looks very scary when you look down into it.

We didn’t need much of a lunch, so we just grabbed a couple of paninis from a butcher shop.  For dinner, however, we decided to seek out pizza.  True Neapolitan (from Naples, or Napoli in Italian) pizza is considered the purest form.  As there appeared to be only one source in Orvieto, we soon found ourselves at Antica Arte Napoletana.

I wanted a pizza based on tomato sauce (“rossa”), so I ended up selecting a pizza capricciosa (see photo at the top of this post).  However, a full half of the pizzas on offer were “bianche” and had either no sauce or a sauce based on something other than tomatoes.  My wife was daring and elected to have the pizza positano…the toppings were not too unusual, but the sauce was cream of pumpkin!  As a relatively mild sauce, the cream of pumpkin put a greater focus on the taste of the toppings.

We both enjoyed having real mozzarella cheese on our pizzas: rather than slices or shreds of ersatz mozzarella, we saw the pizza makers toss large chunks of fresh mozzarella on our pizzas.    We could also see how quickly the pizzas were ready:  the dough was quickly stretched and shaped, with the topped pizza in the oven for only a few minutes.

There is more to Orvieto than caves and pizza – stay tuned!