Ten Days in Tuscany and Umbria (4) - Orvieto

13th April 2008

I've arrived in Arezzo, the birthplace of Michelangelo. I don't know what he'd make of it now. Like all the towns with evocative names that I've visited this week, it's spread and developed ugly industrial zones like pustules round the core of the historic centre that has been allowed to survive to feed the tourist trade. I know that sounds harsh, but as I'm doing this trip on a budget while trying to be as comfortable as possible I find I've booked hotels on the ring roads and in the trading estates that keep Italy afloat - they are great inside but the environment outside is a forest of concrete and giant advertising signs.

I've walked into the centre of Arezzo tonight - "Only a kilometre" said the nice receptionist as I left. But a kilometre is easily far enough for me to get lost in, and I must have walked about two miles, wishing I'd brought the car. I've promised myself a taxi back to the hotel and as I'm right by the railway station now, that should be easy to arrange.

But back to my day.... Orvieto turned out to be the exception to the rule I've set out above. Like Arezzo, it's just off the A1, which runs between Rome and Florence, but being high on a hill it's escaped the ravages of modern life, unless you count being turned into the most chic and pretty tourist town I've seen so far as a ravage.

I found myself missing Terni and its soft green mountains almost as soon as I set off. The road ran through gradually lower land until the attractive lumpy mounds of Umbria changed gradually to Latzio, where the uplands were set well away from the road, just in sight across a wide plain. There are clay and I suppose marble works along the way, and the trees are dusted white in some places.

The forms of the landscape along the autostrada remind me of the various areas of North Devon that I know - except that you don't get all those lovely narrow conical cypress trees in England. The delicate greens of the deciduous trees here are lovely at the moment, too. And the buildings are warm cream and yellows and peach colours.

At Orvieto I first went up the Funicular from the station, thinking that this was the only way up to the old town. Once I reached the top I realised I'd better take the car up because I was going to need more parking time than I'd calculated for when I left the car outside the station.



This lovely park is by the Funicular at Orvieto. It overlooks a huge view across the hills. In the turreted look-out place were lovers enjoying a little privacy on this sunny Sunday afternoon. I did feel just a little envious as I tiptoed past the opening to their temporary love-nest.

Having gone back for the car I drove up the hill past the strong mediaeval walls that barricade the place from all invaders - or did in the Middle Ages, before we were all invited in. It was a very good choice of citadel - I can imagine any army that laid seige to it getting a good helping of boiling oil and arrows on its head from the battlements.



Now, however, Orvieto is a very charming town, full of flowers and expensive stylish shops.



I parked by a church and walked towards the Duomo.





The shops were closed as it's Sunday but I found a good bookshop open and bought a guide book to read later. I'd parked outside the Chiesa S. Domenico, rather an austere church but with a faded little fresco above the main entrance. It is faced in part with the dark and light marble patterns that are a feature of Tuscan churches, it seems. From there I walked towards the Duomo, discovering other churches, towers and beautiful ornate doorways on the way.







The Duomo itself, though, was as much of a surprise as Florence's cathedral. It has a gigantic gothic facade, which took 300 years to complete, was started in 1290. Several architects were involved, therefore, and the building had safety problems - the transepts were in danger of collapsing from the start because of inadequate foundations, I read in my guidebook. The whole facade is a riot of decoration in carving, fresco and mosaic. The barley-sugar twisted pillars are there, with inlays of mirrored and coloured mosaic, and there are wonderful panels of relief, depicting sacred scenes, along the facade. Behind the facade the nave and transepts are faced with stripes of dark and light marble.







Inside, there are beautiful frescoes and carvings, free-standing figures and a lovely organ that I tried hard to photograph.



The huge rose window and other stained glass is also very lovely from inside. I spent a long time trying to take my own photos of the interior, laying my camera flat on the floor and propping it up on things, but I really needed my tripod.





Almost everyone in the streets seemed to be American or otherwise English-speaking. I got a lady from Australia to take my photo in front of the facade of the cathedral but I was wearing my rather strange blue Russian looking tunic and having a bad hair day, as you see...





The houses flanking the piazza where the Duomo stands are low, sway-backed and very picturesque. It's easy to imagine them as little dwelling houses when they were originally built. Now, of course, they are vey chic establishments of one kind or another....

I went into the little Museum of Etruscan Archaelogy, too, to look at the archaic smiles on the faces of the statues and the delicate depictions of stories about conversations and flying horses on the black and yellow pottery.



The sun was coming and going and by now it was about 4pm and getting cooler. I got back on the road and realised I was going to have to get some petrol before I went on to the motorway again.

Now, you learn something every day and today I learned that you can't trust automated petrol stations in Italy any more than you can in England. All the gas stations seemed to be closed (it is Sunday) so I took the risk. The thing rejected my Visa card, my Mastercard, and demanded cash. I fed it 20 euros and it clammed up. No assistenze button, no cancel button and no petrol. I gave up, wrote 20 euros off to experience and drove on. Just round the corner was an open and friendly manned Shell station where I filled up. So there was a relatively happy ending to that story...

Ten Days in Tuscany and Umbria (5) - Arezzo and my last night in Florence

14th April 2008

This morning I am determined to find the "real" Arezzo. I'm now armed with a map of the historic centre, a guide book, and some good advice from the waiter in my hotel.

Last night I got bored waiting for a taxi to get me back to the hotel and I walked back. I surprised myself with my orienteering skills. I'd noticed a lot of landmarks on my circuitous route to the station and internet point. (I'd failed to find my way into the historic centre). Going back, I kept the domes and steeples on my left and it got me to the Zona d'Affari where the hotel lies. Once I entered the zone, however, I thought I was in trouble - trade outlets and car showrooms on every side -but somehow I made it. The receptionist who told me it was an easy 1km walk to the station deserves a special mention for lying in her teeth.

I had dinner in the hotel, rather late. The waiter looked put out when I arrived - he was hoping that his evening's work was done, I suspect. He softened up when I asked him if he was French - he'd spoken to me in French, apparently thinking I came from France. He is Italian and he told me he'd worked in the best hotel in Capri before this. I think he was missing that hotel.

When I asked him how to get to the historic centre he became helpfulness itself and we pored over the map he fetched me. He advised driving to a car park just outside the city wall.

So I set off this morning in the car, found a carpark (where I wrestled briefly with the ticket machine but finally got in) and walked up the via Porta Buia, near where I was last night.



Quite quickly I come across the Chiesa SS Annunziata, a sturdy four-square church founded in 1490 after the local people witnessed a miraculous weeping Madonna incident during a terrible storm, on this spot. There was already an Oratory there, built in 1349, and a painting by Spinello Aretino (1350-1411) of the Annunciation.

I go in and am surprised and impressed by the richness of the interior. I go round snapping pictures and that's when I realise my camera battery is flat. I resignmyself to drawing for the rest of the day - I'll recharge the battery tonight.

The sun is shining as I stand for almost two hours on the corner of the quiet street (Via Garibaldi I think) opposite the church and the shrine with Aretino's fresco above a rectangular doorway decorated with Romanesque reliefs. I recognise the four creatures of the Aplocalypse over the lintel.

I make an ink sketch. No-one bothers me, though there are some passers-by. (Most of them are on the phone anyway.) As usual I can hear men at work behind me - banging and cheerful whistling and shouting - and when they pack up for lunch one of them comes and checks out what I'd been drawing, in a very friendly way, before they drive off and I get on with the drawing.



It's twelve thirty and I've only drawn one church. Time to go on and find the Cathedral.



I take back anything nasty I said yesterday about Arezzo. Its historic centre is as interesting as any other centre I've visited in this region. The building material seems to be mainly a kind of greenish yellow sandstone. It must be quite soft and there's often damage to the surfaces of reliefs and walls. I notice that the shrine next to SS Annunziata has lost its reliefs up to a height of about a metre where animls and perhaps the faithful had rubbed up against them. Perhaps children and vehices have played a part too.

I pass on to the Piazza San Domenico and stop to draw the church, as there's a vacant bench. This church is undergoing restoration as I find when I go inside. There's a forest of scaffolding on a par with Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. From the outside it looks like an eighteenth century folly - one of those decorative ruins that English landscapers erected in estate gardens. The scaffolding is less noticeable from the outside.



But it seems to be "business as usual" - notices of masses are on display and the bells are hanging in the tower. I spend a pleasant hour drawing the exterior. I'm harassed only briefly by an educational group of Italian teenagers who practise conjugating Engish verbs at me after their politely enthusiastic "Complimenti" on my work. In their usual high-spirited way the boys are ready to tease me but one of the girls kindly warns them that though I'm English, I do seem to understand Italian - I'm grateful to her for that!

At the top of the hill, in the oldest part of the ancient settlement of Arezzo, I arrive in the piazza where the town hall and the cathedral stand.





I find the Cathedral closed for lunch. I sit on the steps admiring the facade, the main entrance a simpler, sandstone version of the Duomo in Florence, erected at the beginning of the twentieth century. Here the Cathedral is raised on a high plinth and reached via two flights of steps leading up from the piazza on all sides. It's very grey and cold, and rain is in the wind.





This is a much older door on the south side of the cathedral. The relief over it is 14th century and it has two porphyry pillars outside, taken from a Roman site.

I try to draw the main doors but instead settle for details of the intricate carvings of flowers, leaves and snakes that run round the barley-sugar sticks of the pillars. I'm there until two o'clock, then hunger sets in at about the same time as it begins to rain properly.

I go down to the Bar Il Duomo, just off the Piazza, and find it's rather like the Tardis, much bigger inside than it looked from the street. The staff - two rather handsome men and a lively pink-lipped lady who is teasing them shamelessly - are very friendly and I discover I can actually speak Italian to them unselfconsciously. I have a delicious plate of penne with tomatoes and basil and a custard tart and a capuccino and sit on, unharassed, writing this blog until the Cathedral opens.

It's later, when I read my guidebook, that I realize that though the Cathedral is interesting in its own right, it's the church of San Francesco that has the great cycle of frescos by Piero della Francesca, one of my favourite Renaissance artists.



I spend the afternoon in Arezzo Cathedral, drawing the great carved Choir Gallery by Vasari and the curious, archaic wooden Madonna and Child in the niche of the chapel below it. The statue is from the 13th century and has the stiff formality of Byzantine art. The Madonna's face is modern in its gaunt angularity and the Child seems a little old man in comparison with the chubby two-year-od infants that Renaissance artists depict in Nativity scenes.



There is a fresco by Piero della Francesca of Mary Magdalene on the left wall of the nave, near the main altar. Her hair, by tradition flowing loose, is spread in fine strands over her shoulders, as delicate as cobweb silk, and her gentle face is very beautiful. The Catholic Church's acceptance of this Mary, with all her apparent faults, is for me one of the most sympathetic aspects of this otherwise alien faith.

There's art from every century from the 13th to the 19th in the Cathedral and I browse happily there. A service begins at 5.30 which adds much to my experience though I can't understand many of the words. I don't leave myself time to see anything else - drawing is a long process.

At last I make my way down to the modern town. It's pouring with rain at nearly nine when I come out of the internet point near the station in Arezzo.



The Scenic has been parked for nearly eleven hours in the Parcheggio Balduccini and is in danger of being locked in for the night.

The Scenic and I have come to a working partnership. Hiring a car sight unseen is rather like entering into an arranged marriage - you can be lucky, or you have to work at it. The Scenic takes me smoothly and comfortably round Umbria and Tuscany. I have to trust it to leave itself locked, as long as I can check the boot. If I try to check the doors, it unlocks everything if the flat plastic "key" is anywhere within 10 metres, it seems. This has been a difficult adjustment for me, and so has the absence of a handbrake, but we have shaken down together. I wouldn't like to lose the Scenic at this stage.

When I get back to my hotel after a few circuits of the Industrial Zone to find it, I book in for another night, my last before I have to go back to Florence to catch my early flight to Gatwick on Thursday morning.

15th April 2008

I put my camera on charge, and this morning, in the rain, I set out to see the church of San Francesco, where Piero Della Francesca's cycle of paintings on the Miracle of the True Cross waits.

Here I am at the end of the penultimate day of my holiday, back in the Internet Centre in Arezzo to post what might be my last blog of this series. It's been raining on and off all day and now it's settled ino a solid downpour. I've come in to dry my feet out a bit. Luckily I didn't take the watery sunshine this morning at all seriously and I put on my big winter coat - with the boots and my cheekbones (what you can see of them after all this pasta) I'm definitely in Russian mode today.

This morning I find the third and probably most "real" Arezzo - the shopping centre. As soon as I see Upim I know I'm there. I pop in and buy a scarf I coveted in Ravenna's branch. I'm glad I did because it's turned very cold here. The commercial centre of Arezzo is very pleasant, with wide piazzas and civic sculptures.

I make my way up to the historic centre again and find I've missed the Basilica of San Francesco - it's shut for lunch till 2.30. Nearby is the Museum Home of Ivan Bruschi, an antique dealer and antiquarian who lived here for most of his life and left his whole collection to the municipality when he died in 1996. He also founded the Antiques Fair which takes place monthly in Arezzo. The Banco Etrusco was made trustee of the collection and the money to maintain it. (You can find information about Bruschi at this website
It's dry and peaceful in the Museum and I feel at home there. Bruschi was a proific collector of objects from distant times and places. It's one of those collections that is not labelled - you are just presented with the artefacts, from Etruscan times, from Africa, from the Renaissance - all intrinsically and aesthetically interesting, set out beautifully so that you can let your imagination and eyes roam among them. This is the only photograph I manage before I'm told off for getting my camera out.



In revenge I sit on the staircase and draw the view of an antique statue and the pillared windows of the Church next door, Santa Maria di Pieve. As usual a group of Italian schoolboys turns up after a while, and then my pens run out of ink, so I go back to the Basilica of San Francesco with my camera.

It's expensive to get a close-up view - 6 euros that would have bought lunch - but I'm not hungry because I've eaten really a big hotel breakfast.



It's still shut for lunch, but the sun is shining (short-lived as it turns out) and I sit in one of the cafes opposite the church of San Francesco and enjoy a fresh orange juice. Almost everyone else there is English like me, mainly teachers because it's school holiday time in England. I try hard to look Italian, or at least French.



It's certainly worth getting up close to the frescos of the Legend of the True Cross that Piero Della Francesca painted in the apse behind the high altar. They've had to be restored, in common with most of the historic buildings in Arezzo, because the town was devastated by Allied bombing on December 2nd 1943. The colours are absolutely beautiful. I look at prints and photos in the gift shop but none of them comes close to the right colours so I don't buy one.

There are pictures and information about Piero and the Legend of the true Cross cycle of frescoes on this site.

The frescos tell a story that appears nowhere in the Bible that I know but that spans the Old and New Testaments. It traces the story of the wood that was used to make the cross on which Jesus was executed, going all the way back to Adam's death, when it seems that the branch of the Tree of Life that would have saved him from death arrived too late. Then it was passed down the ages to become the Cross. It's a story full of miraculous pronouncements by angels. King Solomon makes an appearance, and there's a battle in which the wood is taken back from infidels. After the Crucifixion it's hidden to protect it but Judas knows where it is and he gives the information away under torture (there's a scene where Judas is pulled by his hair from a dry well where he's been thrown, by a callous man)

The Annunciation is there, of course. There's a beautifully stark noose hanging from a bracket outside a black window above the pretty space where the pregnant Mary is receiving the news from the Angel. That noose could be three dimensional, so carefully has the perspective and light been depicted. It's ready for Judas.

The figures are expressive and classically beautiful and the story is told with many subtle biblical references, such as the straining workmen carrying the plank of wood that is to become the Cross, in poses prefiguuring Jesus and the two thieves.

Having paid 6 euros, I am determined to get my money's worth. My drawing pens have run out of ink and I'm not allowed to take photos. But I have the hotel biro with me. So I stand through at least two repetitions of the guided tour going round the chapel and sketch the chapel's great window, flanked by the marvellous frescos. It will serve me as a reminder and perhaps form the basis for a coloured work later. I'm starting to get the gist of the lecture in the end, because I already know the story from the guide book.

I take a few more photos but the rain is getting really serious so I make my way back towards the station, my reference point in Arezzo. I have the good luck to pass a shop selling art materals on the way and buy two new drawing pens.

I've booked my last hotel, in the centre of Florence. It's extremely cheap but since I have to leave it at about 4.30 am on Thursday morning, to catch the plane that leaves at 8, I'm not too worried.

Ten Days in Tuscany and Umbria (3) - Terni and the Marmore Falls

12th April 2008 - Terni and the Cascade de Marmore

Today I'm in Terni. The hotel is a comfortable one in the ugly industrial suburbs of the city and at first I thought I'd made a mistake, especially as the promised computer in the room turned out to be a slow, strange arrangement that couldn't deal with Myspace technology - no bulletins, no editing blogs or other fancy stuff. The view from the hotel does include the mountains, beyond the motorway bridges, but you wouldn't venture out on foot....

But now that I've spent a day here I've changed my mind - as I so often do once I settle in. I first parked in a street off the centre, and walked around a quiet business area. I found the usual Chiesa San Francesco,



which was in its own quiet piazza, and a street market selling very pretty things. I shall have to jettison some of the unnecessary clothes I threw into my suitcase at the last moment, to fit in the lovely shells I bought so cheaply. The onyx earrings are much easier to deal with, of course.




The man selling the shells flattered me by asking if I was Russian - for some reason I'm irritated when Italians instantly spot that I'm English, even before I open my mouth. But then, this is the Adriatic coast, not Sorrento. It could have been my new flat boots (bought cheaply at the station in Florence after the cobblestones had ruined the heels on my high-heeled ones). They do make me look as if I'm hoping someone will play a balaleika. I took a photo of this man as he blew a loud trumpet noise on a conch shell. He asked me if it was a video with sound and I rather wished it had been.



Next I looked for the way out of the city to the Falls of Marmore. This turned out to be much easier than I expected. I drove through the civic centre, which is graciously laid out and backed by the beautiful mountains that surround Terni. Then it was easy to follow the signs up to the mountainside where the highest waterfall in Italy tumbles and roars down in at least five stages, raising a huge cloud of spray that soaks everything around it. It's been made part of a hydroelectric scheme but it's also a lucrative tourist attraction, with 5-euro tickets enabling visitors to walk very close to the lowest torrent, and of course a thriving minimarket of souvenir stalls and cafes.







As tourist attractions go I rate it pretty highly. It's the most stunning sight. The water pouring endlessly down, round and over the rocks to the fast stream at the bottom - no man-made attraction could rival that. I sat in the cafe at the bottom and as usual got my sketch book out to record my version. Of course I took dozens of photos as well. But there's something about drawing a place that gives me such satisfaction afterwards, however inadequate the finished work may be. I had to work fast on this one, and managed to cover an A3 sheet with marks in pen and ink that will be the basis for another work I expect.

The sun came out in Terni and it was really warm for the first time this week. I have to leave tomorrow, to go to Arezzo, but I think I'll be back.

I stopped in Terni on my way out, to withdraw some cash and check the route to my next hotel, in Arrezzo. I decided to stop in Orvieto which is on the way. Even though it's Sunday, the internet point I used last night is open and the Indian owners are friendly and helpful. It's right near the bus station, where there's free parking all week, too.

Last night I got completely lost, trying to find my way back to my hotel just off the E45 and only a mile from the centre of Terni. It's a skyscraper block and I could see it all the time but couldn't get near the entrance - I was always on the wrong side of the dual carriageway! Just like Alice Through the Looking Glass, as my life often seems to be! I really must invest in a SatNav next time I drive in Europe.

Last night I had the best night's sleep I've had since leaving England. The double-glazing worked perfectly and I think the room next door was empty. So I'm in very good spirits, driving off to find the A1/E35 to Arezzo via Orvieto.

13th April 2008

I've arrived in Arezzo, the birthplace of Michelangelo. I don't know what he'd make of it now. Like all the towns with evocative names that I've visited this week, it's spread and developed ugly industrial zones like pustules round the core of the historic centre that has been allowed to survive to feed the tourist trade. I know that sounds harsh, but as I'm doing this trip on a budget while trying to be as comfortable as possible I find I've booked hotels on the ring roads and in the trading estates that keep Italy afloat - they are great inside but the environment outside is a forest of concrete and giant advertising signs.

I've walked into the centre of Arezzo tonight - "Only a kilometre" said the nice receptionist as I left. But a kilometre is easily far enough for me to get lost in, and I must have walked about two miles, wishing I'd brought the car. I've promised myself a taxi back to the hotel and as I'm right by the railway station now, that should be easy to arrange.

But back to my day.... Orvieto turned out to be the exception to the rule I've set out above. Like Arezzo, it's just off the A1, which runs between Rome and Florence, but being high on a hill it's escaped the ravages of modern life, unless you count being turned into the most chic and pretty tourist town I've seen so far as a ravage.


I found myself missing Terni and its soft green mountains almost as soon as I set off. The road ran through gradually lower land until the attractive lumpy mounds of Umbria changed gradually to Latzio, where the uplands were set well away from the road, just in sight across a wide plain. There are clay and I suppose marble works along the way, and the trees are dusted white in some places.
The forms of the landscape along the autostrada remind me of the various areas of North Devon that I know - except that you don't get all those lovely narrow conical cypress trees in England. The delicate greens of the deciduous trees here are lovely at the moment, too. And the buildings are warm cream and yellows and peach colours.

At Orvieto I first went up the Funicular from the station, thinking that this was the only way up to the old town. Once I reached the top I realised I'd better take the car up because I was going to need more parking time than I'd calculated for when I left the car outside the station.

Having gone back for the car I drove up the hill past the strong mediaeval walls that barricade the place from all invaders - or did in the Middle Ages, before we were all invited in. It was a very good choice of citadel - I can imagine any army that laid seige to it getting a good helping of boiling oil and arrows on its head from the battlements.



Now, however, Orvieto is a very charming town, full of flowers and expensive stylish shops. Plenty of souvenir shops too, but tasteful ones.



The shops were closed as it's Sunday but I found a good bookshop open and bought a guide book to read later. I'd parked outside the Chiesa S. Domenico, rather an austere church but with a faded little fresco above the main entrance. It is faced in part with the dark and light marble patterns that are a feature of Tuscan churches, it seems. From there I walked towards the Duomo, discovering other churches, towers and beautiful ornate doorways on the way.









The Duomo itself, though, was as much of a surprise as Florence's cathedral. It has a gigantic gothic facade, which took 300 years to complete, was started in 1290. Several architects were involved, therefore, and the building had safety problems - the transepts were in danger of collapsing from the start because of inadequate foundations, I read in my guidebook. The whole facade is a riot of decoration in carving, fresco and mosaic. The barley-sugar twisted pillars are there, with inlays of mirrored and coloured mosaic, and there are wonderful panels of relief, depicting sacred scenes, along the facade. Behind the facade the nave and transepts are faced with stripes of dark and light marble.






Inside, there are beautiful frescoes and carvings, free-standing figures and a lovely organ that I tried hard to photograph. The huge rose window and other stained glass is also very lovely from inside. I spent a long time trying to take my own photos of the interior, laying my camera flat on the floor and propping it up on things, but I really needed my tripod.





Almost everyone in the streets seemed to be American or otherwise English-speaking. I got a lady from Australia to take my photo in front of the facade of the cathedral but I was wearing my rather strange blue Russian looking tunic and jeans that were a little tighter than was flattering so my vanity won't let me post it here....




I went into the little Museum of Etruscan Archaelogy, too, to look at the archaic smiles on the faces of the statues and the delicate depictions of stories about conversations and flying horses on the black and yellow pottery.









The sun was coming and going and by now it was about 4pm and getting cooler. I got back on the road and realised I was going to have to get some petrol before I went on to the motorway again.

Now, you learn something every day and today I learned that you can't trust automated petrol stations in Italy any more than you can in England. All the gas stations seemed to be closed (it is Sunday) so I took the risk. The thing rejected my Visa card, my Mastercard, and demanded cash. I fed it 20 euros and it clammed up. No assistenze button, no cancel button and no petrol. I gave up, wrote 20 euros off to experience and drove on. Just round the corner was an open and friendly manned Shell station where I filled up. So there was a relatively happy ending to that story...