On and Off the Beaten Path: Tuscany and Umbria

By Carol Ford

My husband Steve and I recently took a driving trip through Europe—and our marriage actually survived our thirty-fifth year of traveling together. If you travel with a partner, you know that’s no small feat.

One of the areas we visited on this trip was Tuscany, a place very much on the beaten path. But, of course, the path has been beaten down for good reason. You can see why as you approach the Appenines: the cypresses become more prominent; the countryside more hilly; tunnels dugout of the hills for the benefit of motorists become numerous, and then you’re off the highway and in the mountains. It’s a very beautiful part of the world.

Appenines is the name used for the entire chain of mountains which, like vertebrae, run roughly down the center of the entire Italian peninsula. They stretch for approximately 600 miles from north to south and are about 70 miles wide. Because they’re not very high, the mountains are mostly green and wooded, although there are some high peaks. The highest of these is Corno Grande (Great Horn) and is partially covered by the southernmost glacier to be found in Europe. Locally the peak is known by another, more matter of fact name: Grande Sasso, which means, simply, large rock. Down toward the Adriatic, the Appenines’ eastern slopes are steep. But the western slopes form a plain on which most of Italy's historic cities are located; we were heading toward one of those cities, Siena.

We’d heard about Siena for years: an old, old city surrounded by thick walls punctuated with arched entry ways that provide access to its maze of narrow streets. We knew about Siena’s famous festival, the Palio, a bareback horse race that first took place in 1283 and still takes place twice-yearly. In July and August, the city is jam-packed with visitors who come not only for the race but for the medieval costumes and pageantry: not to mention the heavy betting. The jockeys represent ten of Siena’s districts (drawn by lottery from a total of seventeen) and the winner is feted for weeks after the race.

The heart of the old city is the 14^th century square, the Piazza del Campo. Originally the market place, it’s a square in name only. It’s actually in the shape of a giant fan with nine segments, each representing one of the Council of Nine that ruled Siena at the time it was constructed, about the same time as the first recorded Palio. The piazza and the surrounding red-brick buildings are still remarkably intact, although now ringed with stalls and shops, cafes and restaurant.

A short walk from this piazza is another, this one fronting one of the most famous cathedrals in Italy, Siena’s Duomo. Apart from the many medieval and renaissance treasures, including sculptures by Michelangelo and Donatello, the cathedral is distinctive because it was designed with horizontally alternating black and white marble: it’s striped. That sounds very strange, but it’s not at all; it’s interesting and striking and dramatic.

After too short a stay, we were reluctant to leave this beautiful place. But, at the same time, we were looking forward to our next stop: Orvieto, in Umbria, the province adjacent to Tuscany. And the drive up, down, and through the Tuscan hills and into the hills of Umbria was not disappointing. It seemed to have been arranged to provide one perfect vista after another. (We suspect that the Italian tourist bureau has made it a rule that every horizon is required to have a small castello, or a cluster of pinkish-gold painted houses outlined against the sky.) We took a slight detour from our route to see a place called Castilglione di Lago: appropriately named since there were three small castles sitting on three small islands in a lake. Remnants from some feuding dynasties of long ago.

We thought we’d find a restaurant for lunch in what we could see was a very popular summer resort area, but there were few visitors, and nothing was open on this mid-October day. Instead, we parked by the lakeside and had a quick lunch of the cheese, crackers and jam that we kept in the car for a quick snack, or for when we forget that restaurants don’t stay open all day long. (Which we still do more often than we should, even after thirty-five years.)

We reached a high plateau in the Umbrian hills. The fields were plowed, perhaps for winter, or for a late crop. The soil was black and moist; it looked like dark chocolate. We passed a beautiful town on a hillside that we had never heard of, Citta di Piave, which winds around a castle and huge turret. We passed old farmhouses built of old-rose colored terracotta. Another town, Ficulle, on the very top of a hill came into view. When we reached it we drove around what seemed an entire fortification, walls embedded in rock. The leaves of vines hanging down over the old walls had turned deep reds and yellows. And soon we were in Orvieto, one of Umbria’s three famous hill towns. (The others are Todi and Spoleto.)

Orvieto sits on a high plateau (at about 1000 ft.) overlooking a plain dotted with vineyards. We found a nice little hotel, right on Corso Cavour, one of the main cobbled streets leading to the center and to Orvieto’s Duomo. After we settled in, we took a walk around the small town and then had an early dinner—one of the best yet, in a country where it’s difficult to find a bad meal. My pasta was homemade tagliatelle with a crema di tartufo sauce, a cream sauce generously flecked with black truffles—more than I’d ever had in a single dish, anywhere (even at great meals in our nearby CIA).

Orvieto’s Duomo emerged eerily out of a thick fog as we approached it the next morning: an enormous cathedral for this small town. Its design is similar to Siena’s, alternating black and white marble. And, like Siena’s Duomo, it’s considered one of Italy’s great examples of Romanesque-Gothic period. It has an elaborately carved façade; 14^th century frescoes; a very interesting, carved wooden altar; mosaic floors made from various colored marble forming intricate patterns, and inlay trompe l’oeil designs—at first glance they seemed to rise up from the floor, but look again and they seemed recessed.

The fog followed us through the hills to Todi which is, as far as we could see, yet another beautiful, medieval hill town with more churches and palazzos than residents. But we couldn’t see much. We didn’t explore the town because we could barely make out what was a feet in front of us. But to tell the truth, we found it easier to leave Todi without really seeing it because we thought we might very well return one day. That’s because one of Steve’s old friends keeps an apartment in Todi. And, since driving in the fog was difficult, even for Steve who is an exceptional driver, seasoned and relaxed, we also decided to forgo the third hill town, Spoleto. Anyway, we were out of superlatives. There are just so many ways to say wonderful!

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