The morning was beautifully sunny so we decided to go on a hike of the Anello della Rupe, a ring trail around the whole town.  By the time we were ready to leave, a fog had rolled in but I was right to think it would burn off quickly.

We walked east on Corso Cavour to Piazza Cahen where the finicular starts.  Walking through this “gate”, we explored around, looking for a sign about the trail.

Finally, after much discussion, thorough perusal of the city map, and a discssion with google, we chose one.  It was a narrow, paved road, going down as the little write-up said it would. Then through another really ancient gate, where the fog was sitting on the valley below. It was a very cool sight, and portended a very exciting hike.

  So, we kept descending sometimes steeply until we finally realized we were NOT on the right trail at all, but on a path that was simply the access road to the houses we were occasionally passing. We resigned ourselves to turning around.  Going back up, it was all uphill. There was a lot of huffing an puffing, but we really are in decent shape.  We stopped for a break at this spot. See how green everything is?

Back to the top, I checked the sign again and still couldn’t make out which way we should have gone.  So, we walked around some more finding these Etruscan Temple ruins, Tempio del Belvedere.

Neither one of us was too terribly disappointed, like Ken said, steps are steps and we had some really great views.  So we walked back home.

I had a really nice nap and slept through a lot of rain, which continued through the afternoon.  We were planning to go to the Orvieto Underground but didn’t, with the rain.  We stayed in and watched Homeland instead.

The rain stopped and we went out for dinner to Antica Bottega al Duomo, our friend Ernie’s suggestion.  We told the chef/owner, Pipo, that we were Ernie’s friends and he was very pleased to have us there. The place is fun with a butcher counter in front and 1950’s Italian pop music (including the Chipmunks!) playing, not quite in the background.  Pipo told me to have the polenta with mushrooms, sausage and tomaotes, so I did.  Ken had pappardelle with boar.  And we shared a beautiful grilled vegetable plate.  The house red wine carafe and wine glasses were terracotta, very un-fancy. They had just decorated for Chrstmas:

The food was good and hearty.  We had a really good time.

Walking home, we stopped at the duomo to see it at night.  Amazing to be the only ones in the piazza in front of that glorious church.