Orvieto’s city card

Orvieto in winter

We first got turned on to city cards when we visited Amsterdam a few years ago. It was a 48 hour card and we raced through the city to see as much as we could. The Orvieto city card is a bit different, it costs €20 and you have almost a full year to use it.

We picked up our cards at the tourist office across from the Duomo and off we went to explore this great little city. Winter and mid week in Italy meant finding ourselves alone in many of these attractions.

Here are a few highlights:

The Museum of Orvieto’s Opera del Duomo: A museum in four venues, three are located near the Duomo and one in the medieval district. Our favourites were the Palazzi Papali hosting 14th and 15th century frescoes and the exhibit at the Church of Saint Augustin.
The large marble statues of apostles and saints were impressive but what caught our eye was the depiction of the Annunciation by Francesco Mochi at the back of the church. We were amazed at its beauty and the fluidity of the marble, made to look like flowing fabric.

Torre del Moro: We always enjoy climbing the local tower to get a good view on the town below. Orvieto did not disappoint, with its majestic Duomo and views of rolling hills in the distance.

Orvieto Underground: This is a definite must when visiting the city as long as you can get over your fear of small spaces. The underground network of 1200 caves is intriguing and mysterious. You will learn about its history from Etruscan times to WWII and present day.

Pozzo di San Patrizio: If you visit Saint Patrick’s Well make sure to get the audio guide, it’ll be the best €1 you ever spent. From the outside, the building doesn’t look like anything interesting. You would probably drive by without even noticing, were it on the side of the road. Inside you will first notice the light, let in by 72 large windows. Two one-way staircases are built in a helicoidal shape, the reasoning was that pack animals carrying water could go down and up the 248 steps without being disturbed.

Etruscan Necropolis “Crocifisso del Tufo”: You can’t visit Orvieto without learning about its Etruscan history and of course a walk through the Etruscan Necropolis goes hand in hand with learning about this ancient civilization. The necropolis dates back to the sixth century BC. You can walk through the “streets” with the tombs lined up and covered in moss. Some of the tombs are empty and accessible, with a bit of imagination you can picture how the burial ceremony may have happened.

Duomo & Chapel of San Brizio: Our initiation to Orvieto was walking into an empty Duomo and spending most of our time there in the Chapel of San Brizio. In the summer, time in the chapel is limited to 15 minutes. You could easily spend a day and not see all the intricacies of the stunning frescoes.

Pozzo della Cava: This well advertised one of the best nativity scenes in the city. Considering they put out a map with over a dozen nativity scenes, we were excited to check this one out. As you know, sometimes when you have high expectations, you feel disappointment when those expectations aren’t met. This was one of those times. We were greeted by dusty animatronics with creepy expressions that still haunt our dreams; and were so distracted by them that we barely read any of the informative signs. The moral of the story, go in with no expectations.

 

Some of the other attractions included with the City Card are:

Faina Archaeological Museum and the Civic
Museo d’Arte Moderna Emilio Greco
A return ticket for the funicular and local minibus.

Have you ever used a city card? Do you think they are worth the money?

Disclosure: InOrvieto were kind enough to give us two city cards to allow us to discover their city. The opinions in this post are our own.