Fiat 500s in Orvieto

The pre-rally rally

Since we'd been up late drinking, it was obviously a good choice to get up early Sunday morning to drive in cramped, smelly, noisy cars for hours. So that is what Jim, James, and I did! There was a raduno in Orvieto, which meant that we had to meet our little Todi group in a bar on the way to Orvieto so that we could drive together. After a lovely drive skirting the Lago di Corbara, we arrived in the main Piazza just outside the Duomo. Lots and lots of little cars were all together (they projected an attendance of 240 cars, and there are often more who show up at the last minute, myself included.

The way a rally works is that you pay an entrance fee for the car and driver (usually 15 euros) and an additional 5 euros for every passenger. What you get is the chance to drive with everyone else, looking adorable and having a grand time, a "gadget" (goodie bag), coffee and croissant for breakfast, and often entrance to a local sight/museum/point of interest or a guided presentation on the city. Since the biggest variable is the goodie bag, the reputation of the rally depends on what's in the bag! In this case, we had a bottle of water and box of pasta (pretty standard), some salami (a nice touch) and a bottle of local wine (definite winner, but humorous in the context of a driving event!). This goodie bag was a pretty good one, for sure.

The museum was really interesting, focusing on Etruscan artifacts and trade goods of the time. One of the things that stuck with me was the fact that the Etruscan temples often had a baked clay floor (permanent structure) with a wood or unfired brick superstructure (impermanent) including columns, a pediment with decorative fired clay or stone statues (again, permanent). The temple artifacts that were found, then, were the floor and scattered statues, without any of the walls or superstructures like the roof.

The exhibit also contained an Etruscan column that had been incorporated into the Roman temple that was then converted into early Christian church that eventually became the Duomo.

Another really interesting sight (apart from the palazzo itself, which was fantastic...really high ceilings, frescoed within an inch of its life, and great floor plan) were the Greek trade goods. They had the standard vessels that one would expect: red on black or black on red. But much to my surprise, many of these "classic" looking vessels had other colors included: white, green, gray, and more. I'd never seen the like, or at least not in my memory.

After a bit of waiting, we eventually had the merry cacophony of leaving cars...the rumble of engines and the cheerful honking of horns. A little drive through the town, then a leisurely drive in the country (punctuated by our getting lost once because the line wasn't well chaperoned), and home!

Love,

Alexandra