Cliff and man-made caves
Cliff and man-made caves The southern side of the Cliff, with the many man-made cavities that open onto the valley below, gives us a chance to see what is hidden inside the volcanic mass on which the city stands. Originally these caves did not communicate directly with the outside world but as time passed parts […]
Read morePorta Postierla, renamed Soliana or the Rocca
PORTA ROCCA To the early twentieth century traveler Olave Potter the entrance to Orvieto through Porta Maggiore was anything but cheerful, for the arch was gloomy and the road within dark and steep. Porta Rocca, located at the very tip of the tufa mass, almost seems suspended over the underlying valley through which the Paglia […]
Read moreThe Cave of the “Fossil Tree Trunks”
The Cave of the “Fossil Tree Trunks” The Cliff of Orvieto contains countless treasures and one of the most fascinating is the evidence of a far-distant past, way before man appeared on the scene. In some of the caves in the sides of the tufa cliff there are cylindrical cavities, some in a vertical position, […]
Read moreTHE NECROPOLIS OF CROCEFISSO DEL TUFO
The necropoli of the Etruscan city of Velzna were explored at various times in the course of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century and supplied us with fundamental evidence concerning the development, prosperity and decline of the Etruscan center. The necropolis of Crocefisso del Tufo, named after a rock-cut chapel close by, stretches out along the northern slopes […]
Read morechurch of S. Domenico
CHIESA DI S. DOMENICO= Everyone thinks the church of San Domenico was the first church founded by dominicans. It was built over an ancient pagan temple. It was built with three naves but only the apse and the transept remain. The rest of the body of the church was demolished in the first half of […]
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