Final Hill Town: Orvieto

After a relatively brief train ride and one even shorter lay-over, I arrive in Orvieto. Rick warns me that when I get off the train, I will have to catch a funicular into town. My first thought is, “Funicular? What the heck is a funicular?” I’m imagining all sorts of crazy contraptions; from a George Jetson vacuum-elevator to one of those slow, aerial glass box rides (like they have at the fair). Either way, I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.

Turns out it’s like a trolley car on tracks, only the tracks are on a mega-steep hill, so we’re ascending at an angle. Apparently this is Orvieto’s solution to living on a hill. Ohhh. Okay. After the somewhat scenic ride up, I catch a mini-bus (short, electronic bus) to the main piazza and hit up the TI.

Next I’m aiming for a B&B that is supposedly affordable. As I walk in, a group of three other Americans walk in at the same time. While we are waiting for someone to answer the buzzer, they ask me if I’ve been to Orvieto before. They come here regularly (from France) just to eat at one, specific restaurant. Wow, must be good! They’re so excited about it, before I know it, one of them is calling the restaurant on his cell phone and handing the phone to me. Since I am on the spot (and not mentally prepared to use my Italian) I am a complete goober and not smooth at all (they were all just excitedly staring at me…it was kind of intimidating).

Nevertheless, I end up with a reservation for 7:30. Immediately my new friends are recommending dishes and telling me what to try (truffles, everything truffles). Soon they are inviting me to simply join their reservation at 9:30. I tell them I’ll swing by the restaurant and see if they can make it work. (In the mean time, a woman has come down to meet us and she has no singles available). So I say good-bye for now to my dinner pals and head off to find a hotel.

The next place has room for me and even though it’s 30 EU, I just take it. After I’m settled in, I orient myself in town a bit and find the internet café. It’s a huge, very inviting, funky café, so I decide to hang out for a while and bide my time before I head to the restaurant.

At 7:30 I walk into the restaurant (which was totally a Rick Steves recommendation, by the way) and have quite a difficult time trying to explain that even though I have a reservation for right now, I want to join another party at 9:30 (lots of gesturing and italanglish going on). Unfortunately, the dude is not getting the picture (which I can’t blame him; it’s a weird scenario and I’m not doing a very good job pantomiming). I’m about to scrap the whole thing when a guy named Joe walks in (whom the owner apparently knows quite well) and he translates for us. So that’s what you wanted, his face seems to say. But as it turns out, he can’t accommodate the request (one side of their table has an edge against the wall; thus, only three seats). Looks like I’ll be eating by myself then.

Despite not getting to eat with my new friends, I follow their recommendations and try the bruschette con tartufi. It’s my first taste of truffles and I have to say, I was pretty excited. The server brings over two medium sized, toasted, oval-ish pieces of bread. She then pours on heaps of olive oil, salts them liberally, and then grates large, fine piles of dark brown truffle onto each piece of bread (it kind of looked like chocolate flavored cheese grated on the finest grain of your basic tower-style cheese grater). All in all, they were pretty good. The oil-y, toasted bread part was faaaantastic and the truffles were interesting. I’m not sure I could put a name to their flavor, but they struck me as potent, yet non-particular. But I give it a solid thumbs-up. Definitely going to have to try them again (for further research, of course). For dinner I order pasta with carciofi (artichokes), vino rosso and of course, panna cotta (which came with dried blueberries – and those were not great), otherwise the meal was quite good.

After I’m done, I kick around for about an hour until it’s time for the other reservation. I figure I’ll still show up so I can tell them what happened and thanks anyway. I get there 5 minutes early, but after waiting for 15 minutes, I realize they must already be in the restaurant. At this point I’m so late (and I made such a scene earlier) that I’m too embarrassed to go in and find them. By now they know I’m not coming anyway, so I just go home. I feel pretty bad about it, but the restaurant was small and crowded and extremely busy and I’ve already made a fool of myself twice re: this restaurant and these people. That’s plenty for me. (in one day, anyway). I kick it back to the hotel so I can chill ‘til the next episode…