A City on a Hill...

Rick Steves and other travel experts tell me that Rome has six or seven major hills. I feel like there has got to be more than seven large hills, but who's counting? I guess it's like the "Seven Sisters" of continual serpentine curves along Harford Road. Today we had quite an adventure in the small hill town of Orvieto. Before that, I will provide a brief update on an event we did last (Thursday) night. We walked the streets of Rome at night, and it is almost a totally different city. Powerful, but less busy and we moved at a slower pace, which was nice to see things anew. Okay, my words won't suffice, so I'll stop talking now:

I try not to live through my camera lens, so I could have taken many more pictures of last night. And I have to admit, I'm what you would call a novice when it comes to taking pictures. Or if you're a gamer, then you can call meed a NOOB. Whatever you choose to call a "beginner," that's me. What I see doesn't always match what I shoot on the camera. I've also found that the adept artists in our group can actually make pictures look better than how I see them with my own two eyes. Sounds weird, but it's true. 

Anyway, Orvieto. We got there are like 8:45, and because it's in the hill country, most of the town in the early morning was covered in fog that cleared around 10. When the veil of fog lifted, we were treated to a serene and quaint town with plenty of small-town shops and historic sites. Take a look at some of my favorites scenes, then I'll get to some of our exciting adventures... 

Josh's best turtle impression - very convincing...

Overlooking the town from a central tower

The huge Duomo in the afternoon

 Mid-way up St. Patrick's Well...Dark Knight Rises anyone?

 Clothes hanging in the street, up close and personal

Loved seeing this lab patrolling his wall as we passed

Walking on "La Rupe" around the entire town

There is also a network of underground caves, 1200 to be exact, throughout the town that are used for wine storage, but none of those pictuers turned out really. All in all, we probably walked at least 10 miles today, no joke. From 9 am to basically 7:30 pm we were on our feet every minute except for a meal and to sit briefly between the sites. I have to hand it to the group - we all held up well through all the hills and tiring stretches and some unexpected turn of events. About that. Well in the morning, we were planning on doing a wine tour and tasting just outside of the town, but we needed to take a taxi there. We called and had reservations for 10am. By 10:30 we called and supposedly the taxi could not do it anymore and there was some sort of mix up with the times. Or they were just on "Italian time," which is not as slow as "Island time," but more leisurely than America so it seems. 

So whatever, we couldn't do the tour, but we had an all access pass to all the great sites in town so we're set right? Right. Except when you go to dinner at a nice place, find our that it's 22 euro for bread for the table, and you cannot get back to the train station!! :-O The trolley that would take us down an incline, and I mean a straight drop-off, from town to the train station was closed, and we thought all buses had stopped running. We see a road and begin to follow it, but we quickly ditch that idea. We try calling taxi numbers that were listed in the information station, but the cab drivers sounded like they just woke up and said they were somehow not in Orvieto...weird and incredibly inconvenient. We're crunched for time. Our train leaves at 9:27 and we've spent that past 40 minutes anxiously running around looking and thinking. At 9:10, a bus arrives and proceeds to blow right on by us and honk. Great. See ya later. After another 5 anxious minutes, the bus driver returns! He gladly opens the door at 9:21 and Josh says, "train, fast, rapido" (I don't think that's Italian, but whatever). Easily the most memorable bus ride in my life thus far. We're zooming, I mean flying at 60 mph down this winding hill, passing cars on a solid yellow line around curves. This guy meant business. We made it to the train station by 9:25, and we tried to tip him extravagantly, but he refused and said it was naturally his service. That was beautiful and a miraculously timed out by God. 

We panicked, but He pulled through. Maybe the bus service always was running down to the train, but we didn't know that. He did. And he provided for us. His weakness is stronger than Man's strength. I have been reading 1 Samuel recently, and I love this scene in 1 Samuel 5:2-4: "² Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon. ³ When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord! They took Dagon and put him back in his place. ⁴ But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord!" All other gods pale in comparison to our one true God. The rest of the Earth can not help but fall before Him and worship the Almighty.