To the architectural and landscape marvels of the surface, kissed by the sun and surrounded by the greenery of the valley that hosts it, Orvieto combines a hidden treasure and, for a long time remained unknown, today known as Orvieto Sotterranea or Orvieto Underground.
The discovery is due to the commitment of some speleologists who first ventured into a real underground world that still does not cease to amaze anyone who enters them. Thanks to ancient and modern studies (the first censuses began since the nineteenth century), today it has been possible to survey as many as 1200 cavities of different nature, age and function that constitute the labyrinthine heart of the city.
From Piazza del Duomo a guided tour will allow visitors to explore the wonders of this parallel world, retracing the stages of history from the Etruscan city of Velzna, to the Urbs Vetus of the Middle Ages, to reach the cisterns, wells, even the remains of a Renaissance and modern mill. There are many “colombai”, small rectangular openings carved into the rock, generally in connection with the outside that allowed the breeding of pigeons. It will be possible to recognize the unmistakable Etruscan wells, jewels of hydraulic architecture with “pedarole”, made on the walls of the cavities to allow the ascent and descent into the wells. Intricate tunnels, will travel the city spaces for miles, showing the remains of cisterns, environments dedicated to the shelter of animals, fullonics for dyeing wool, even the remains of the urban aqueduct that was built in the Renaissance, connecting to the structures of the very famous Pozzi di S. Patrizio and della Cava, without forgetting the very ancient Grotta dei trochi fossili, which returned paleobotanical remains dating back to 320 thousand years ago, long before the arrival of men.
The private underground Museum, known as “Hadrian’s Labyrinth”, deserves a special mention. The definition of Labyrinth derives from the tortuous nature of the path that winds through about twenty tunnels, wells, cavities and cisterns that were discovered, in the Seventies, by Adriano and Rita, owners of the pastry shop that rises immediately above the museum. During the renovation works on the floor, the two pastry chefs made the unusual discovery and transformed the area into an archaeological site, which can be visited with a guide, who was recognized as a private museum.
In short, the nature of the Rupe, composed of tufa and pozzolana, allowed the uncontaminated spaces of the subsoil to be worked for three thousand years, creating a world that today constitutes the other side of the medal of a city that is already wonderful even on the surface.