+ +:+ +:+:+ +:+ + ITALIA UMBRIA ORVIETO And Orvieto underground An ancient city beneath the present city. Orvieto is a city perched on a majestic plateau made mostly of tuff, a friable magmatic rock that is easy to work with. Orvieto is a collection of tunnels, man-made cavities and working environments found beneath the city of Orvieto, Umbria. Etruscan, Medieval and Renaissance eras: water network (wells, cisterns, tunnels, silos), pozzolan and tuff extraction cavities, working environments. In the late 1970s, a sudden landslide caused a major fracture in the Orvieto cliff, just a few meters from the cathedral, and sparked the rediscovery by some speleologists, who decided to enter the ravines they were studying from the outside. To their amazement they discovered an entire underground city, full of rooms connected by tunnels and galleries lit by small windows, wells, columbaria, cisterns and even an oil mill. The first to excavate this underground city were the Etruscans, when Orvieto was still called Velzna, a city that had achieved total independence in terms of water supply, thanks precisely to the wells they dug and the cisterns for collecting rainwater. Backed by excellent organization, the Etruscan people managed to withstand a siege by Roman battalions that lasted a full 24 months. + +:+ +:+:+ PAESAGGI PAISAJES PAISAGENS PAYSAGES LANDSCAPES LANDSCHAFTEN +:+:+ +:+ + Walking through the tunnels of underground Orvieto, one has the feeling of being time traveling, in a suspended dimension, looking around, as if anything could have happened. The mere fact that this underground city was completely forgotten is magic in itself. It is a labyrinth with as many as 1,200 nooks and crannies (which cannot be fully visited and are open to the public), including tunnels and caves, for thrills galore, from the beginning to the end of the tour. The guided tour begins in Piazza del Duomo (just a 30 - minute drive from Borgo Giorgione) and winds its way through pigeon