Intro:
Just a short journey north of Rome lies the enchanting little hill town of Orvieto. Close by is the stunning village of Civita de Bagnoregio. This is a delightful day trip to take from the exciting hustle and bustle of Rome.
Your tour begins when you are picked up from your hotel at 8am. You will return at approximately 4:30pm.

We will begin by taking a scenic two-hour drive to Orvieto, a town perched high atop a hill. Orvieto is situated above a volcanic plug, which is a volcanic landform created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano.
Upon arrival, we will visit the stunning cathedral in Orvieto, which was built in the fourteenth century. Pope Urban IV ordered the construction of the cathedral to provide a beautiful, holy place for the Corporal of Bolsena. The Corporal of Bolsena was a miracle that is said to have occurred in the town of Bolsena in 1263. The Corporal is the small cloth upon which the host and the chalice are placed during the Roman Catholic Eucharist. It was believed that this particular Corporal had drops of blood on it, thus substantiating the Roman Catholic belief that the bread and wine used in the observation of the Eucharist become the literal body and blood of Christ. The Corporal is still held in a reliquary in the center of the cathedral and brought out for various religious observances.
The cathedral’s façade contains many of the elements of design that were common to religious construction from the 14th to the 20th century. The cathedral’s construction was begun in 1290 and lasted for almost 300 years. During the course of that time, the design evolved from Romanesque to Gothic. Many significant works of art can be found in the cathedral, and a visit to the Chapel of the Madonna di San Brizio is a must-see. It contains frescoes begun by Fra Angelico and finished by Signorelli. The frescoes represent many events in Christianity including the Apocalypse, the Last Judgment. They begin with the Preaching of the Antichrist and continue to the Doomsday and the Resurrection of the Flesh.
After visiting the cathedral, if you wish you will have the opportunity to visit the Pozzo di San Patrizio (the well of St. Patrice). Orvieto’s main military weakness was a lack of water, so the Medici Pope Clement VII ordered the well to be dug in case of a military siege. Visitors can walk down the 248 steps to the bottom, although the only thing to see is the water at the bottom of the well.
Orvieto has several excellent restaurants where you will enjoy your lunch, and then you may want to take the opportunity to visit some of the several ceramic shops or sample the local wine only available in Orvieto. The excellent wines are mainly white wines made from a blend of mostly Grechetto and Trebbiano. The region has been producing wine since the middle ages, and today’s white Orvieto is dry, but a semi-sweet style, known as Orvieto Abboccato, and dolce (sweet), are also produced in small quantities.
After our visit to Orvieto, we will take a short 30-minute drive to Civita di Bagnoregio. Civita is a traffic-free community and views of it from across the valley are incredibly picturesque. Originally, Civita was connected to the bigger town of Bagnoregio, but eventually, the saddle that connected the two towns eroded and now a footbridge connects Civita and Bagnoregio. Civita was founded by the Etruscans on a hill of ‘tuff’. Tuff (from the Italian "tufo") is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption.
The town has very few residents due to the fact that one has to walk up a 500 yard footbridge to get into and out of the city. There are several delightful shops and some of the architecture spans several thousand years. The town was placed on the World Monuments Fund's 2006 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites, due to the threats it faces from erosion and unregulated tourism.
Please note that since Civita prohibits vehicles, visitors will have a 500 yard walk mostly uphill to get to the village. But the many tourists who visit Civita each year will say that the walk is well worth the experience.

Please note
Each addition person (up to six) is an additional 50 euros.
Fee to go down into the Pozzo di San Patrizio are 4.50 euros to be paid upon arrival.