Todi and Orvieto

Unsure how we’d do on the plane, we decided that we should take it easy on the first day. So, instead of driving straight to Tuscany, we stayed a night at a hill top town called Orvieto.

On route to Orvieto, we stopped by Todi, another hill top town. Here we had our first Italian meal. The linguini with black truffles was excellent. Unlike the ones we get in HK, you can actually see the truffles! I forgot to take a picture (jet lag mah) but I found one on the net and it looked exactly like the one we had.

Pasta with Black Truffles

Main square in Todi

The first of many lemon trees on this trip

The restaurant which we had pasta with black truffles, wonderful view

The first of many gelatos!

Orvieto was a very pleasant surprise for us. If not for the stopover, it won’t have appeared on our itinerary. As it turned out, I am glad we went. In fact, I would recommend it. It was a relatively large town with a compact historical town center. Good for a walk about in the evening. It has a really beautiful cathedral which glows upon the setting sun.

A view from Orvieto to the valley

Best of all, it turned out that the best restaurant on this trip was there. And I am glad we waited (nearly 2 hours) for it. As you know, Italians don’t eat early. The restaurant, Ristorante Il Gilio, didn’t start serving dinner till 8pm. Fighting jet lag and hunger, we hung around the square and had a drink (the Orvieto Classico was excellent) while the kids had a bite to eat first.

Before the trip, I bought an Italian phrase book and Tasha and I have been trying to learn some useful phrases. As Italian seems to be easier to learn, compared to say French, Tasha was really interested. So, while waiting for dinner, she decided to test it out by asking where the toilet is. We approached the waiter and she said “Dove la toilette?”. The waiter looked at us and then replied in Italian. Huh? Er...o..k, we said “Si” and went inside. No idea what he just said but from his hand gestures, we figured he meant go straight in and turn right! It was a good laugh though.

Waiting impatiently for our food

At precisely 1 second past 8pm, we were there, seated and ready to eat. The kids had spaghetti al pomodoro (spaghetti in tomato sauce). We shared an aubergine mousse, a ravioli stuffed with potatoes and grilled lamb chops. They were ALL heavenly! Although Tasha fell asleep straight after her spaghetti, she said that that was the best one she had on the trip. She gave it a 5-star rating.

p/s the link to the full collection of the trip photos will be up later.