They don’t let you into the Orvieto Underground alone because it’s too vast and dangerous. The… I keep wanting to say 𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 because it does feel separated from the valley around it, the 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘭 has some 1,200 caves and tunnels (that they know of) dug into the tuff stone, the majority are private property meaning they are under someone's house. If you have one you can use it however you like, for storage or put furniture down there, whatever, but you can not add to it (ie. you can’t plaster the walls or cover them) and you can’t dig further. ⁣
⁣
And I say dangerous because there are many wells that drop 30m (90ft). I leaned over one to take a picture but became too frightened that I would somehow drop my phone or accidentally jump right in. ⁣
⁣
30m is not the real bottom, because when the Romans finally succeeded in taking the town from the Etruscans the first thing they did was shovel dirt into the wells, rendering them unusable. ⁣
⁣
It’s easy to admire the Romans when you are in a place like Rome and see all the glittering buildings they’d made but when you come to a place that was on the receiving end of that power it’s easy to fear them too. ⁣
⁣
It was the Etruscans who dug these tunnels and wells. And these dovecotes. I’ve seen isolated pictures of these dovecote walls in various travel books and Stanely Tucci’s show as well but they always just show you one wall and move on. I wasn’t prepared for room after room of these. When you see how many were just in this one cave/tunnel that is open to the public you can see how these pigeons could feed a whole population. ⁣
⁣
It’s important to remember that when a town like Orvieto was under siege it wasn’t a week or a month, it would last years. Armies in those days found the most efficient way to take a citadel or a walled city was to starve the inhabitants until whoever was left gave up. ⁣So by raising pigeons with these thousands of dovecotes you could feast on pigeon for as long as you need to, and that’s not a bad way to feast!
 ⁣
I was on the English speaking tour, which meant I was on the American tour. And someone blurted out “That must've been a lot of shit, hey lady what did you guys do with all the shit?” Unruffled she told them it was used as fertilizer. I asked her what her favorite restaurants in town for pigeon are and she told me two. ⁣Trattoria la Palomba being her first pick.