Free Travel #3 (Part 3)

Monday was the last full day of the free travel period. We rose early and left the hotel shortly after 8:00 for Orvieto, about two hours south of Citerna. It's a hill town most famous for its cathedral and for being the birthplace of the Corpus Christi holiday. We parked in a garage and took escalators up to the town center. We spent about three hours in town seeing the cathedral and the surrounding area. We climbed to the top of a tower in the center of town and had a very nice view of the city and surrounding countryside.

From Orvieto we drove further south about 10-15 miles to a tiny hill town called Civita di Bagnoregio. It is probably the most dramatically situated town I've ever seen. In the off season the place is nearly deserted, and we had the little place almost entirely to ourselves, although we sat in a little eatery for awhile and let the proprietors coo over our children. It was a very good day all in all, a good one on which to end our free travels. We got back to Citerna about 6:00 p.m.

The students had been told to be back at the hotel by noon on Tuesday; this deadline had been extended from Monday evening to accommodate the train strike which was scheduled to end at 9:00 p.m. Monday. Almost all the students made it back on time, although a few had delayed trains and the like that kept them out until after lunch. The down side of the extended break was that we had to have classes in the afternoon Tuesday. Thus we entered the home stretch of lectures.