Orvieto: the City on the Rock

The orvieto tour from civitavecchia follows the A1 motorway north for ninety minutes before the tufa mesa appears ahead — a volcanic platform rising abruptly from the surrounding valley with the city balanced on top of it and the striped marble of the Cathedral visible from five kilometres away. Orvieto has been important for three thousand years: as an Etruscan stronghold before Rome existed, as a papal refuge during the medieval power struggles, and today as one of the finest intact medieval cities in central Italy. The cobbled streets within the walls still follow the Etruscan street plan.

What the orvieto shore excursion civitavecchia offers is a city that functions at a human scale — you can walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes, which means you can also look upward. The Cathedral facade is one of the slowest things in Italy: a programme of mosaics, bas-reliefs and bronze doors begun in 1290 and not completed until the twentieth century, each era adding its layer. Inside, the Cappella di San Brizio contains Luca Signorelli's Last Judgement frescoes, which Michelangelo studied before painting the Sistine ceiling. Below the city, a labyrinth of Etruscan and medieval tunnels runs through the tufa. At lunch, the white wine of the region — Orvieto Classico, made from grapes grown on the volcanic slopes below the city — is the right thing to order.

Cathedral, underground city, Orvieto Classico

• The Cathedral — Italy's greatest Gothic facade

  Begun in 1290 and completed over six centuries, the Duomo di Orvieto combines gold mosaic, white marble, coloured stone and bronze sculpture into a facade that seems to generate its own light. The Cappella di San Brizio inside contains the Signorelli frescoes that Michelangelo acknowledged as a model for the Sistine Chapel.

• Underground Orvieto

  The city is built on a hollow tufa mesa — below the streets, two millennia of Etruscan cisterns, medieval wells, dovecotes and wartime shelters form a labyrinth that tour groups enter through marked doorways in the city centre. The underground tour takes about forty-five minutes and is unlike anything above ground.

• Orvieto Classico wine at source

  The DOC white wine of Orvieto — made principally from Grechetto and Trebbiano grapes grown on the volcanic tufa slopes — has been produced here since antiquity. A glass with lunch at a trattoria in the city is one of those simple pleasures that a shore excursion rarely allows time for. We allow time for it.