Orvieto

Orvieto is a town that sits in the sky.

It rises on a flat slab of volcanic rock straight out of the Umbrian plain, a medieval town you reach by funicular from the station below. At its heart is one of the greatest cathedrals in Italy, a striped Gothic front that stops you in the street. Beneath your feet runs a maze of Etruscan caves carved into the soft tufa. The streets are quiet, the wine is famous, and the whole place feels older and calmer than the century outside it.