Italian Adventures – We Bought a House in Italy!

May 2026

This May, I happened to be in Italy for quite a few spring festivals, one being Orvieto in Fiori. There is a huge event on Sunday, which I have happened upon several times in years past, but didn’t realize it’s the culmination of a several day festival celebrating the coming of spring. I saved a screenshot of the 5 day schedule for reference.

Orvieto Centro is a hilltop town about an hour & half north of Rome. It has much of the charm of Siena but on a much smaller scale. It is also well known for its Etruscan heritage.

Orvieto’s rich Etruscan history dates back to the 9th century BC, when it was known as Velzna. Perched atop an impregnable 300-meter-high volcanic tufa cliff, the city was a major Etruscan stronghold, celebrated for its advanced engineering, rich agricultural trade, and strategic importance. The Etruscans were master urban planners and engineers who established Velzna as one of the twelve pivotal city-states in the Etruscan League.

If you go for a visit, I recommend booking an overnight so you can enjoy the town once all of the daily tour groups have left. I highly recommend taking the underground tour, it’s filled with fascinating histsory. To survive sieges, the Etruscans carved over 1,200 deep wells, tunnels, and cisterns into the soft volcanic rock to access the water table. When Rome was under attack, the Pope and his peeps escaped to Orvieto and lived in the underground tunnels.

This is a photo of one area underground where the pigeons would roost and lay eggs, which helped keep the Pope and team alive. Orvieto is famous for its pigeons – you will find them on all of the traditional menus.

Anyway, back to the festival. My plan was to go Sunday morning, enjoy the flowers and market in Piazza della Repubblica, then wander through town making my way to Piazza del Duomo to find a table to watch the festivities. Here are some pictures from the market in the square.

While wandering a parade of locals in costume came through the market area.

Here are a few more market pics…

Time to head over to the Duomo and find a seat.

Unfortunately this year all of the tables at the restaurants in the square were reserved. This was a first! So much for enjoying some food and prosecco while I waited. I was starving so I hopped into my trusty local bar and grabbed a snack to tide me over. Then I found a great spot on the Duomo steps to people watch.

People watching is the BEST!

The town band arrived, playing as they marched through town and a few more once they reached the Piazza. Then the parade of locals came in through the crowd.

If you look closely at the structure in front of the Duomo, you will see a wire that runs up and away from the Duomo leading the belltower of the church about a block up into town. The Bishops bless the ceremony, then join the officials up in the balcony. The trumpets blast and the crowd rustles with anticipation. Then, suddenly, there is a loud blast and two doves in a metal cage zoom down from the belltower to the Duomo structure and the crowd cheers! There are fireworks and lots of smoke.

I grabbed some pics from the event off of Facebook, as I was at the wrong angle on the stairs to capture this part of the ceremony.

Here’s a video of the anticipation building and then the doves come streaming down the wire. Such a spectacle!

Here are a few more pictures grabbed off of the Orvieto Facebook page.

The firefighters climb up on a ladder to retrieve the doves in their decorated cage. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes not. This year, the firefighter had to climb out and grab the cage as it was about a foot away from the structure. Then some official men carry the structure up to the organizers and bishops on the balcony.

At this point I was really hungry and wanted to get ahead of the crowd so I headed back towards Piazza della Repubblica and down to a restuarant I like for some lunch before heading home. Overall, it was a great day!