Bolsena

Bolsena is a little ancient town going back to Etruscan times on the shore of the lake which bears its name. The lake is in an old caldera the result of a volcano blowing its top eons ago. It's a quiet, pleasant town with huge poplar trees lining the streets. It's not far from where  we're staying and we visited it Monday.

There's a castle at the top of the town which incorporated parts of the old Etruscan city wall.

That evening we picked up Geri at the train station and heard about her adventures in San Giovanni Rotundo.

Tuesday was also a fairly slow day. While Geri recuperated, we went to an old Etruscan amphitheatre about 15-20kms away and did some exploring. It's  out of the way and is not really promoted as a tourist site, but was very interesting to some extent because of this Since there were no tourists or other distractions, one was really able to get a feel for the place and experience its timeless ambience.

We went to the train station again in the evening to pick up Geri's friend, Ann. She had arrived in Venice that morning and taken the train down to Orvieto. Earlier in the day we finally met the owners of our apt.  as they returned from their travels. They live in the downstairs apt. Giulia is an Italian woman who went to England to study English and there met Malcolm. They're very friendly and nice and full of information about the area. They invited us down to a little get together with another British couple and we talked, drank some wine and ate some cake and tarts. Very pleasant. Malcolm, Kevin and I had great conversations involving our mutual interests in music, especially classic British and American rock-- Pink Floyd, Clapton, Allman Bros, etc.

Tomorrow we go to Rome.