Pozzo della Cava Admission Ticket

Visit: Pozzo della Cava, Via della Cava 28, 05018, Orvieto Italy

A visit to underground Orvieto cannot exclude the exploration of the suggestive path of the Pozzo della Cava that, in the heart of the Medieval district, will carry you down into the cliff through an array of caves rich in archaeological findings. You will go through all the ages that made the history of Orvieto and, by visiting some of the caves, you will learn the extent to which the life of Orvieto's inhabitants included feverish activities carried out in the underground city. From Etruscan times to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the modern Slow-City, this unusual walk will allow you to discover interesting evidence spanning over centuries and centuries of daily life. Along the tunnels of this structure, going from one evocative spot to another, you will come across a follone for wool processing in the Middle Ages; an Etruscan tunnel for channelling water; an Etruscan tank in opus signinum; two Medieval pits, one flask-shaped the other vertical, the two varieties that are known so far; a typical Medieval cellar completely dug out of the tufa rock for the production and storage of Orvieto's famous wine; a tufa rock pillar, part of the foundations of a Medieval tower; a kiln used as a ceramic workshop in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with remains of the baking oven dug out of the tufa rock from Orvieto's cliff; kiln waste, majolica fragments, sixteenth century lusterware to confirm the continuous activities of ceramists in Orvieto and, particularly interesting, some work tools; the remains of the lower chamber of a muffola-shaped kiln, that was used to produce lusterware, valuable Renaissance ceramic items famous for their iridescent colours and beautiful reflections, that allow us to place Orvieto with Gubbio, Gualdo Tadino and Deruta as far as this particular production is concerned; a large quarry that gave the tufa rock used to build the great wall that supports the road above it (Via Malabranca) in the nineteenth century. Of course, you will also admire the actual Pozzo della Cava, identified outside by a small modern stone tip located underneath the entrance arch to the underground complex where the original well head used to be.