(Part 1 is here.) (Part 2 is here.)

Orvieto is also home to a beautiful cathedral. The inside is as plain as the outside is ornate. There are carvings on the outside, depicting various religious events. My favorite was a carving of where bad people go when they die; I call it, "Fun in Hell".

Inside the cathedral is an alter cloth with another legend attached to it. Allegedly, a priest was saying mass when he momentarily doubted that the wine he had just consecrated had been turned into the Blood of Christ – at which point the wine turned to blood stained the alter cloth.

There are a few different versions of this story out there, including one where the consecrated host began to bleed. Some say that only flecks of blood from the host fell on the cloth. Some theologians have explained this away as a red fungus that grows on unleavened bread.

Whatever the truth to the legend, I first heard it in a seminary in Indiana in 1967. That particular version had the blood boiling over and spilling all over the place while the doubting priest kept saying the Act of Contrition. I used to wonder what I would have done if I had been an alter boy at that mass.

The story again illustrates how legend and history go hand-in-hand in Italy. So, for instance, we have Francis of Assisi, the town we toured after Orvieto. Francis was a Renaissance man, who was the son of a rich merchant. In between bouts of being a playboy, he intermittently served in various armies when Italy’s city-states – not to mention the Vatican - were rivals for art, territory, and politics. Eventually, Francis was struck by the futility of owning material things and left it all behind to live his life for God and his fellow human beings.

He took a vow of poverty, gave away all his earthly possessions, and lived in cave for a while. He garnered a following and went on to advise the Pope. Legend says that he received Stigmata – the wounds of Christ – as a reward for his piety. Birds would flock to him, and on his deathbed he thanked his donkey for serving him so loyally – and that the donkey cried when he passed on.

In Assisi, we skipped the tour of the local churches of St. Francis and of St. Claire, and went to lunch in a small café. The food was outstanding, as usual. (It seems to be a point of national pride in Italy that no bad food is ever served.) A delicious standout was a mixture of chopped truffles and other mushrooms in olive oil that one spread on freshly baked bread.

After lunch, we strolled through the town back to our bus. The streets in Assisi either go up or down from the city square. The town itself overlooks a valley. Along the narrow streets are souvenir shops featuring crucifixes, statues of St. Francis preaching to forest creatures, statues of St. Claire praying, soccer jerseys, Assisi sweatshirts, and postcards featuring views of the town and its patron saints.

The bus ride home was another two hours, and we arrived back our hotel after dark. After resting up and a late dinner, my wife and I and Jim and Carrie decided to check out a music club around the corner. The wives were finishing a conversation on the sidewalk, while Fred and I went downstairs into the basement, bought some beers, and sat to listen to the live music. Our wives came in a few minutes later and sat at another table. We tried to pick them up, but they were having none of it – although they allowed us to buy them drinks. Women.

The band was very good. They were called the “Sonic Quartet” (although there were actually five of them), and they sang early sixties American rock and roll music. The lead singer was a cross between Elvis Presley and Soupy Sales, but the crowd loved them. A young woman informed my wife that they were very popular in Rome and we were lucky to have caught them, as they rarely played this club anymore.

Besides the lead singer, there was a lead guitarist, bass player, organist, and – shoved into an alcove – the drummer. They, plus a crowd of about eighty or ninety – partied in two small rooms with a connecting bar that went through the wall separating them. The band sang some Chuck Berry. They sang some Italian pop. They did that old Del Shannon chestnut, “Runaway”, with crowd joining in on the chorus in a high falsetto, “I wah-wah-wah-wah-uh-under. Why. Wha-wah-wah-why. She ran away.” Romans love to have fun. It was a cheerful, good-natured crowd that streamed out at closing time.

Next morning was Saturday. After breakfast, we three couples strolled up the Via Crescenzi, past fashion shops towards the Spanish Steps. We browsed for a while in a Ferrari store, which sold Ferrari models, Ferrari racing jackets, Ferrari time pieces, Ferrari alarm clocks – everything but the cars themselves, although there was a full-scale model of a Ferrari racer in the front window.

Eventually, we made our way to the Spanish Steps, where tourists and Romans milled about in the cold sunshine. At the top, we had another spectacular view of Rome, and - beyond it - the surrounding hillsides, all topped by delicate clouds etched into the ivory sky. From there, we made our way to the Trevi Fountain, where we, of course, threw three coins into it, like all the other tourists. The money is collected daily and goes to support Rome’s homeless population.

It started to pour and Rome got even prettier; the rain turned the cobblestones in the streets into black pearls. We ducked into a café and ordered cappuccino to wait out the storm. After half an hour, it let up enough for us to catch a public bus and then a subway to the Circus Maximus, where we waited for a bus to the Catacombs. Many of the bus stops in Rome have the entire Route of each bus on signs; Jim was able to figure out which bus – and which direction – we needed to take.

The Catacombs are located about five miles outside Rome, to the south. The entrance is located in a beautiful grove of trees located in what appears to be some sort of orchard. Tours begin the afternoon, and tour groups are divided by language; English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish. No picture taking allowed – this is a cemetery, after all. Tours go down three levels for a look at a small part of what is an extensive labyrinth of tunnels and graves dating back two thousand years.

Originally a Jewish burial place, the Catacombs were later used – and extended –by the early persecuted Christians, who conducted masses there and buried their dead. The first sixteen popes were originally buried there. Our guide led us through tunnels and past crudely dug family mausoleums. We were shown the mummified body of a young woman still in her crypt; parchment skin stretched across bones, burial wrapping, and strands of her hair.

After the tour, we caught a bus back to Circus Maximus. We had seen basilicas, cathedrals, catacombs, and chapels; my wife and I now wanted equal time to see Rome’s synagogue. So, we walked along the Tiber until we came to it; it is now the Jewish Museum of Rome, adjacent to the old Jewish Ghetto. Our timing was off; it was Saturday afternoon – the Sabbath - and everything was closed.

It was a sunny afternoon and we strolled along the via on the eastern bank of the Tiber. Parked European compact cars were strung like beads along the curb; some of the boxy smart cars were actually parked sideways. A mile up, we got a closer look at a phenomenon we had noticed from a distance from the top of the Castel Sant’Angelo on our first afternoon in Rome.

It was a flock of thousands of starlings, swooping and diving like a pixilated tornado against the gray Italian sky. Gliding on whirlpools of air, the flock divided into two - and then four - whirling strands of birds. The strands mutated and twisted, intermingling with each other. They came together and then split in other directions, oscillating in a haphazard elegance.

The Saturday afternoon Via Gregorio VII traffic rushed across the bridge below, indifferent to the aerial ballet taking place above the Tiber. Amazingly, as the cars sped away on their own paths, magically avoiding colliding with each other, so did the starlings. Guided by instinct or some intuitive radar, the birds rippled and rolled, as graceful as smoke. Our trip to Rome was unofficially over then; it was an exquisite way for a city to say goodbye.

(Higher quality version on YouTube.)