Road to Rome - Orvietto

This morning we visited the beautiful medieval hilltop town of  Orvietto.  When we arrived we had to park the coach in a parking bay as there are no cars in Orvietto and then take a funicular ride up to the town and when we got off that we had to take a very small crowded local bus the rest of the way up the hill to the town.

We had a walk around town and a look at the magnificent Cathedral and then we walked to our restaurant where we were having a cooking demonstration.  The restaurant is called Zeppelin as the owner is a big fan of the band Led Zeppelin.

We arrived at the restaurant and we were shown to our tables and were given our first course which was some antipasto.  The chef/ owner came out and began to make the pasta.  11 eggs were added to the flour.  He said this would make pasta for eight people.  He made the pasta and kneaded and kneaded the dough.  Of course that needed to double in size over time so his staff  bought him some dough that had been proved and he began to roll that out and he rolled and rolled for a long time making the pasta bigger and bigger.  He used a giant rolling pin.  It looked like really hard work.  

Meantime we demolished the anti pasta and then we had two kinds of pizza one with a tomato sauce and one plain one with caraway seeds and that was very nice.  

Eventually the pasta was ready and he demonstrated cutting it which of course he did expertly and then he called for volunteers.   Three people got up and had a turn at cutting the pasta.  They each got given a bottle of wine for their efforts.  After that the pasta was cooked and served to us with a tomato sauce and then we were given some biscotti to have with our coffee.  We were all very full after that but it was a fun afternoon.