There you are, suspended between the clouds, drifting still and weightless in the first light of dawn. We face each other across a deep valley — yet at this hour it disappears, swallowed by a pale sea of morning mist. You hang there as if by magic, between sky and earth, a spell that makes you precious and singular in the eyes of those who know how to receive these moments of pure wonder.

Orvieto, ship suspended in the air, where the spires of the cathedral pierce the clouds and the clock tower stands watch over you. The tolling of the bells marks the hours and carries across the valley below. You remain there, moored to invisible anchors — still, unyielding, a fixed point that defies the wind and the weather. Nothing unsettles you, nothing frightens you. The tufa on which you rest holds you firm, gives you stability, wraps itself around you like an embrace, defying centuries of erosion.

Slow town — unhurried, wise city that asks nothing of you, that makes every visitor feel as though they have stepped outside of space and time. A city of great ancient gates, tall and imposing, that loves to live in peace yet has known how, through the centuries, to stand firm against every assault. A fortified city of a thousand secret passages that catapult you into a parallel underground world — fascinating, far-sighted and industrious, a place where nothing is left to chance and being caught off guard is simply not permitted. A city of boundless resourcefulness, where in times of siege, St Patrick’s Well — a masterwork without equal — stood ready to supply water to its people and ensure their survival. Orvieto: shrewd, quietly knowing, mysterious, gently ironic, or gathered in prayer in the many churches that enrich you. History was made in the shadow of your bell towers — through the labour, the ingenuity, the toil and sacrifice of your people. Craftsmen of extraordinary skill gave you your beauty: stonemasons, blacksmiths, sculptors, painters, architects and engineers, each leaving their indelible mark upon you.

Out beyond, the countryside spreads at your feet like a carpet. The rows of your generous vineyards adorning and defining you, a thousand shades of green — for green, in this Umbrian land, is a mark of identity and distinction, a treasure to be safeguarded. The gentle rise and fall of your hills, dotted with olive trees, full and prized, and the slender cypresses climbing along the edges of paths and pale stony tracks. Your ancient Roman cobblestones, tracing the path of the Via Francigena, along which travellers through the centuries have stopped in astonishment at the sight of you appearing before them in all your splendour. Precious paths waiting to be rediscovered and walked again on foot — paths that connect us to nature and to history, the true added value of this vibrant, edge-of-the-world territory that deserves to be protected and shared.

Orvieto — to drink, to eat, to savour, to contemplate, to wander through, to listen to. Simply to love.