Day 23 (4/27) Last day in Umbria

It was a gorgeous spring day – warm, sunny, perfect blue sky, bright green hills and meadows covered with colorful flowers. We started out by going to Gubbio to see it again in the sun. From there we took a beautiful drive from Scheggia through a mountainous country road to a little town called Sassoferrato. The road was between two mountains – sort of in a canyon. It hugged the side of the mountain and was full of serpentines and at times just wide enough for one car. The views were spectacular. The town itself was bigger than we expected with about 8 churches and five or six palazzettos. Unfortunately all the churches were closed since we got there at siesta time, and the town was pretty much dead. There were some old people sitting in plastic chairs in front of their houses enjoying the warm sun. Now, it’s time to pack. We have to start driving to Rome around 5 am so everything has to be ready tonight.

Day 22 (4/26) Spoleto

Sunny, blue sky, no clouds. We set out to Spoleto. There is not much to say about Spoleto that hasn’t been said about other cities. Old (240BC), built on a hill with a historical past and very picturesque. Oh, it did have a very long escalator to take you to the fortress at the top. Actually it was about 10 separate long escalators. From the fortress, we walked down through the city stopping at various shops along the way. Surprisingly, prices in Spoleto were much higher than in Sienna. We had gelato and coffee in the piazza at the bottom and then stopped at a beautiful Romanesque basilica of San Salvatore just outside of city walls. Next to the basilica was the town cemetery with magnificent graves of local counts and countesses. There were bouquets of fresh flowers on many of the graves. On the way back we stopped in Fossato bccause Reni and Lucy hadn’t seen it, walked through the sleepy town and had coffee in the only open establishment (a bar) where men were starting to gather for theit afternoon activities (cards and drinks). Then we had our farewell dinner before the girls’ trip back home ….

Day 21 (4/25) Sunny Urbino

Today we visited Urbino. The drive from Sigillo took about an hour-- north mostly on via Flaminia. Urbino is an interesting city. It’s greatest prominence was during Renaissance when artists such as a Raphael, Piero della Francesca and many others lived and worked there. Then it flourished again at the beginning of the 18th century when many civil and religious buildings were built by wealthy aristocratic families. The historical center of the city is spectacular and it is a UNESCO heritage site. In the brochures it is also called “world capital of utopia”. When we got there, a band was playing in one of the main piazzas and hundreds of young people were gathered there. The place was jumping. It turned out that today is a holiday, an anniversary of liberation from fascism and hence the celebrations. We walked around stepping into many historical buildings – Palazzo Ducale, the cathedral and a bunch of other churches, Raphael’s house, and a very interesting small Museum della Citta. There is a big university in this small town of about 15,000 so you see mostly young people in the streets and many of the historical buildings belong to the university. When we got hungry, we decided to have pizza for lunch. To our great surprise, the restaurants were overflowing and it was hard to get a table. Even more surprising was the fact that they all said that they didn’t serve pizza for lunch, only in the evening. Finally we came across a pizzeria which was packed with students eating great looking pizzas. We ordered a pizza gigante for all four of us. It was huge but we managed to gobble it all up. To burn the calories, we walked to the monastery of Santa Chiara. Then Lucy and Bo continued on to the highest point in town Fortezza Albornoz with a beautiful view down on the old town while Al and Reni had coffee in the piazza.

Day 20 (4/24) Caught in the rain

Today was a market day in Gubbio so we got up early to make it to the market. At 8 am the sun was shining, but when Al went down to the car, the neighbor told him that in an hour the weather will change. We didn’t believe it, but he was right on the money. On the way to Gubbio it started pouring and hasn’t stopped yet. The market was a disappointment. We expected local produce and products, but it turned out to be mostly Chinese junk at prices not any lower than in stores. There were just a few fruit and vegetable stands, but we managed to buy some fresh asparagus and sweet peppers from a young Polish man who told us that he had been living in Umbria for 10 years. We tried to walk in the rain, escaped for a while into the museum in Palazzo del Consoli, then into a café and then spent some time at the post office where Lucy was mailing her post cards, all the time hoping that the rain would stop. In vain. It kept coming down in buckets. Finally we gave up and went back home, opened a bottle of wine and eased into a rainy lazy afternoon.

Day 18 and 19 (4/22 and 23) Tuscany

We set out in the morning to go to Tuscany to visit our friends Phil and Sybill. The first stop was Siena. It is a very old city which rivaled Florence for prominence 800 years ago. It is a beautiful city with a famously beautiful Piazza di Campo and a very impressive cathedral. Also impressive was all the stores which were open on Sunday and did not close for 3 hours in the middle of the day. Bo was in heaven shopping for all the pretty Italian designs. From there we went to San Gimignano. A completely walled city with 7 big towers. Back then wealthy families competed as to who could build the most towers. We knew that San Giminiano was very popular with tourists, but we didn’t expect it to be so crowded in April. We called Phil who agreed to meet us at an intersection in a town near his place. With a little difficulty we met him and started following him along narrow deserted roads. He then led us down a very hilly dirt road for half a mile to his place. The house is beautifully situated in a very remote place surrounded by vineyards with views of hills, vineyards and meadows. The only sounds you hear are occasional birds. After cocktails and conversation we set out to see the closest little town of Montespertoli and a nearby castle called Montegufoni, which has been converted to a hotel. Phil asked the nice receptionist if she spoke English. She replied “no”, only Italian and Polish. Bo and she spoke for quite a while then she called her husband (also Polish) to give us an extensive tour. One suite was 5 or 6 bedrooms with 3 or 4 bathrooms (all immense) with painted ceilings like in the cathedrals. Wow. From there we went to a 4 star restaurant in a converted farm house, also in the middle of nowhere. If you did not know about it, you would never find it. Next morning we had breakfast on a terrace overlooking the vineyards and a nice walk along a country road, and then we set out on the way back. We stopped in a little walled-in town called Bertolino and then again, quite by coincidence, in a big outlet village with about 100 stores before Perugia. When we got home we were treated to a lovely meal home cooked by Lucy and Reni.

Day 17 (4/21) a little bit further from Sigillo

After breakfast (around 11 am as usual), the four of us embarked on another adventure. Lucy decided (after a thorough reading of a brochure about Umbria) that we should visit Foligno and Bo added Montefalco and Bevagna to the itinerary. In Foligno, which is quite a substantial city, we walk the mail street Corso Cavour and Lucy stopped by each Palazzo (and there were many) and read to us the history and description. At the main piazza we saw the catedrale and Palazzo Trenci, which is now a museum and houses the first edition of Dante’s La Divina Commedia, which was first published in Foligno. From Foligno we drove to Montefalco, which is a lovely little town in a beautiful area full of vineyards and olive groves. The town is on a hill, with a magnificent view from the top. We got lucky because at 4 pm there was an official ceremony of returning a renovated fresco of Madonna to a little church of Santa Maria di Piazza so we followed the municipal officials draped in Italian flag sashes into the church for the ceremony. From Montefalco we went to Bevagna. We visited Bevagna with Phil and Sybill, but at that time it was very clody and all the churches were closed. This time we got to Bevagna at the right time – the afternoon sun was hitting the main piazza and it was gorgeous. The churches were open and they were very impressive – from the 11th-12th century, Romanesque and very somber and stern. The town really felt alive with groups of young people walking around and old guys sitting and drinking by the bars.

Day 16 (4/20) around Sigillo

We had expected visitors from the Czech Republic to arrive in the evening. But in the morning we got a call and they stated that they had driven all night and would arrive in two hours. After breakfast while our friends were taking a nap, we went to Fossato di Vico to see if there was train to Perugia. There is no direct train. We then drove to Gualdo Tadino. It is a pretty city on the hillside (like every other city new have visited except Sigillo). They have a big regional museum in a 12th century fortress called Rocca Flea and an a large Museum of Emigration in a medieval Palazzo del Podesta, which we saw from the outside only. It sounds amazing from the description so maybe we’ll go back to see it. Back in Sigillo, after it stopped pouring we went on a walking tour with Lucy and Reni and visited the impressive cemetery with many large family crypts that looked almost like little houses. We also knocked on doors of all the Sigillo churches (they were all closed) in search of some frescoes that were supposed to be in one of them.