Big day today, we are going to Gubbio and Perugia!! On the bus at 8.30!!
First stop Gubbio. What a beautiful and ancient town this is, sort of built on a hill, and with a grand palace and large piazza dominating the view, to impress the enemies.
The building in front is a fabric stretching hall, the only one of its kind in Italy. 17thC.
Our first stop was to a church, St Francis and the wolf. A wolf is supposed to have been interred in the altar, but offical inspection reveals it was a bandit, also known as wolves.
Next we went up the hill to the Palazzo dei Consuli, a ducal palace and now a museum, holding the 7 Iguvine tablets, bronze tablets that constitute the largest surviving text in the Umbrian Language.
One of the most interesting things about this town is the presence of the 'door of the dead', a small door near the main door, which was supposed to be where anyone who had died within the house was carried out. Apparently this is not true, but the real purpose of these doors is not known. Another supposition is that they were used when someone unknown came calling at night - because they are slightly higher than street level they gave the homeowner an advantage.
There is a cablecar in Gubbio that takes you to the top of the mountain, and from where you get a fantastic view of the city. Not your usual cable car - this is a metal cage that holds 2!!
It really is a lovely town, of narrow lanes and grey stone.
and of course the lovely castle!
One other iinteresting piece of history befor we leave Gubbio - it was a town that supported the Guelph side in the guelph/ghiberlline wars. You can tell this because in a town that supports the Guelphs, the parapets have 2 horns on them instead of one (Ghibellines). In most of the past posts you can see the 2-horned parapets, as so far I haven't been in a town that supported the Ghibellines. Since this castle was built in 1332, it pre-dates the Gueloh/Ghibelline contest. Recanati has the 2-horned parapets too!!
On to Perugia!!
What a lovely city this is! We parked in the bus station way outside the city, but Perugia has a minimetro, an automated small railway that picks people up from the parking stations and takes them into town!
We went straight to the main square, the Piazza 4 Novembre. But there was a medieval spectacle happening in Perugia, so everywhere we looked there were people in costume.
More on this later. First we walked throgh the piazza and past the beautiful Fontana Maggiore, mde in 1277 by the Pisano brothers.
We then walked through some of the oldest part of the town
where buildings run into each other and parts of one intersect with parts of others, to the old acquaduct, now a walking path
We kept on walking, past the original Etruscan walls
to the Etruscan Arch
The water in this fountain is delightfully clear and cool on this very hot day!!
Back to the main square again, and the Palazzo del Priori
This is only the end of the rectangular building, but in here is the Sala dei Notari.
whose walls and ceilings are highly decorated
and now back to the medieval festival. There are 5 distinct areas of the city, belonging to different saints/lords/colours whatever. These are the sun yelloe and white), feathers (red, black and white), crossed keys (black and yellow), elephant and castle (green and white), blue chain (blue and black). Their flags are hanging on the wall of the Palazzo dei Priori (which incidentally holds one of the most outstanding provincial collections of art), but today is full of people in costume.
More costumed folks
The next thing that happened was that these fantastically costumed people took off to the other side of the square and began to throw flags to music!!!
It was just amazing!!
Then everyone came out of the building and went down to anotgher square, the piazza Giacomo Matteotti, and set themselves up in teams for a tug of war. The aim was to move the 'castle tower' towards the winning side.
Here is a video..
Yay!! The blue team won!!
Home to Recanati and of course the fiesta for San Vito was still in full swing! Even more people than had been here on Friday!!!!