Perugia

 

We had chosen Tuesday to go to Perugia because there is supposedly a Rotary club that meets Tuesdays for lunch, and why not meet friends for lunch?  We had emailed to confirm; no response, but this is Italy, so decided to give it a try anyway.  Long story short:  No meeting, but we did have a nice lunch at the restaurant — all that, and we didn’t have to worry about Happy Dollars (or whatever the Italian equivalent is).

Getting there was half the fun.  I am beginning to comprehend driving in Italy – just act decisively, even if you are breaking a traffic law.  But I’ll never be taken for a native.  For one thing, I use my turn signals.  For another, if someone honks I correct.  The Italian thing to do is to get offended that someone would honk.

All these towns are on hills.  That we know.  And that means that getting there is frequently half the fun.  So it was with Perugia – to get there we went up the hill and half-way back down again, and I swear on the way home we went up the hill and halfway back down again.

Perugia is worth it, however.  The town center is magical.  It’s also magical to consider that people have been living here for 2500 years.  Because Umbrian towns are on hills, the water source is particularly important – having a good one, I mean — and the Etruscan well is still extant, although a well in front of the Town Hall and dating from the 13th century takes pride of place.   There’s also an Etruscan city gate, rebuilt (and renamed) by the Romans.  The rest of the town is 13th century, proudly so.

Umbria at Advent

 

\So here I am, barely home from Oman, and off again, this time with Frank to Italy (and more, but that will unfold).  We’re staying in a timeshare just outside of Assisi this week, with a car and options to discover as much or as little of Umbria as we wish.

We left Friday/arrived Fiumicino Airport on Saturday, without hassle but also without my I-phone.  THis is the second time I’ve lost it in four months; this is beginning to get expensive.  But nothing to do now but ignore the problem until we get home.

In a way, it was both comforting and strange to be headed for Rome.  No one asked why we were headed for Italy at Christmas time; the steward wished us a fine holiday and no one said, “why would you go there?” which S must admit is the sort of response we get for many of our destinations these days.  i’m happy driving in Italy as long as (a) it’s an automatic; and (b) we;re not driving in Rome; and it is and we are not.

We arrived Saturday’ Sunday we mostly slept except for a relatively brief trip into Assisi; today was our first “real” day.  Destination: Gubbio, another hillside town that, like Assisi, has been populated for three millennia.  The Roman footings of the city are clearly visible in Gubbio, however:  The Romans built down on the plain; it was only during the Commune period in the Middle Ages that the town moved up the mountain for protection.  What does that tell you?

Today, one parks at the bottom of the hill, and starts climbing.  Before the climb part, Frank and I had lunch in a restaurant — I ordered steak con tartuffo negro (black truffles).  Truffles are definitely an acquired taste that I could just as definitely acquire.  Did you know that male pigs were formerly used as truffle hunters becuase truffles apparently smell like a female pig?  Today, dogs are used becuase no one wanted enraged male pigs on their hands when they discovered they’d been “had.”  At least, so the guidebook says.\

The town goes up-up-up, but includes a huge town square, not to mention a Renaissance palace built by the Montrefeltros of Urbino when they controlled Gubbio.  And then the power moved to the papacy, and the past 500 or so years have passed without much change in terms of architecture or other.