Umbria

We have spent 10 nights in Costaccario now and have fallen in love with Umbria. We have a regime of walking in mountains one day and then visiting an historic town the next. We have been to Perugia, Siena, Assisi, Nocera Umbra, and a few others. Highlights have been the Duomo in Siena and St Franceso’s church in Assisi. The walking is fantastic. We also visited the Frasassi caves the largest in Europe, a 30km system. Because it was only discovered in 1970 it is very pristine (no soot from gas lighting etc that you see in some caves) exceptionally beautiful.

Siena

St Francis of Assisi Church

Small section of marble floor in Siena Duomo

more floor, absolutely beautiful

It was great to wander around Perugia where I lived for 4 months in 1980. My memories of that time are great but I was surprised at how little I remembered although after a while things started to come back to me. My Italian still isn’t much good but is better than nothing. I can understand more than I can speak.

Fountain in Perguia

Also went to St Egidio the small village where we rented a house while we were in Perugia. The airport is now there and the country surrounding Perugia is full of buildings and industry. Tried to find our house but it looked like it had been renovated and is now very up market. While the old town of Perguia is still the same the surrounding town has grown enormously.

I wasn’t going to tell this tale ….

but at the Gubbio Ceri Festival Ron had his wallet pick pocketed. He lost 2 drivers licences, 4 credit cards, phone cards and about $250. We went to Polizia and then the Carabinieri to report the theft and went home a bit upset as you can imagine. A few days later we are walking through Gubbio and a policeman recognised Ron and call us over to say they had the wallet. We were taken in police car to secret head quarters and were escorted through high security doors into the bowels of Italian police operations. The wallet was returned less money and credit cards but it was good to get licences back. We felt like real Gubbio locals to be known by the police. Ron said it was time to leave town.

Ducklings near Acona