Pigeon stew anyone?

Sunday 25^th May

We left Passignano with the sun shining via a drive around Lake Trasimeno headed towards Orvieto. We stopped briefly along the way to look at some sculptures at Campo del Sole and had a look along the lakeshore at Castiglione del Lago. The roads were relatively quiet presumably because it was a Sunday and people were at church.

The sculptures at Campo del Sole. 
These were done between 1985 and 1989 by 
famous contemporary Italian and foreign artists.

We arrived in Orvieto around 11 and quite easily parked the car only to find that we still had a long walk up the hill to look at the church – yet another town built on the edge of a cliff. Thankfully there was a bus so that saved us the walk. The outside of this church was just stunning with a lot of inlaid tile work on the pillars (I’ll include a photo or two) and some beautiful carved frescoes. The church was closed when we arrived due to Sunday services but when it opened we had a quick look inside and decided it wasn't really worth looking further.

Views from top of Orvieto

The church at Orvieto - the outside is one of the most beautiful
we have seen. We have been trying to think of the most
impressive and think there is Milan, Segrada la Familia in Barcelona,
and this one.

The dog photo for the day.

Just a small part of one of the frescoes on the church.

The inlaid tile work on these twisted pillars
look like quilt patterns in the making.

There were so many different expressions
on the faces in these frescoes.

More of the inlaid tile - quilt patterns?

Here we took an underground tour of some of the caves under the city. The story is that the people who built in the town dug down to get the building materials to use to make their house and when the house was finished they had underground space for storage or workrooms. They never actually lived in these caves. Most of the houses had one and they were not joined to each other. At the moment there are only 2 caves open to the public because the rest are privately owned. Back in the middle ages the caves under the houses at the edge of the cliffs had niches carved in them which were used for pigeons to roost. Pigeon was the main source of meat during the middle ages and is still to be found on the menu in some restaurants in town.

The pigeon holes in the caves under Orvieto.
These caves open to the cliff face so the pigeons
are able to come and go.

We then enjoyed a long lunch in Orvieto and struck up a conversation with a young English couple who were there holidaying with their baby. The time flew and we soon had to move on to wander the rest of the town. By the time we did this the town was a lot quieter – it appears that all the tour groups had left.

One of the lovely streets in Orvieto.
This one had shops of local artists.

Now we are at our B&B near San Gemini for 2 nights. You never know what you will end up with when you book something online, even though they have photos and descriptions – this place is an old 1890s farmhouse and is at the end of a rough dirt track but the room is lovely and our windows open on to farmland and open space. Really relaxed feel.

Sun sets on another day in Umbria

Saturday 24^th May

 

Another beautiful sunset.

The sunset reflected off these terracotta buildings
on the opposite shore.

We woke this morning to beautiful blue skies – a change from yesterday’s overcast and rainy day.

First stop for the day was Perugia. Another village set high on a hill. If they hadn’t been at war with each other all of the time then maybe they could have built on the flat lands to make it easier for all us tourists in centuries to come! Fortunately we had picked up a brochure in the hotel which told us where to park to take the minimetro to the historical centre of town. This turned out to be super easy. Perugia was lovely and a lot quieter than Siena was yesterday. Either we were there before all the tour buses or it is not a big hit with the tours. Of course we went to the cathedral – probably the main attraction in town and otherwise just wandered at random enjoying the street scenes and alleyways.

Main street in Perugia.

The fountain outside the cathedral in Perugia.

There were some beautiful balconies
and pots of flowers in Perugia.

Ancient roman aqueduct in Perugia.

We were very good and just took photos of these cakes
- and we didn't buy chocolates either.

This was the minimetro line - the trains seemed to run every 30 seconds or so.As we went up we passed one at probably every station. 
There were 6 stops along the way as we went from the bottom of the hill to the top.

We had lunch in Perugia before heading to Assisi. Assisi is famous for St Francis of Assisi who was born and died there and is buried there. Again, Assisi is halfway up the side of a hill and everything is either up hill or down hill – I think I earned my gelati today. I don’t know how many churches there are in Assisi but everywhere you looked there seemed to be a church or a church spire. We visited the church of St Francis which was at the far end of town and then headed back towards the centre of town. We found reference to another church which we visited and the outside certainly did not give you any indication of the inside.

View looking out from Assisi.

A castle on the hill at Assisi. We didn't visit the castle
and are not sure of its story.

Old frescoes on an archway in Assisi.

A couple of street scenes.
There were many houses that had pots of flowers
on the walls as you walked by.

The church of St Francis of Assisi.

Church of S. Maria sopra Minerva.
This used to be a temple. The inside was just beautiful.
The outside (below) told nothing of the inside.

Looking back along the road to the town of Assisi.

Back in Passagnino we had time for a stroll along the lakeshore before dinner. There were a lot of people out walking and some serious fishing going on. We watched one guy land a fish that was at least 2 foot long. Not sure what it was but he had attracted quite a crowd. The fishermen there were obviously very serious with numerous rods, special stands, electronic gizmos for sensing bites on the line and all manner of comfortable chairs.

We watched this sea plane practicing it's landings and take-offs.

This dog was fishing at the lake tonight. Still just a young pup.

Firenze - and a farewell to Tuscany

Wednesday 21^st May

Today we headed to Firenze (Florence), a couple of hours drive away. The first part of the drive was easy using a motorway (one we had been up and down 3 times already and the road is one of their cr*ppy ones) then the autostrade, followed by another major motorway. The last motorway was carrying a lot of trucks so required a lot of concentration to keep the flow going.

We arrived at our hotel around 1, checked in, got the lo-down on how to get to Firenze, and headed for the bus. The hotel advertised a short walk to the bus but I reckon it was at least 800 metres. The bus ride took 30 minutes and found us at the station in the centre of Florence.

The main sites we visited today were the Cathedral, Piazza della Signoria, loggia de Lanzi and the Ponte Vecchio. I don’t know what I expected from the Ponte Vecchio but I thought it looked pretty seedy and needed a good spit and polish. The shops along the Ponte are all jewellery stores. There were a lot of African guys with their bag of ‘splat balls’ and a piece of timber to demonstrate them on. They would stand and throw the balls down on the piece of wood but when they saw the police coming they would quickly pick up their lump of wood and saunter off. Obviously no licence to trade. In the loggia de Lanzi there is an open air showcase of sculptures from the 14^th to 16^th centuries – this was free.

The cathedral in Florence

The gilded bronze doors on the Baptistry in Florence

The cathedral

The Italians love a uniform
- yet another flavour of police uniform.

Statue in the Piazza della Signoria

Just one of the starues in the loggia

The Ponte Vecchio

We found somewhere to sit on the other side of the Ponte and sat and watched the passing parade. We struck up a conversation with a local man (age 74) who (in Italian with a small spattering of English words) told us about how the government kept taking in African refugees and there was no work and it was not good for the locals, then told us it was quiet at the moment but next week it was school holidays so would be very busy. We didn’t find it quiet – everywhere we turned there were tour groups.

We spent the rest of our day wandering the streets and window shopping – lots of leather to look at. We had a very nice dinner in town before catching the bus back to the hotel. I overheard one American lady who was buying a postcard of Firenze saying 'yes, it is Florence, but they spell it different here'. Had to laugh.

Thursday 22^nd May

No breakfast at our hotel so it was McDonalds for breakfast in the centre of Florence – we’re not going to do that again if we can help it.

The plan for the day was to visit the Galleria degli Uffizzi which houses the world’s greatest collection of Italian renaissance art. There were hundreds of roman statues in the first gallery. Then there were hundreds of paintings. I was hoping to see some variety in topic but nearly all the works were of a religious nature – should have known being in Italy. The only artist names I recognised were Botticelli and Michelangelo – Rob recognised a few more but he studied art history at school. The rooms I enjoyed most were actually the foreign painters works where we got some landscapes and pictures with cows in them!  What is it with these artists – they seem to always have at least one woman in the painting who is half wearing her clothes.

The Ponte Vecchio as seen form the Galleria degli Uffizzi

From here we moved on to the Palazzo Vecchio which has some beautiful decoration at the entrance from the Piazza della Signoria. It was pretty hot in the city so we wandered the streets trying to keep in the shade as we shopped for leather. Objective achieved – I have added to the leather collection.

Part of the ceiling in the Palazzo Vecchio.

More of the Palazzo Vecchio

The Loggia de Lanzi

Our final stop in Florence was the Cappelle Medicee. This is the principal burial place of the Medicee rulers. This place just blew our minds. It gets one or two lines in Lonely Planet but when you step inside the mausoleum it is just stunning. The whole place is marble, 4 or 5 stories high and the colours in the marble are just amazing. There are emblems of the cities in Tuscany made of marble with inlaid mother of pearl, prophry, agate, lapis lazuli and other semi precious stones. We met an Italian lady in there who was keen to explain it all to us – she had no English but with our rudimentary understanding of Italian and a little bit of French we got the story. Sadly no photos were allowed but wonderful memories will stick.

Our one negative with our hotel was there was nowhere to eat within walking distance so reluctantly we hopped in the car and went to the only restaurant we knew of nearby. Surprisingly it was very good and we both enjoyed a lovely dinner.

Friday 23^rd May

We are now at a town called Passignano sul Trasimeno which is in Umbria, but before leaving Tuscany we had one last town to visit – Siena.

Parking was a bit of an issue but with the help of Dora we managed to find somewhere near to the city. Siena is another lovely town with the main feature for us being Piazza del Campo where they run a horse race, Il Palio, once a year around the Piazza. It rained on us in Sienna so we had to buy an umbrella – just after we saw the guy re pricing them. Umbrellas were the hot item this morning. We also visited the Duomo and Baptistry. Both of these had some beautiful painting on the walls and ceilings.

First view of Siena.

Stained glass in the Church de Santa Caterina.

Lovely buildings in the city.

The Piazza del Campo - in the rain.
They remove all the outdoor dining areas and stalls
and the horses run around outside the white pillars
and the crowd stand in the middle. See photo below.

The Duomo in Siena.

Some of the tiling on the floor in the Duomo.
 May be useful for borders on a quilt one day.

Don't know who these heads belong to but there were hundreds of them
in the Duomo.

Just some of the paintings in the Duomo.

Street scene in Siena.

Looking back to the city.

We had lunch in Siena and then headed for Passignano. On the highway we passed one car that was loaded up going on holidays. It was a very small citroen with mum, dad and kids (and probably the dog) in it, the back fully loaded with gear, and the roof piled up about 4 feet with gear and bikes covered with a plastic sheet flapping in the breeze. Don’t think they could have got a spare pair of socks in.

We had dinner tonight in a restaurant by the lake and watched the sun set across the lake. We are here for 2 nights.

While in Florence we found a brochure for a tour which in part reads –

The price does not includes:

Everything that is not included in “the price includes”

Very clear!