Corso dei Ceri

Corso dei Ceri is something that they do annually in Gubbio. They have these ginormous "candles" that are actually huge hunks of wood in the shape of sort of candles but not really. anyhow, they weigh 300 kg and stand 5 meters tall each. Each one is dedicated to a saint and to a profession: the muratori follow Sant'Ubaldo (also the patron saint of the city...he was a bishop back in the 1200's apparently a great guy....he's interred in a glass casket up on the altar of the Duomo which sits on the highest mountain in the town....why anyone would construct a church that is nearly impossible to reach is beyond me...but more on that later) these guys wear bright yellow.....the commercianti follow San Giorgio (not so famous, no bishop and no church) these guys wear screaming blue, and finally, the contadini follow Sant'Antonio (my personal favorite....maybe because I come from contandini) these guys wear black (another reason perhaps that I like them and will always secretly pray that they win the corso). So anyway, there's this whole big celebration every year where they take these huge Ceri down fron the church, bring them down to the Piazza della Signora (more commonly known as Piazza Grande) and they run with the for three minutes.......whoever makes it back to the loggia wins....

the loggia is kind of cool I think....very medieval looking....as is most of the town......

so, to make it up to Sant'Ubaldo (the church and the body coincidentally) you have to take the birdcage funicular (and no, this has nothing to do with transvestites, crossdressers, or transsexuals) which is called (affectionately) the Funivia.....it's a little freaky because when you get on the thing doesn't stop.....nor does it stop when you get off......you kind of have to hit the ground or the funivia running (depending on whether you're ascending or descending from the funivia)......

but as you can well imagine, the view is incredible:

There is also a roman anfiteatro (amphitheatre? how do you spell that in English??)!! yay!! some history of sorts (not that the church is not exemplary of history, it's just that you can really only see the crucifix and bleeding saints a certain number of times before their aesthetic value disappears completely)

The coolest thing I got to see here was the 7 Tavole Eugubine....tablets which describe religious ceremionies, daily laife accounts, prayers....but the kicker is that five of the tablets are written in Umbran (language of the Eugubine people who populated this area, which is not Etruscan and is pre-Roman) and the last two are written in Latin......I stood there, completely awed by what I was looking at......the tablets are bronze and they're inscribed (obviously by hand) with the words........

and then there's the gratuitous "arty" photo.....can't be too history oriented, can we?

the loggia and the sunset......... (I know, I know, thank you Captain Obvious!!)