Le Marche

So far, this trip I've been in four regions....Campagna, Lazio, and the two new ones (Umbria and....Le Marche!!)
Here are some images of Urbino, a lovely renaissance town just south and east of the province of San Marino....P.S. I almost made it to Rimini, but alas, ran out of time....no matter.....Urbino was amazing
Who could lament with scenes such as these??

What would an Italian city be without a Duomo??

please ignore the scaffolding while we restore this beautiful edifice...thank you for your patience

apparently, no one here likes him either......don't blame me, I voted green party!!

the rock and roll scene is alive and well........

as are the gratutituos arty photos....

Urbino.......in all her glory......oh, that facciata!!!

Le Marche definitely deserves more exploration someday.....

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!!)

Il Lago

There is a lake here in Umbria.....who knew?? apparently from what I gather, quite famous.....again I ask you, who knew?

Passignano is really a sweet little town (emphasis on little)

the scenery from the train is really beautiful.......
as it whizzes by you at 200km per hour

Lago Trasimeno is really captivating from far away....
ie the shore

people bathe on the shores.....sort of like an impromptu beach for the landlocked......

I must share with you though that when I got up close and saw all the seaweed I was a little grossed out....not too clean either (the lake, not me: I showered).........but really pretty to look at nonetheless.......

I must share with you though that when I got up close and saw all the seaweed I was a little grossed out....not to clean

Città alla cima della collina

A city on a hilltop (which actually describes just about every city in this area).......

First stop: the Pozzo di Patrizio.....a well built by the Romans (what a surprise!) which is ridiculuosly deep.....but only because they put this one on a hilltop and therefore had to dig deeper to get to the water table....because the level of the water table doesn't change......


It's constructed in sort of a spiral fashion....one level to ascend and the other to decend.....genius....that way, you don't bump into each other with huge containers of water......could be dangerous, no?

the view looking up:


and the view looking down........

and then there's the panoramic landscape.....




a casual stroll along Corso Cavour......

turn left at the clock tower........and then you lose the ability to breathe......on account of this:

neither words nor photos can do justice to this massive edifice......

practically the entire upper part of the facciata (I think it's called a façade in English, which is really borrowed from the French......) is a mosaic......and not just mosaic, but there's an awful lot of gold in there....

the detail is incredible........


the rosette window from the outside...

and from the inside.......

but it wasn't all duomo all the time......

there are museums.......pretty streets......and Orvieto Sotterraneo (thanks to the Etruschi....Geniuses!!)......

have I mentioned the Umbrian landscape lately??? It sometimes reminds me of a patchwork quilt...