Gubbio

Went to Gubbio yesterday, a little tiny adorable amazing charming hill-town about an hour away from Perugia. We were planning on going to Assisi but decided we weren’t as excited about that and I suggested Gubbio. So off we went.

This is what we saw when we got off the bus. What a good thing we went away from Perugia! Apparently it just poured there, but in Gubbio it only sprinkled off and on. Really not that bad, and it was a fun city to check out. The rain had made it really foggy in the morning, the the mountain that Gubbio rests against was made even prettier because of it.

We started by wandering up the hill to the Pizza Grande where there is a big church ? we were'nt sure what it was. It was a number of things over the years...) and an even bigger view of the city. Gorgeous to watch the sun appear from behind the fog over the country side. You could see for miles. Miles and and miles of vineyards, olive groves, and hay fields. Very Very peaceful to take it all in. We continued to wander around the city to look at the different colored buildings, and get some surprisingly different views of the country side.

Probably the coolest thing we ran into when meandering around the streets was the 15th centruy wine keg. It was huge!!! We went into some museums to look at frescos and different archeological finds from the area, but my favorite parts of the day were this wine keg and other random finds around the city. We came across this really great public garden on the side of the mountain. There was a little hobbit-looking house right at the entrance which I got a kick out of. Other than that, it was just a nice park to walk though and gave us some great views of the city. There were remnants of old city walls etc around everywhere, which was neat. The museums here unfortunately didn't allow cameras, and it was hard to understand what I was seeing because most of it was in Italian.

Part of why we decided on Gubbio, Mom, is because of that MTV guidebook you gave me for Christmas last year! There was a section in there about how Gubbio had this fountain where you could run around it 3 times and become "certifiably mad..." We were totally hooked. And yes, my roomates and I are all now certifiably mad. (As if you needed any proof.) I'm not sure of the tradition behind running around the fountain 3 times, but I think it, as do many of the traditions in Gubbio, date back to the pre-christian days of the town. The town is really famous for its May 15 festival that has, over the years, been switched from a harvest celebration in honor of the Grek goddess Ceres to the patron Saint of the town. Google it if your interested, type in "Gubbio candle racing. " Quite the story.

Sorry for the jumbled mess of pictures above, but I've been at this for 2 hours now and I'm tired. I can tell you more about the town because it really was neat but I don't have the time or the energy to write about it now.