Category: travels

Here it is our last day in Venice. We need to finish up the churches on our Chorus Pass. I am planning on being with the team until after lunch and then I’ll stay in the apartment for the afternoon and finish up my posts.

A word first about Venice. It is beautiful and quaint but I cannot imagine living here and having to put up with the inefficiency of having to get everywhere by water or on foot. Even the garbage collectors have to come by boat. There is a main garbage boat and then some collectors get off and have hand carts. Then they go door to door ringing doorbells and collecting the garbage and the recycle. They do this six days a week.

There is a water garage for the fire department and the police where if you call for them I guess they get there eventually. All the traffic moves really slowly because of not being able to make wakes.

Our first stop today is at San Pantalon where we have been looking forward to going the whole time we have been here to see the Vivarini “Coronation with Saints”. And when I say with Saints I mean every saint in existence at the time standing around with their attribute. Sarah and I are going to spend some quality time identifying everyone. We rush into the little chapel and uh oh no painting. We ask the docent where is the picture and find out it is in a special exhibition at the Accademia. We skipped the special exhibition when we were there last week. We cannot go today because it is Monday and museums are closed on Mondays. Sigh.

There’s a nice crucifix though. The docent does not know when it is from or who painted it. He shrugs and says maybe 14th century?

Next church on our list San Giacomo dell’Orio. We have visions of Saint James surrounded by cookies but John tells us that orio means marsh. Right off the bat Sarah is naughty and touches a baptismal font from the early thirteenth century. I think this is because on our last trip I touched a carved stone from the 9th century. Roman ruins do not count in this competition.

Other works we enjoy in San Giacomo dell Orio –

Our next stop is at St. Stae. I guess I didn’t take any pictures here. But John likes one that is a martyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Tiepolo, 1722.

We also stop at San Giovanni Elemosinario before lunch but I am dragging and losing interest.

Lunch time! We have pizza at Pizzeria San Aponal. It’s pizza. It’s good but not great.

It is mid-afternoon by the time we are done and we are eight bridges away from the apartment. I decide to tackle the eight bridges and then collapse for the rest of the afternoon (except for writing blogs) while John and Sarah continue on to see three more churches. I have asked John to write about them next.

John writes –

Later in the afternoon Sarah and I visit three more churches across the Accademia Bridge in San Marco.  First we visit San Vidal, mostly used as a concert venue.  There are displays of old string instruments and a 1514 altarpiece by Carpaccio showing San Vitale and 8 other saints.

In San Stefano we see several works by Tintoretto including another action-packed Last Supper, and a St. Lawrence and a St. Nicholas of Bari by Bartolemeo Vivarini.  There are also very interesting bronze side doors that turn out to be from 1991.

Finally we visit Santo Maria del Giglio.  In addition to the only Rubens work still in Venice, the Madonna, Child and Young St. John the Baptist (looking every bit like a 17th century Dutch mom and two kids), we also see a 1470 relief by Nicolo di Giovanni of St. Jerome in the Cave, complete with lion.  By chance Sarah notices that behind the altar are works by Tintoretto: 2 paintings each with two evangelists.

We head back over the bridge to rest up for dinner at Ai Artisti.

Since today is Monday, the fish market is closed.  Ai Artisti serves a meat menu instead.  If they cannot get absolutely fresh fish, they do not serve fish.  We respect their commitment and integrity.

Our wine is a 2013 Valent Hombra Sporca Rossi made from Carmenere grapes from Pramaggiore in the Veneto.

Mary and Sarah start with beef tartare with tempura asparagus, fricco and mustard mayonnaise foam.  Then they have bigoli pasta with a sausage ragu.  I start with a pea soup with a whole coddled breaded egg, fresh peas and anchovies.  Then I try the fried sweetbreads (“animelle”) on a bed of interesting lettuces, some passion fruit, and green sauce.

Every dish is a hit.  Mary and I finish the wonderful meal with glasses of golden grappa.  Maybe since we have been recognized as repeat customers, the grappa is comp’ed!   Everyone says grazie and arrividerci and then we head back.  Bonus: NO BRIDGES!

 

 

This morning is a quiet time for Ma and Pa. Sarah has scooted off to the Rialto Bridge to find some gifts for her friends but John and I are content to stay at the apartment fighting with the internet and sipping tea.

In the afternoon St. Mark’s Basilica is open and lighted for viewing and we make our way over to stand in line with lots of other tourists. I remember in the past we’ve gone in and enjoyed a leisurely look around. Not so this time. We are herded like art-struck cattle through the basilica. The guidebook says that the average length of a visit is 10 minutes which is enough time to see basically nothing. We are also not allowed to take pictures which is sad because the mosaics are lovely and certainly are not harmed by non-flash photography. I manage a few shots before I am caught and yelled at.

St. Mark’s is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. It is the most famous of the city’s churches and one of the best known examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture. It lies at the eastern end of the Piazza San Marco, adjacent and connected to the Doge’s Palace. Originally it was the chapel of the Doge, and has only been the city’s cathedral since 1807. Wikipedia

The interior of St. Mark’s is resplendent with mosaics. There are many scenes and people from both the Old and New Testament set against a golden background. Even though some lights are on, it is still difficult to make out many of them.  Plus we are not given much time to look at anything before we are carried on by the surge of the crowd.

Some pictures from the interior –

When we depart the church the sky is looking threatening. Sarah decides to walk back and John and will take the vaporetto. After making this decision it starts to rain and we and hundreds of other people also decide to take the vaporetto. It is very crowded and we have to wait a while to get onto one since they are too full. Luckily we have made it to an enclosed portion of the stop. Once we get to our station Sarah is waiting for us with an umbrella. What a sweet daughter!

Tonight’s dinner is at the Osteria San Barnaba. We have salads and pasta and finish up with biscotti and zibibbo, a dessert wine.

Tomorrow we will complete visiting the Chorus Churches and I will finish up our tale of Venice from a new hotel with better wifi, I hope.

NOTE: I have been working on this post for more than four hours. I am hampered by an incredibly slow and off again on again internet. Before I turn into a crazy person, I am going to stop this post before we have even gotten to lunch and hopefully return to it tomorrow when the wifi might be more responsive.)

For me, ascending and descending stairs has been difficult due to an injured knee. Walking is fine but stairs are bad. My friend and trainer, Vernon, taught me some techniques for going up stairs which mostly work but going down is hard. So John holds on to me as I creep down the stairs amidst tourists and Venetians who need to be some place in a hurry and go much faster than I. It’s humiliating and exhausting.

That being said, we are out early this morning to see churches where much of the art in Venice lives full time. A Chorus Pass gets you into about 20 churches where you get an information card (in English!) and the church is generally lighted. Sarah has planned us a long route through most of Venice to see as many as possible.

Our first church is San Stefano. It is open. We go in. There are only janitors here. I have looked on the internet and the information says that all the Chorus Churches open at 9:30. Sarah points out that on our brochure it says they open at 10:30 and the sign in the church says that St. Stefano opens at 10. The church is unlit and it is really hard to see anything. My bad. We are off to a rocky start. Now we have to waste an hour. So we do typical touristy things. We take pictures of each other and canals and look at store windows and go in churches that appear open.

Our wanderings take us through Piazza San Marco and past the gorgeous Basilica San Marco. St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice. The Venetians stole his bones from Alexandria.  Apparently that was a done thing in days of yore. Anyway, this is the first time we have ever seen the Basilica without scaffolding on the front. Yay! We plan to see the basilica tomorrow when the interior is lighted for two hours.

The Basilica used to be the private place of worship for the doge, the ruler of Venice. His palace connects to it.

We stop at San Zaccaria since it is open and is supposed to hold some interesting art, we venture in. We are not disappointed. “Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Four Saints over the second altar on the left  is one of his very best. It was painted in 1505 when Bellini was about 74. This was the same year that Albrecht Dürer on a visit to Venice described him as ‘very old and still the best in painting’.” Churches of Venice.co.uk The painting is quite beautiful.

For 1.5E we gain entrance to the crypt, a worthwhile investment. Here many doges are entombed and the chapels are festooned with beautiful artwork.

After a very enjoyable visit to San Zaccaria we stop for cappuccini in a nearby cafe. Unfortunately it has a bathroom unfriendly to American women. After our little sit-down we follow our tour guide, Sarah, down narrow alleys and quiet canals to the Church of Santa Maria Formosa.

“Tradition has it that the Virgin Mary appeared to San Magno, Bishop of Oderzo, in the form of a buxom (formosa in Italian) woman and told him to build her a church under a white cloud. And so this, the first church in Venice dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was built, some time in the 7th Century by the Tribuno family.” Churchesofvenice.co.uk  The current church was built in 1492 on the footprint of the older one. Finally we are in one of the churches that we bought the Chorus Pass for and are rewarded by an information card and a lighted church. Three highlights of what we saw –

From here we head to Santa Maria dei Miracoli. In 1408 Francesco Amadi commissioned a painting of the BVM and placed it in a tabernacle in front of his house. It became an overnight sensation with the populace praying to the portrait and saying that it had miraculous powers. Contributions came flowing in to build a church for the painting and thus the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli was founded.

It is the only free standing church in Venice. The interior has a few statues and a lot of marble. The main focus is on the painting of the Blessed Virgin.

On our way over to the other side of the canal we pass the miracle of the three gondolas picture and the Rialto Bridge.

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no complaining about this day. The art is spectacular and the dinner is totally unlike any food we have had before in Venice. But first the art.

The Accademia houses 13th century to some 18th century art. It is not overwhelming big so that by the time you are done you are tired but not spent for the rest of the day. It is a real favorite of ours. Sarah and I make a good team figuring out who is who and when we are stuck, John usually knows the answer.

Some of the art we love from the Accademia….

All this great stuff is just in the first room of the museum. I think we have spent at least an hour in here. Moving on to room two and the rest of the museum, there are still a lot of great paintings but these are less exciting. There’s nothing like art from the period when they were figuring out how to use perspective and give people emotion.

And here is another great painting by Giovanni Bellini –

From here we move into the 16th century and Mannerism –

There’s still lots more in the museum but it is well after the lunch hour and we are tired and hungry. We walk back to the apartment and John runs out for panini while Sarah and I put our feet up. We take a break until 3 PM and then go to a couple of local churches where we see some Tintoretto masterpieces.

From the church of San Trovaso Tintoretto’s painting of the Last Supper. This painting catches the moment when Jesus tells the apostles that one of them will betray him. In their disbelief and dismay they jump up knocking over their chairs and insisting that it is not one of them.

Around the corner from San Trovaso there is another Tintoretto in the church called Gesuati –

We are done with sightseeing for today. Tonight we are having dinner at Ai Artisti. It is supposed to be a really good restaurant recommended by critics and our Truly Venice host.

It is even better than advertised, probably the best meal we have ever had in Venice. We’ve booked again for Monday. When our server asked how we liked it we raved about how good everything was and I said it was not typical. He smiled and agreed that yes, in Venice they were unusual. Unusually good!

First courses –

Second courses –

It is a little overcast this morning as we make our way to the Baptistry in the Piazza del Duomo. The Baptistry consecrated in 1059 predates the cathedral. The building is octagonal signifying the six days of creation, the day of rest, and the rebirth of baptism.

The inside is amazing! The ceiling is filled with mosaics. In the center is Christ with his attendant angels, prophets, and apostles.

Around the dome are scenes from the Old Testament, Christ’s Passion and Redemption, and other Biblical stories.

There’s also a gruesome mosaic of what is waiting for you if you don’t lead a good life. The devil is munching on people! Imagine what this all must have looked like to the people back then many of which lived hard, colorless lives. These mosaics are amazing to us today!

After leaving the Baptistry, we head to Orsanmichele a building from 1359 that started as a place to sell grain and morphed into church when miracles were associated with it. The outside is decorated with large statutes of saints by such art luminaries as Donatello. Due to increasing damage from being left out in the elements, the original statues are inside their museum which is only open on Mondays. Yay! It’s Monday!

After a quick stop at the Duomo (which tbh is a lot more impressive on the outside than inside) we head to Santa Croce.

We would love to eat lunch first but we have not timed things quite right. A lot of restaurants do not open for lunch until 12:30 PM. It is only 11:45 AM. We decide to visit Santa Croce first but need a little sit-down first to re-energize. The benches around Piazza Santa Croce are a fine place to sit for a bit, bask in the sun, and people watch.

 

Okay, crew, on your feet! Let’s do this!

Santa Croce is a very large church filled with art. The complex includes the church and museum. Unfortunately they are out of English guides, too many American visitors. In addition to the religious works, there is also a presentation about the incredible damage done by the flood of 1966. In the church the water was 5 meters high (over 16 feet!) and the church and its artwork were covered in mud and muck after the waters receded. Sadly we saw evidence of the flood, not everything could be restored.

Here are some of my favorites from Santa Croce.

 

By the time we are done it is around 2 PM. We stop at Trattoria Alfredo on the way back to the apartments.

We tell Sarah to go do something else if she likes. John and I are done for the day. But instead everyone just falls asleep. It has been a busy day! We have snacks for dinner down at the pub, Caffe Megara, where you can have free crostini if you buy a glass of wine or beer.

Who knew that the Orvieto cathedral would be one of the most beautiful ones we’ve ever seen? This is so especially from our point of view where we are looking for Medieval and early Renaissance fresco decorated churches. It is hard for any church to compete with the shining splendor of the mosaics of St. Mark’s in Venice or Monreale in Sicily. But in the non-mosaic cathedral category Duomo di Orvieto is tops!

There is no driving in Orvieto unless you have a special permit so we park below and take 4 escalators, a moving walkway, and an elevator up to the old city. It is a lovely city – clean, with flowers hanging out of balcony baskets. There are lots of little lanes with small shops selling artisanal wares. Even a non-shopper such as myself stopped in one of the stores.

We pass by an old looking church so of course we stop in. It is the Church of Sant’Andrea (St. Andrew.) Built in the 12th century on top of an Etruscan house and later an earlier medieval church, it still has some wonderful early frescoes.

Two frescoes that we enjoyed are first, a fresco of St. Julian with his poor parents that he stabbed by mistake and second, a fresco of St. Anthony the Abbot with his devil pig nipping at his heels.

This is one of my favorite pictures of our whole trip. Sarah noticed a stream of light coming in through one of the windows so she sat down an assumed her best Annunciation pose.

After exploring St. Andrew’s we head off in search of the Duomo. You don’t even see it until the last second. You are in a dark lane and then, wow, you walk out into a sunlit piazza with this magnificent structure in front of you. The front facade is so amazing that you could spend hours just looking at it!

After buying a combo ticket for the Duomo, the Diocesan Museum, and the Archeological museum, we step inside. Again, wow, what a space! There are some frescoes on the side walls and an old baptismal font but the really amazing frescoes are in the side chapels near the front and the whole altar area.

Near the back of the church is the large baptismal font which was begun in 1390 by Luca di Giovanni and completed in 1407 by Pietro di Giovanni.

Above the baptismal font is a beautiful fresco in International Gothic style of the “Madonna Enthroned with Child” painted by Gentile da Fabriano in 1425. I love his work in the Uffizi of the Adoration of the Magi. So much gold!

One of the chapels in the cathedral is known as the Cappella del Corporale. It was built between 1350 and 1356 to house the stained linen of the Miracle of Bolsena. (That’s where we had lunch our first full day in Italy on our trip from Viterbo to Siena!) In 1263 a consecrated host allegedly began to bleed onto the cloth which the host and chalice rest on during Mass. The appearance of blood was seen as a miracle to affirm transubstantiation. Moreover it is said the dots of blood outlined the visage of Jesus. This is a miracle that the Roman Catholic Church says you can believe or not but there were plenty of believers here today in Orvieto.

The chapel is decorated with frescoes depicting on the left wall the history of the Eucharist and on the right wall miracles concerning the bleeding host throughout church history. They were painted between 1357 and 1363.

Moving on from this fabulous side chapel we approach the main altar. Here are decorations, some damaged by age, of the life of Mary on all three sides. These frescoes were painted around 1370.

And if this isn’t enough, there is another chapel, the Cappella Nuova or new chapel. After a number of false starts in the 1400’s the decoration was completed by Luca Signorelli in the early 16th century and is considered some of his greatest work. We are a little taken aback by all the naked people depicted but in the name of religion I guess this was all okay.

After our extensive viewing of the cathedral we stop in the Museum of the Cathedral. Most major churches in Italy have a museum. It is where they put a lot of the old artwork which is no longer fashionable or is not needed in the church. Among other works we see early woodcuts and the iconic figure of Mary Magdalene that is printed on the tickets and seen on posters around Orvieto.

We have had a very busy morning and early afternoon and it is time for a little sit-down and some lunch. Giorgio from the hotel has recommended a nearby restaurant, La Pergola. He says the food is like home cooking. We enjoy it.

After lunch we spend a little time basking in the sun in the piazza across from the Cathedral. The church is so beautiful and the facade so detailed that you can spend a considerable amount of time just looking at it. So we do.

Our next stop is at the deconsecrated 13th century Sant’Agostino church. It is now part of the museum complex. It houses large scale sculptures of the Apostles, Saints, and an Annunciation group made between the late sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries which used to reside in the duomo. Since this is not in our wheelhouse of interest, no one took pictures.  The one shown here is off the internet.

Our final visit of the day is at Chiesa di San Giovenale or St. Juvenal. He is a saint we haven’t heard of. He was the first bishop of Narni in Umbria during the 4th century. There are conflicting reports of whether he was a martyr or merely a confessor. His legend suggests that he saved Narni from  invaders by calling down a divine thunderstorm. He was removed from the Catholic Calendar in 1969.

Nonetheless he has a pretty wonderful church in Orivieto. We are met at the church by an elderly priest who speaks no English but he is quite eager to show us around and sell John a book about the church. He proudly lifts up the altar cloth so we can see a carved date of 1171 but the church is older than that.  It is said to have been built in 1004 on an Etruscan temple dedicated to Jupiter. There are a lot of great old frescoes in here. It appears that the oldest ones are on the upper columns and detail the life of Christ. The first one on the right from the main door is of the Annunciation and the last one is the Crucifixion.

As you can imagine by now we are very tired from our big day of sightseeing so we cap it off by getting lost getting back to the parking lot. Finally John approaches an elderly man and asks for help.  A great conversation of  Italian/English ensues with another guy getting involved. Finally the first one decides that he’ll have to walk us back to where we can see the parking lot and find our way back. This includes a lot of climbing up and down hills but mostly down. What a nice guy to do all this for us!

By the time we are on our way back to our hotel no one wants to go out to dinner so we stop at the adverbially oddly named Simply Market and buy salami, cheese, crackers, and wine and have a picnic in our room for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking about for something to do on the way to Orvieto, we find the hill town of Todi. According to legend, Todi was founded by Hercules. Historically,Todi was founded by the ancient Umbrian people, in the 8th-7th century BC and became a Roman town in 217 B.C.

We head up the hill to Todi and when we cannot go any further without getting a ticket for driving in a special zone, we stop and take a look at Santa Maria della Consolazione. But it turns out to be a 16th century church which is a little too modern for us.

There is a path up to the main part of the old city which is too steep for me to attempt today. I seem to have tweaked something in my bad knee and I am hurting with every step. I am consigned to sit in the car while John and Sarah climb the hill up to the old city. They see the old church of San Fortunatus which is ancient looking on the outside but redone on the inside.

While we were in Assisi Sarah had a great white wine made from the Grecchetto grape. The producer of this wine, the winery Roccafiore, is nearby to Todi. While we can’t go to the tasting room because it is closed on Sunday, we can go to their restaurant for lunch. After only one false start we find it in the rural area east of Todi.

It’s a beautiful setting and the restaurant serves really fine food at a reasonable price. We decide to make lunch our main meal of the day.

 

Afterwards we take pictures of Todi from the restaurant’s beautiful setting.

We head to our next stop, the resort Misia, just outside Orvieto. I get some ice packs from the innkeeper for my knee which is quite swollen and sore. We decide to skip dinner and have an early night although Sarah does some exploring around the tiny town. After all, there are cats to be petted and a giant bluff behind the hotel complex to be climbed. John and I are climbed out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wake up this morning with renewed energy and after a breakfast of I-wish-they-made-eggs-other-than-hard-boiled we head off to the cathedral, Santa Maria dell’Assunta.

We take a circuitous route trying to use the moving walkways as much as possible. As it turns out it probably would have been a lot quicker just to walk there although considerably uphill. The cathedral is a Romanesque building constructed in the second half of the12th century. The portico and bell tower are later additions.

Unfortunately, except for the floor most of the interior has been updated to a neo-Classical form. Almost all the frescoes and paintings from the earlier church are gone so it has kind of lost its identity inside.

A couple of holdovers from the interior’s prior life are a wonderful 1187 crucifix and some frescoes in the apse by Fillipo Lippi.

One place where we might find the treasures lost from the church is the Diocesan Museum which is just uphill of the church.

In the museum we see many great works of art whose pictures I will insert at some point in the future. There is one room that has several very old crucifixes and a detailed explanation about the various poses of Jesus and what it means. The crucifix that we saw in the church (see above) is a triumphant Jesus. This is due to the fact that his feet are not nailed together and his eyes are open. Other types include the dead Jesus with eyes closed and feet nailed together and suffering Jesus. This is something we did not know.

My favorite thing in the museum is the wooden deposition group. Having these statues was very popular in the 11th-13th centuries and there have been groups found in the remote sections of Italy where current church decor was slow in coming.

I have suggested a trip to these remote churches tomorrow but a look at the treacherous roads up the mountains have dissuaded me of this plan.

After a quick look at the church of St. Euphemia where there is not much left we head to the Casa Romana. This is a Roman house excavated from under the streets of Spoleto. The house is built on the same plan as ones we have seen in Pompeii and on Sicily. It is conjectured that it belonged to the mother of the emperor.

Onward! We are doing a great job visiting the Top 10 things to see in Spoleto! Our next stop is the 11th century church of Sts. John and Paul. Here we find a saint we are not familiar with, St. Eligius. His attribute is the leg of a horse.

Lunchtime! We pick a place that looks nice, the Restaurant Sabatini, but the service is way slow and the food especially Sarah’s carbonara is not so great. The spaghetti is undercooked and the the sauce is broken. We of course are too timid to say anything.

After a brief respite at the hotel while we await the afternoon opening of the museums around 3 PM (Closed for lunch!), we head to the Museum of Textiles and Costumes. This small museum has clothing and materials from the 18th and 19th centuries. Since Sarah is a costume maker this is of special interest to her.

After this we go to the Archeological Museum where we learn a lot about the history of Spoleto from the ancient Umbrians through the Roman period and have an upclose look at the Roman theater that I posted a picture of yesterday.

The only thing left for today is to eat at the Number 1 Rated Restaurant on Tripadviser, Tiempo del Gusto. Unfortunately we are disappointed. The food is trying hard to be modern and traditional at the same time and it seems that it’s not succeeding at either.

We have really enjoyed Spoleto. It is easy to get around on the moving walkways, the people are friendly, and the art and history are astounding. The small scale of the city makes it doable in two busy days. We could have ordered better at the restaurants but otherwise we are totally happy with our choice to include Spoleto on our itinerary.

We leave our creepy hotel in Assisi on the early side after a horrible breakfast. We seem to be almost the only people in the entire hotel and the food keeps getting recycled. We are off to Spoleto where we are to spend two days. It’s less than an hour away.

Even though it is before 11 AM the hotel gives us our rooms and then we are off to start exploring. We have a Spoleto card which allows entry into 7 museums and unlimited use of public transportation.

Spoleto is a very interesting small city. There are traces of the original Umbrians whom Pliny the Elder said were the oldest people of Italy. Legend has it that they came to this area of Italy after the Great Flood. (Think, Noah) There is also a lot of Roman remains and then the Longobards followed by the Duchy of Spoleto. There are museums, churches, and ruins that put this all in perspective. It is also not crowded with tourists.

Just outside our hotel is the Roman theater. After its beginnings as a fortified town by Umbrian tribes, Spoletium was a Roman city founded around 240 B.C. (John has just pointed out to me, as I am typing this, that after Hannibal was victorious at Lake Trasimeno he went on to attack Spoleto. I will try to work this into my next casual conversation with my friends at home.)

Just around the corner from the Roman theater is San Ansano’s church consecrated in 1143. It’s made of bits and pieces of an old Roman temple and a Paleo-Christian church. In it lie the remains of St. Isaac perhaps a Syrian hermit who came to the hills around Spoleto and died here in 552. He is buried in the crypt under the church which is decorated with early frescoes (maybe 12th century?)

Coming out of the church we pass under the Arch of Drusus. Drusus and his brother Germanicus were adopted sons and the heirs apparent of Emperor Tiberius. They both died in their early 20’s and so an arch was erected here in their honor.

Lunchtime! We stop at an outdoor cafe for sandwiches and salad. Of course things turn out a little differently than we anticipate. We have a giant sandwich and a giant salad. They are only 5 Euros. Who knew?!

Spoleto is very hilly. So hilly that the city has a system of underground walkways, escalators, and elevators. It helps some but you really need to be fit to climb and descend all the hills.

Our next tourist spot is the Ponte Delle Torri. It is an aqueduct built in the 13th century on top of an earlier Roman aqueduct. It’s quite something and Sarah and John take a brief walk on it. It’s 80 meters high so no way I am venturing out.

At this, the highest point of Spoleto, is also a fortress called the Rocca Albornoziana which was built in 1359-1370. It is now a museum.

From this vantage point we can see the whole city and the walls around it.

At this point we are pretty zonked out. I suggest a siesta and then meet later for dinner. Everyone agrees.

We stop first at a restaurant which is rated #1 on Tripadviser but they are completely booked. We are able to get a reservation for Saturday night but only if we will eat early, 7:30 PM. Of course! If there is one thing Americans like to do it is to eat early by European standards.

We stop at an Enoteca that also serves food, the Enoteca il mio Vinaio.

Utterly exhausted we decide to have an early night so that we can awake with renewed vigor to explore the rest of Spoleto tomorrow.