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We began our visit in the city's Piazza del Popolo. The central plaza is surrounded by medieval-era buildings and was built over ancient Roman cisterns that remained in use until the early 20th century.
At one end of the plaza is the city's 11th century cathedral, which was supposedly built over an ancient Roman temple honoring Apollo.
We began our final day in Italy with a visit to a small hill-top town called Todi. According to an ancient legend (c. 1300 BC), the town was created by Hercules.
While the weather was beautiful, it was definitely a bit cold out. In fact, the nearby mountains (visible in the background of the picture below) had gotten some snow the night before.
We began our visit in the city's Piazza del Popolo. The central plaza is surrounded by medieval-era buildings and was built over ancient Roman cisterns that remained in use until the early 20th century.
At one end of the plaza is the city's 11th century cathedral, which was supposedly built over an ancient Roman temple honoring Apollo.
Next we headed to the church of San Fortunato, known for its partially completed faรงade (the lower half was completed in the 15th century, while the top half was never finished).
The church has a tall belltower (partially visible in the photo above), which we climbed up for a better view of the city. It was interesting to see how densely structured the city's medieval center was, with only the main plaza really offering much open space.
The tower also offered a nice view of some of the older buildings on the edge of the historical center, such as the brick church below.
Todi is surrounded by three separate concentric city walls: one from the ancient Etruscan period, one from the ancient Roman period, and third from the medieval period. I never could tell which was which, but given the number of gates that we passed through I'm sure that we saw all of them at some point.
We finished up our visit to Todi at the Santa Maria della Consolazione, a 16th century church just outside the city walls. We arrived at an inopportune time, however, as it was closed for an hour and we didn't have time to wait for it to open. Nevertheless, we had a nice view of the church from the outside so we didn't leave empty-handed.
I think the following was part of the medieval wall, as it was on the periphery of the historic center.
We finished up our visit to Todi at the Santa Maria della Consolazione, a 16th century church just outside the city walls. We arrived at an inopportune time, however, as it was closed for an hour and we didn't have time to wait for it to open. Nevertheless, we had a nice view of the church from the outside so we didn't leave empty-handed.
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