Arezzo

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For the afternoon we headed to Arezzo, a town that fans of Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful will recognize. It is where the main characters lived during the first part of the movie.

The city's historic center is surrounded by a medieval wall, with a number of gates to pass through.

Our first stop was the city's Roman amphitheater, or what's left of it. While I'm a big fan any type of ancient Roman site, the visit was driven primarily by the fact that the adjacent museum offered shelter from what was left of the passing storm.

Next we visited the Piazza Grande, the city's central plaza and the site of its main marketplace during medieval times.

The city definitely had a medieval feel to it, with plenty of towers and buildings with castle-like architecture on most streets.

The following is Arezzo's cathedral, whose construction began in the 13th century.

I preferred the Santa Maria della Pieve church, which had a much more interesting look to it given its three loggias and massive tower. It was built over 1,000 years ago and seems to have held up pretty well over the course of a millenium.

The highlight of our visit to Arezzo was the Basilica of San Francesco, a 13th-century church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. While it may not look overly impressive from the outside, the interior includes the 15th-century frescos of the Legend of the True Cross.

Photos were prohibited, but I found one online that shows a few of the frescos. It doesn't fully capture the experience, but at least offers some perspective.

I subsequently learned that there was an underlying reason for our visit to Arezzo, and the basilica in particular -- The English Patient. One of Emilie's favorite scenes was filmed inside the church, where Julliette Binoche's character got a VIP tour of the frescos...

With Emilie's English Patient Pilgrimage finally complete, we headed back to our hotel outside Perugia. By this point the sun had come back out, which offered a nice late-afternoon view of the surrounding landscape.

Montepulciano

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This morning we visited Montepulciano, a small Tuscan hill-top town famous for its wine. The drive up to the town was very scenic, as can be seen in the photo below that I found online.

Our first stop was the city's main plaza, which is bordered by the Santa Maria delle Grazie church and the Palazzo Comunale (town hall).

For a couple of Euros you can climb to the top of the Palazzo Comunale's tower, so we headed up in order to get a bird's-eye view of the city. It was actually a pretty funny experience, as there wasn't really any tourist infrastructure in place and instead it was as if a local teenager had simply broken into the city hall, set up a folding chair and table, and started charging tourists for the visit.

The view was very nice, though the clouds in the background gave the impression of impending rain.

After heading down from the tower, we stopped in a wine shop to buy a couple of bottles of wine from the area. The shop also sold wine travel bags that prevent the items in your suitcase from being ruined if the bottle breaks en route. These would have come in handy a couple of years ago when we brought wine to the U.S. for x-mas gifts.

The shop's cellar had thirty or so massive wine barrels -- perhaps five feet high each.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we spent the rest of our visit simply wandering Montepulciano's narrow streets and enjoying the views. By this point it looked like we might actually continue to luck out with the weather and avoid the rain.

Perugia

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We spent the afternoon in Perugia, which is Umbria's capital and, among other things, is known for it's chocolate and for being one of Italy's artistic centers.

While the interior of the old town wasn't overly scenic (perhaps I was a bit biased by the gloomy weather that passed through at the time), there was nonetheless a lot of interesting architecture.

I particularly liked the various large arches, such as in the photo above, and the smaller arch-like building connections, as seen in the photo below.

As with Assisi, there were also some nice artistic works built into the sides of various buildings. 

The following is the view of the city's main plaza, with the Fontana Maggiore (a 13th century fountain) in the foreground and the Palazzo dei Priori (the city's town hall, also built in the 13th century) in the background.

At the other side of the plaza is the city's cathedral -- San Lorenzo. It is known for its façade, which was never completed, as well as its orientation (the side entrance, rather than the front entrance, faces the square).

As with all the other towns that we've visited thus far on the trip, the surrounding countryside was very nice and Perugia's elevated location provided a perfect vantage point.

The majority of the old town area had a distinctive feel given the stone that was used in construction. Here's an example of the old houses (or perhaps apartments).

At one end of the city is the Rocca Paulina -- a 16th century fortress that was built over a section of the medieval town.

I thought that the inside of the fortress was very interesting, with various walkways and open areas that are used by merchants.

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see a circular skylight that is about the size of a manhole. Earlier in the day I had walked right over it with no clue that the fortress (not to mention a 40 foot drop) was below me. At the time, I simply thought that I was walking on a regular street.

After walking around a bit more we finished up our visit and headed back to the car. On the way, we passed through the "gate" below. There's apparently another, more famous, gate built by the Etruscans during the 3rd century BC, but we unfortunately didn't pass through that one.

Assisi

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This morning we went to Assisi, which is perhaps best known for being the birthplace of St. Francis. Like many of the medieval cities in the area, the old town is relatively small so we had to park outside the city walls and walk our way in.

We began our visit in the town's central plaza -- Piazza del Commune -- which includes the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (pictured below). As you may have guessed from the columns (and the name, if you understand Italian), it was originally a Roman temple and was converted to a church following the arrival of Christianity.

Next we walked around the medieval side streets a bit. I particularly liked the various religious works that were built into some of the walls.

Above the old town is a 14th century castle, which was apparently built by a local cardinal in order to "intimidate" Assisi's residents. Nice guy, right?

The climb up to the castle was a bit of a workout, but it allowed for some very nice views of the old town.

We also got our first glimpse of St. Francis' basilica, which is on the northwestern edge of the city. It was apparently built on donated land once referred to as the "Hill of Hell", which served as the execution site for many a medieval criminal. Interesting place for a church.

During our walk from the castle to the basilica, we wandered the streets a bit more and stopped in a few other churches. Here's the view of one of the older "streets" that we walked down.

The basilica dates back to the 13th century, following St. Francis' canonization, and in reality consists of two churches: the "Upper" (Superiore) and "Lower" (Inferiore). The "Upper" church is at ground level in the photo below.

Here's the view of the basilica from a courtyard at the level of the "Lower" church (an entrance is visible under the large arch in the center of the photo below). I have to say that, given the size of both churches, it was hard to fully comprehend that the basilica basically consisted of one church on top of the other. And below the "Lower" church was the crypt, which houses St. Francis' tomb.

After finishing up our visit to the basilica, we headed back through town on our way to the car. Along the way, we passed a building with a nice mosaic.

As we were leaving Assisi we had a nice view of St. Francis' basilica and the surrounding Friary. The complex definitely has the look of a fortress.

The English Patient Pilgrimage

One of Emilie's favorite movies of all time is the English Patient. A number of its scenes were filmed in and around a town in the area called Pienza, so we spent the balance of the afternoon on a bit of an English Patient pilgrimage. As a quick aside, here's a funny Seinfeld reference to the film...

The following is a picture that I took during the drive from Siena to Pienza. The landscape was absolutely beautiful and our luck continued as the rain in the forecast never materialized.

We passed a scenic hill-top town along the way, so we decided to pull over for a few minutes and take in the view. I like how the picture below turned out, with the town in the background and the tree in the foreground.

The first real stop was the Monastero di Sant'Anna, which is in the countryside outside Pienza. And while we had used the car's GPS for the majority of the trip from Siena, Emilie ultimately went on intuition for the final couple of kilometers. I'm not really sure how to describe how she did it, but it really bordered on ESP given the backroads we took based on nothing more than her gut feeling.

The following is the view from the monastery's courtyard looking back at the church. This is where Ralph Fiennes' character was cared for until his death.

Next we headed to Pienza and, given the town's fairly small size, we were able to cover much of it in the span of a couple of hours. Unfortunately, though, Emilie wasn't sure exactly where the specific filming locations were.

Nonetheless, the following two photos are from Pienza's main plaza, where I figured the chance of a scene being filmed were as good as any. I believe that the building in the first photo is the equivalent of city hall.

And in the second photo is the city's cathedral, which is on the opposite side of the plaza.

We spent the balance of our time just walking around the city's many side streets. I liked the old brick houses like the one below.

Siena

Situated a couple of hours north of Perugia, Siena traces its roots back to the time of the Etruscans over 2,500 years ago.  Our first stop was the Piazza del Campo, a central plaza that's famous for its twice-annual horse race (Il Palio), whose modern version began in 1656.

The race is effectively a two-minute, three-lap, free-for-all, in which riders from the city's various contrade (districts) compete for the chance to bring honor to their neighborhood through victory. Technically, though, the first horse to cross the finish line wins -- regardless of whether its jockey has held on for the full race.

Here's a related YouTube video that I found...

While our visit didn't correspond with either race (July 2nd and August 16th each year, if interested), the plaza still offered some interesting sights. Most notably, there's the Palazzo Publico (city hall), whose construction began in 1297. The building's bell tower (the Torre del Mangia), was completed in 1344 and, at roughly 300 feet tall, was reportedly the tallest structure in Italy at the time.

We decided to climb to the top of the tower in order to get a better view of the city as well as the surrounding countryside. It was definitely a workout, but well worth the effort as seen from the photos below.

There was a pacticularly nice view of Siena's Duomo (cathedral).

Here's a photo that I took of the tower's interior during our descent (albeit looking back up). Given that the tower walls are three meters thick, there's not a lot of space and you basically feel like your walking on a spiral staircase. And when you look at the individual bricks, it becomes quite clear how old the tower really is (thankfully, the medieval architects seem to have known what they were doing...).

Our next stop was the aforementioned Duomo, whose construction spanned the 12th and 13th centuries. I particularly liked the marble façade.

The cathedral's interior was also impressive and included works by artists such as Michaelangelo and Donatello. Here's the view from the nave.

Our ticket to the Duomo included access to an adjacent structure that offered a panoramic view of the city. I think it was called the "Panoramio" (which would make sense), though I coudn't confirm online. Here's the view of the Torre del Mangia.

We spent the balance of our time in Siena just walking around the streets of the old town. The church below caught my attention while we were walking back to the car. I like how the photo turned out with the well in the foreground.

Umbria / Toscana

This year Emilie and I are spending the Easter holiday weekend in the Umbria and Tuscany regions of Italy. We arrived in Rome last night and from there drove a couple of hours north to our hotel outside Perugia. The drive was fairly uneventful, except for the absolutely insane Italian drivers.

Here's a photo of the "hotel" where we're staying -- Castello di Monterone. It was originally a military post, dating back (at least in some form) to the 13th century, and now has 18 guest rooms.

Over the next four days we plan to visit a number of cities within a couple hours drive of the hotel. The weather forecast isn't very favorable -- 50% chance of rain each day -- but we've got our fingers crossed and are hoping for the best.

In that regard, this morning has started off on a good note -- we awoke to sunny skies. Though, who knows how long the nice weather will last...

And now we're off for our first visit of the trip -- Siena.