It's hard to believe that tomorrow I begin my fourth week of lectures etc already. Time is flying and settling into a kind of routine which is based firstly around contact hours, followed by which cafe I should go to next. It's a hard life! Still, as we are all getting used to the different lecturers, it's also becoming much clearer which ones are good and which ones are not so good. Hmmm.....
Anyway, yesterday was beautiful - clear, sunny and mild, with not a cloud in the sky or even a whisp of fog. (For about a week Perugia was so shrouded in fog you couldn't see from the fountain to the Palazzo dei Priori). I decided to hop on a bus for a jaunt to Gubbio, accompanied as it turned out by an Argentinian student from my class and a Chilean friend of hers, a group of your typical American college kids and another group of loud Spanish guys who clearly assumed that their friends were all deficient in their hearing and therefore required being yelled at for the entire hour long bus ride. I concentrated on the view as we wound our way up and over some pretty steep inclines, over some of the Appenines - not perhaps the ideal bus trip for Rocco then!
Gubbio itself is tiny but rather pretty, dominated by the Palazzo dei Consoli half way up the hill. Of course, I arrived more or less as things were winding down for the siesta, but I had also expected there to be more shops etc than there were. Oh well....I wandered for an hour or so in the sunshine and checked out the Funivia which takes you to the top of the mountain into the side of which Gubbio has attached itself over the centuries. My LP guide says that you'd never forget the ride to the top, as you are basically bundled into these little open metal cages where you must stand precisely on the cross in the middle as you are whisked up at rather an alarming speed. Watching these birdcages (all empty I might add) made me think that perhaps it wasn't such a great idea after all, even though I'm usually okay with heights, so I backtracked to the main square instead. I did find out afterwards that the Argentinian had braved it, but her Chilean friend said she was loco and stayed below. Instead, I went for a look inside the Palazzo dei Consoli to check out the Eugubian Stones, like the Rosetta Stone but these record the Etruscan language - 8 bronze plates in total. We had learnt about them in my Storia della Lingua class so it was good to see them up close. Apparently they tell of the intricate rules pertaining to the 'reading' of the organs of sacrificial animals, particularly the liver since that was considered the seat of life, and the scratching, pecking and calling behaviour of different birds as these were also portents of how the gods were considering various actions. If the signs weren't good, then there were yet more rituals which had to take place to appease them. The palazzo also holds a collection of Gubbian art on the top floor so I pottered around there too, and then discovered that I could get out onto the upstairs loggia for a fantastic view out over the town and surrounding area. It was nice there!! The new series of 'Don Matteo', about the priest who always manages to solve crimes before the carabinieri do in the surprisingly crime-ravaged town, is on tv here now. The scenery is rather beautiful and many of the town's squares and streets can be identified, but the lead actor is too blond and blue-eyed to look like he fits in, plus his name in Terence Hill which just adds to the weirdness (although apparently he is Italian). If you watch it on SBS you'll see what I mean.
By this time it was getting close to the departure time of the bus back to Perugia. I met up with the two students again and we were all happily chatting away, waiting nicely for the bus, when suddenly it pulled out from behind the bus next to where we were standing and took off without us. It must have snuck up when we weren't watching because none of us had even seen it arrive. Typical!!! So, after another wait of 2 hours and 15 minutes (another wander around the town, a long coffee stop etc) we finally managed to get on the next bus, tragically with those same Spanish guys - luckily the two Spanish-speaking students gave them a few scary glares and they wisely were quiet for most of the journey. Another lesson learnt about the vagaries of Italian transport, and I guess I won't forget Gubbio in a hurry!
Anyway, yesterday was beautiful - clear, sunny and mild, with not a cloud in the sky or even a whisp of fog. (For about a week Perugia was so shrouded in fog you couldn't see from the fountain to the Palazzo dei Priori). I decided to hop on a bus for a jaunt to Gubbio, accompanied as it turned out by an Argentinian student from my class and a Chilean friend of hers, a group of your typical American college kids and another group of loud Spanish guys who clearly assumed that their friends were all deficient in their hearing and therefore required being yelled at for the entire hour long bus ride. I concentrated on the view as we wound our way up and over some pretty steep inclines, over some of the Appenines - not perhaps the ideal bus trip for Rocco then!
Gubbio itself is tiny but rather pretty, dominated by the Palazzo dei Consoli half way up the hill. Of course, I arrived more or less as things were winding down for the siesta, but I had also expected there to be more shops etc than there were. Oh well....I wandered for an hour or so in the sunshine and checked out the Funivia which takes you to the top of the mountain into the side of which Gubbio has attached itself over the centuries. My LP guide says that you'd never forget the ride to the top, as you are basically bundled into these little open metal cages where you must stand precisely on the cross in the middle as you are whisked up at rather an alarming speed. Watching these birdcages (all empty I might add) made me think that perhaps it wasn't such a great idea after all, even though I'm usually okay with heights, so I backtracked to the main square instead. I did find out afterwards that the Argentinian had braved it, but her Chilean friend said she was loco and stayed below. Instead, I went for a look inside the Palazzo dei Consoli to check out the Eugubian Stones, like the Rosetta Stone but these record the Etruscan language - 8 bronze plates in total. We had learnt about them in my Storia della Lingua class so it was good to see them up close. Apparently they tell of the intricate rules pertaining to the 'reading' of the organs of sacrificial animals, particularly the liver since that was considered the seat of life, and the scratching, pecking and calling behaviour of different birds as these were also portents of how the gods were considering various actions. If the signs weren't good, then there were yet more rituals which had to take place to appease them. The palazzo also holds a collection of Gubbian art on the top floor so I pottered around there too, and then discovered that I could get out onto the upstairs loggia for a fantastic view out over the town and surrounding area. It was nice there!! The new series of 'Don Matteo', about the priest who always manages to solve crimes before the carabinieri do in the surprisingly crime-ravaged town, is on tv here now. The scenery is rather beautiful and many of the town's squares and streets can be identified, but the lead actor is too blond and blue-eyed to look like he fits in, plus his name in Terence Hill which just adds to the weirdness (although apparently he is Italian). If you watch it on SBS you'll see what I mean.
By this time it was getting close to the departure time of the bus back to Perugia. I met up with the two students again and we were all happily chatting away, waiting nicely for the bus, when suddenly it pulled out from behind the bus next to where we were standing and took off without us. It must have snuck up when we weren't watching because none of us had even seen it arrive. Typical!!! So, after another wait of 2 hours and 15 minutes (another wander around the town, a long coffee stop etc) we finally managed to get on the next bus, tragically with those same Spanish guys - luckily the two Spanish-speaking students gave them a few scary glares and they wisely were quiet for most of the journey. Another lesson learnt about the vagaries of Italian transport, and I guess I won't forget Gubbio in a hurry!
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