Saturday 18th June
The night before, I'd looked at my list of places to go, and counted
the number of days I had left, and thought I'd better make it a day
out. Since it was a Saturday, it seemed like a good day to visit the
big city, with the commuters at home. Perugia in the morning.
Actually, I was a little later getting out of bed than anticipated, and
I considered postponing the trip until the afternoon, but decided to go
anyway. It's only 25 kilometres or so. In fact, the latter part is
straight autostrada for about 16 kilometres, but there's quite a lot of
messing around at Magione to get on the motorway in the first place.
I had looked at the map and decided that as
long as I took the right
motorway exit, finding the huge parking lot at the Pian di Massiano
Minimetro station would be easy. Well, I managed to miss one turning
and had to muddle my way back to the right route, but got there in the
end. This would be my first use of Perugia's Minimetro. €1.50 to whisk
you right to the city centre from the free parking.
There are some very steep slopes, meaning that a typical metro railway
wouldn't work. What Perugia decided to do was put in a cable-based
system, with individual, driverless cars. The minute I saw it, I
realised that, although hailed as a modern marvel, it was basically
nineteenth-century technology. Any Victorian engineer would have
understood its operation at once.
The steel cable runs in a continuous loop, powered from one end.
Something in each car's undercarriage grips the cable and the cars are
pulled along. Simple. At the stations, the cable ducks down under a
floor (perhaps for safety in the event of a door malfunction that let
passengers fall onto the tracks) and horizontal rubber wheels grip the
car and slow it to a stop. At each end of the track, the car is lifted
onto a turntable, turned around, and set down on the opposite track.
I don't know why the latter was chosen as part of the design. The cars
look symmetrical, and you'd think they could travel in either
direction, but apparently not. Cutting through several kilometres of
ancient cityscape must have been a challenging project, but the sight
of the little silver cars shuttling along by themselves made me think
of the imagined future that should have been, not the world of iPads
and X-Factor.
My street map of Perugia was too old to show the Minimetro stations,
meaning that I had no idea where I would ultimately disembark. But when
I emerged to street level, I recognised the location. I had my bearings
for central Perugia, and knew that the central Corso Vanucci was just a
few steps away.
My first port of call was Giardini Carducci, on the South end of the
Corso, to sit under the trees and take in the sweeping views. Then I
walked the length of Corso Vanucci, picking up a slice of pizza on the
way, and had lunch on the steps of the town hall, the Palazzo dei
Priori. A wedding couple must have just tied the knot: they were being
taken round the piazza by the photographer, stopping for photos at
scenic locations. The bride had a pretty, medieval-style dress in
cream, and no headdress veil, just the medieval braided loop thing.
I'd finished my pizza and the happy couple gone out of sight when an
old brown and cream Bentley glided into the square. A second wedding
couple got out for photos, both with the car and the scenery. A
traditional white dress with headdress and short train this time. (I
overheard someone helping the bride to arrange her dress and found out
that the Italian word for the train is 'coda', reasonably enough.)
Then, just a few minutes later, I realised that there was a
professional-looking photographer beside me, and she was shooting a
group at the Palazzo dei Priori doors just behind me, where presumably
another wedding had just taken place. I heard English voices (well,
almost -- Yorkshire) but I couldn't overhear enough to decide which
partner was the Italian. I guessed the bride was the English rose, with
a short blonde bob and a strapless sheath dress in very pale lilac
satin. Six-inch heels too, which made climbing down the stone steps an
adventure. They "borrowed" the other couple's limo as a backdrop for
some photos.
I suppose
Saturday is a common choice for weddings. With all the
excitement over, I started on my tourist itinerary, which was to see
some parts of the city I knew and liked, and some interesting things
that the guidebooks had mentioned. One of the latter was the Via del
Acquedotto, an elevated street made out of the ruins of an acqueduct.
According to one guidebook, the original acqueduct supplied the water
for the large Fontana Maggiore, which sits between the Palazzo dei
Priori and the Cathedral. That seemed wrong to me, unless the
destruction was more significant than I imagined, because the current
little street over the acqueduct's arches slopes steeply in the wrong
direction.
I followed a more-or-less planned route back to my favourite sight in
Perugia, the Arco Etrusco. It really is an Etruscan arch, or more
correctly, a city gate, still intact after two and a half thousand
years. Some hundreds of years after it was built, the Roman Emperor
Augustus had is name chiselled into its outer face. "AVGVTVS PERVSIA"
it says.
Another place I wanted to see again was the little church of San
Michele Arcangelo. It's very old (and had many later embellishments
stripped off in relatively modern times) but the exact date is
uncertain. It used to be said of any very old church in Italy that it
was converted from a pagan temple (and that's obviously true of the
Temple of Minerva in the centre of Assisi) but modern research suggests
that the early Christians were just recycling Roman building materials.
Sant'Arcangelo has sixteen very fine but mismatched Roman columns
holding up an octagonal roof.
There's something very ancient and peaceful about the building, which I
like very much, although, quite incongrously, the lawns outside are
used for sunbathing by bikini-clad beauties. The area between the
church and town centre is an ancient borgo composed of packed medieval
terraces. I suppose they have no gardens to sit out in.
I continued my tour and came back to the main Piazza XX Novembre again.
I realised how the Cathedral and Town Hall glower at each other across
the square, clerical versus secular. In fact, that does exactly
represent some of the history of the city, with outright warfare
between the two sides, until Pope Paul III conquered the city
government in 1540. In typical papal style, he then had a big fortress
built so that his mercenaries could control the town, but as an added
twist, sited it right over the palazzo, streets and piazzas of the
Baglioni family, who had led the resistance.
When the Perugians eventually threw out the Papal forces and joined the
new Italian state in 1849, the Pope's oppressive fortress was entirely
demolished, and a new town hall and gardens put in its place. But the
streets buried for three hundred years below its foundations still
exist, and can be visited. By escalator, no less. So I did.
That completed my day in Perugia. I returned to the Minimetro and
glided silently back to the car park. (Residents' complaints about the
noise led to a revision of the hours of operation, and it now stops at
9pm, quite inconveniently for the traveller.)
Sunday 19th June
Sunday is a day of rest. My only expedition was
mid-afternoon, when I
walked down to the lake shore via the road that runs parallel to my
usual route. The campsite lies between, and I assumed that it would
have a gate onto the other road so that I could cross inconspicuously
across their property and return home up the first road.
The new road led me to some sort of water treatment plant, with large,
rectangular pools, and at the edge of the lake, equipment that pumped
water from the lake through four parallel pipes. Although the area of
the plant was fenced off, it was done so as to allow access on foot
along the lake shore.
A breeze was blowing, and waves were coming in. The Southern shore is
known for its reed beds, but there were enough places where you could
get close to the water.
Putting my plan into action, I went through the gate labelled 'Private
Property' and along a tree-shaded path through an array of wooden
holiday chalets, most unoccupied. What I didn't realise was that this
was a separate establishment to the caravan and camp site, until I came
to the barbed wire fence separating them.
I had to make an undignified clamber over the wire in sight of a couple
of campers. That was not the inconspicuous arrival I had intended. I
didn't even look as much like a resident as I expected. I looked like a
foreign tourist, no doubt, like many of the campers, but their dress
code on site amounted to merely bikini and/or shorts, with lashings of
sun tan lotion. Most people were lying in the full, harsh sun, not
safely in the shade as I would have done.
Anyway, I made my way unchallenged through the park and out the gate I
knew. I passed the bar and pizzeria, but in the afternoon, it was
closed and hard to know if it would be buzzing with life in the
evenings.
After a short stop (in the shade) looking out at the lake, I turned and
walked up towards home, but after a hundred metres, I noticed a path to
my left, parallelling the lake shore. I took it and it led me
evenutally to the main road towards Magione. I knew there was a layby
with views about a kilometre out of town and as I was half way there
already, decided to make it my end point.
It was very hot and there was no shade on the road, and as the cars
whished past me I did get to thinking "mad dogs and Englishmen",
although I'm neither, and in any case it was close to five o'clock by
then. But after achieving my goal, I turned around and walked back to
my home crossroads and up to my apartment.
Monday 20th June
I'd decided to go to Spello and Assisi, one of the longer trips I'd be
making, but left it until after lunch to depart. I'd go via the
motorways to Spello first, the farther point, and then return via
Assisi. That had the advantage of making my route from the motorway to
Assisi the same as the one I had travelled several times on a previous
holiday. I knew where the best carpark was.
The motorway intersection from Perugia towards Assisi and Spello
involves a fork to the left, which I find unintuitive, given that you
usually exit on the right. On one previous occasion, I had ended up,
late at night, on the road to Ancona, 125km away on the East coast,
instead of to Spoleto where I was staying. But my TomTom GPS was on
this time and the advance warning of lane changes was invaluable.
At Spello,
I remembered a convenient carpark outside the city walls,
and left the car there, for free, even though it did break my rule
about hill towns: park as high up as you're allowed. The town is very
hilly, which of course adds to its picturesqueness, but it's also a
challenge in the Summer heat. Probably the most characteristic features
of the town, though, are the pots and baskets of flowers everywhere.
There is an annual competition for the best-flowered alley or steps,
making the whole town look attractive for residents and visitors.
I hit the roads again. I didn't really need the GPS, but turned it on
for instructions anyway. About half way to Assisi it suddenly went
silent. It was running off the lighter adaptor, so I knew it wasn't
that the rechargeable battery was flat. In fact, I could smell burning,
or at least very hot plastic, and I discovered that the power adaptor
was hot. The GPS was blank and dead, although I couldn't really
investigate while driving. When I got to Assisi, I had a look and it
definitely seemed to be deceased.
Anyway, I'd planned to arrive in Assisi at about five, which seemed a
good time, after the peak tour bus period. For my fifth or sixth visit
to the town, I didn't feel the need to cover every notable sight. It
was just catching up with an old friend.
The one
touristy thing I wanted to do was to visit the subterranean
Roman forum for the fist time. I'm not much of a museum or gallery
person. Objects don't say as much to me as places. But what they've
done in Assisi is to open up the excavation of the Roman piazza which
lies beneath the current one. They call it the Roman town's forum,
although there's no specific evidence identifying it as such, except it
was a big, regular public square in the middle of town, and that's
pretty much forum-like.
The beautiful, classical columns and pediment of the Temple of Minerva
have always been one of my favourite sights in Assisi (partly because I
like the little bit of pagan sauce on the ambient Christian piety) but
I admit that what had never occurred to me was that the temple is at
current street/piazza level, yet the Roman layers are about three
metres down.
In fact, the temple originally stood high up above the forum, and there
were two enclosed staircases leading up to its portico. Although the
exits are now sealed over, you can see the stone steps at their bottom
end. I did feel that I had got an idea of what Roman Assisi would have
been like.
After that, I did nothing more than loiter in the piazza. One thing I
witnessed did make me smile: a van-load of frozen Co-op supermarket
pizzas being smuggled in to one of the main tourist restaurants. The
one near the fountain. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I strolled back to the car (actually, my feet were killing me: too much
walking) and manually navigated my way home.
After quite a late dinner, I sat with the remains of my wine, looking
out at the tiny, shabby piazza from the bedroom window. It was a warm
night, and some of the locals were sitting out, chatting. (There's one
old lady with a loud, piercing, nasal voice. I got my earphones on with
some music.)
Tuesday 21st June
I put the GPS on the mains charger and the green light came on, but I
couldn't make it come back to life. There was definitely a sniff of
smoke about it. But after I'd left it on charge for a few hours, bingo!
it booted up. I unplugged the charger, and the red battery warning came
on instantly and immediately the thing died again. Battery problem.
Soluble, probably, even if it would have to wait until I got home.
I dismantled the car charger and found an 8-pin chip on the circuit
board so overheated that the plastic shell had split, and the
surrounding board scorched. Well, there's your problem! I couldn't tell
if the TomTom's draining battery had drawn too much current, or if it
was just crap.
I'd been putting it off, but it had to be done: in the latter part of
the afternoon, I got the bike out. Marco's "garage" is not attached to
the apartment, it's round the corner at the ground level of another of
the old village buildings. Three bikes, two modern, utility types and a
traditional, thin-wheeled racer. The racer had a cable tie round the
front tyre, which I took to mean "don't use this one".
All six tyres were flat, but inflating two (on the same bike,
obviously) took only a few minutes, and I wheeled it out to the little
piazza and set off, downhill to the main road.
The obvious route would have been to cross the main road and carry on
down to the lake shore and jetty, having tested the brakes on the way,
but that would have meant that the return journey would have been
uphill all they way, and it was still quite hot. I decided I'd turn
left and go just as far as the lay-by on the Castiglione side of town.
A couple of days previously, I'd walked to the lay-by in the opposite
direction, towards Magione. The symmetry appealed to me.
The road was mostly flat, with a climb only at the end, because the
site picked for the lay-by is on something of a headland with good
views of the lake. And a tree for shade -- they always put a tree on
them. I cooled down for a while and then got on my bike and returned to
town.
The gears on the bike were the usual derailleur type, but the control
on the handlebar had no fixed positions marked. I think that was what
caused me to clumsily slip the chain off during one change. I let the
bike freewheel until I got to a patch of shade and was able to get the
chain back in place quite quickly and without getting very dirty.
No more adventures, and the hill up to home wasn't hard. The whole
outing had been less than an hour, but at least I'd done it.
Wednesday 22nd June
The largest island in Lago Trasimeno is Isola Polvese, and
I knew that
there was a regular boat service from San Feliciano, just ten
kilometres round the coast from the apartment. In fact, the previous
year's timetable for all the lake services was in the apartment, and it
had a web address, allowing me to download the current one and select
my departure time.
After lunch, I drove to S. Feliciano and found a shady spot in the
large car park, bought a return ticket and waited for the boat. Not a
very big boat, perhaps about twenty metres, although certified,
according to the labels, for up to 140 passengers. Actually, there were
about a dozen people on board, and two well-behaved dogs. The trip
across is only ten minutes.
The island belongs to Perugia (the regional government, I think, not
the city council) and is maintained as a combination of recreational
park and plant and wildlife park.
I set off randomly from the landing place, in what turned out to be an
anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the island. The first section of the
walk passed the beach areas, with one large party of noisy children
splashing in the water, and a few groups of adults and teenagers lazing
under free, community umbrellas (or free, community trees).
Since I was going to the Northern, cooler side of the island, I was
soon in the oak woods, and was soon totally alone, the bathers and
sun-bathers left behind. The path twisted through the dappled woods,
and butterflies and dragonflies flitted past. Lizards scuttled for
cover as I went by.
I underestimated my progress and somehow managed to miss the ruins of
the monastery, being past before I began to look out for them. (The map
shows the monastery right adjacent to the path. No idea why I saw
nothing.) The South, sunny side of the island is mostly composed of
olive groves.
I couldn't fail to see the castle, at the Southern tip, very much
restored and cleaned, but unfortunately not accessible, except by
guided tour bookable from the tourist centre. It's not far then from
the castle to the cluster of buildings above the jetty for the ferry.
The walk had taken me just over an hour, and if I'd cared to hurry, I
could have caught the departing boat immediately.
But that was not my plan. I sauntered to the bar, took a
seat outside
and ordered a beer. It could have been better-chilled, but was
acceptable. As I sat sipping, a group of men took another table,
obviously old friends, including two "on duty" police officers from the
Polizia Regionale, although they were dressed like Florida cops: you
know the look, shorts, polo shirts, black leather belt with an
automatic pistol.
The older cop had a beer. Good for him. There was a second group of
children doing organised "activities" on the lawn, so I guess that the
total population of the island at that time would probably have been
about fifty kids and perhaps slightly fewer other people. As far as I
could tell, no-one other than myself had walked all the way round.
When I'd finished my beer, I still had about half an hour before the
next boat departure, and went in search of the acquatic plant garden
shown on the map. It's based around a swimming pool of the
nineteenth-century which has been re-purposed for lillies and other
plants. Actually, I missed it initially and had to double back, so that
I arrived at the opposite side from the gate. Since there was nobody
around, I climbed over the fence.
After I'd had a look around and taken a couple of photos, I went to the
gate to find it locked. The sign on it was the same one I'd seen at the
castle, although when I'd seen it there I'd ignored the fact that the
guided tour included the acquatic garden too. Oh well, I'd seen it
anyway. I returned to the landing jetty and boarded the ferry for the
short return crossing.
I needed some food supplies (and wine) so drove in to Magione and
visited the supermarket before returning home. After a very pleasant
dinner, at about nine in the evening, I took some buckets of water out
and washed the car. Not only had it acquired more than a week's worth
of road dust, the local swallows in the village had been using it for
target practice and it was seriously defaced. No point trying to wash
it in the heat of the day, because the soapy water dries too quickly
and leaves an ugly residue. I was hopeful that the cooler evening wash
would be better.
Thursday 23rd June
I thought I'd have another lazy, no expeditions day, except that I
wanted a new charger so that I could use the TomTom in the car. I
remembered that there was an electronics store next to the Co-op in
Castiglione del Lago. Only about ten kilometres, and I could have a
look at the town again.
Sure enough, they had a couple of suitable types. I picked the one that
fits right inside the lighter socket and converts it to a USB power
port, even knowing that I'd probably forget to take it out of the car
when I left the country.
The last time I'd been to Castiglione, after I'd exhaused the sights of
the old town I had walked down to the lake shore, where the town is
more geared to beach holidays than perusing ancient monuments. The town
is on a long promontory, pointing due East into the lake, and on that
occasion, I'd happened, randomly, to walk to the North-facing shore.
This time, I thought I'd have a look at the opposite side, and
navigating only by sense of direction, managed to get where I intended
and parked the car in the shade of a tree.
The South shore, being in direct sun, seemed to attract more
sunbathers, including a few topless ladies. Back in the nineties, bare
breasts on the beach were virtually compulsory, but have now largely
gone out of fashion. I was quite surprised to see them.
There is a marina full of yachts on that side, a straggle of beachfront
pubs and restaurants, and not a lot else apart from reasonably
well-tended municipal lawns, although I did smile to see one fenced-off
private establishment, the Lido dei Carabinieri. Cops in speedos, no
doubt.
As the sun got lower and the blazing heat declined a little, I returned
to the car and drove up the hill to the old town. There's not much to
it, so I'd already explored all of it on the previous visit, but it's
pleasant for a wander. After that, as I was leaving I saw a marquee by
the old town gate, the first sign of the Festa del Lago. I was
planning to come back on the Saturday night for the 'Notte Bianca',
with events scheduled between evening and 6am.
Friday 24th June
I was woken at about seven by the sound of a petrol-powered brush
cutter. I know they have to get the work done early before it gets to
hot, but it meant I definitely didn't get enough sleep. It was actually
slightly cloudy and still reasonably cool by mid-morning, allowing me
to cycle comfortably down to the corner shop for a couple of bottles of
wine. Didn't want to be caught out at the weekend with no wine
(although I got a flyer from the Magione supermarket announcing that
they are opening on Sundays).
I could have walked there and back in ten minutes, but the bike had
definitely been underused. When I came back, I didn't put it away in
case I mustered enough get up and go for a proper cycling expedition
later.
Well, it wasn't exactly an expedition, but in the afternoon I cycled
down to the lake, which can be done without any pedalling at all,
except while stopping and crossing the crossroads. There had been some
patchy clouds, and it hadn't been excessively hot. I sat down by the
water for a while and was approached by three Dutch people, who asked
in bad Italian, and then good English, if it was permitted to swim
there. I replied that as far as I knew, it was permitted, but that I
personally wouldn't recommend it because the water didn't seem very
clean.
They obviously weren't convinced, because I saw them ask a couple of
locals fixing a boat, but after a wander round, they came back without
braving the waters. I'd never seen anyone swim in the murky green water
of the lake at that point, but the previous day at Castiglione and the
day before that on the island, plenty of adults and children had been
splashing around in what appeared to be much clearer lake waters. You
still wouldn't get me in it though.
After a while, I got back on the bike and rode out to the end of the
pier. Well, you have to, don't you? The rail around the pier has a
break right at the end for access to a ferry, (although there are no
scheduled ones from Sant'Arcangelo), and I did imagine what it would be
like to cycle hard right up the centre line and over the edge. Fun,
briefly, probably.
When I got back to the landward end, I lifted the bike down the step
and in doing so, dislodged the chain. This time it came off both the
drive sprockets and the spring-loaded derailleur mechanism. Fortunately
my mechanical intuition was able to work out the correct
re-installation. I took to the wheels again and went up the hill, then
detoured rightwards to the adjacent road, over a path where I had to
steer between deep potholes. It still only took a few minutes to get
home, and this time I stowed the bike.