Perugian Wanderings

As Saturday was rainy and cold it included a lot of homework, some reading, TV watching, and take-out pizza from a place down the street that was recommended in the guide book. We also made fried dough, based on the experimenting with the pizza. Mine had sugar and Chris put Nutella on his.

At one point, tired of being inside, we decided to walk to the end of our street to this site I had been reading about yesterday, an old pagan temple that is now a Catholic Church, although mainly a tourist attraction, called Sant’ Angelo. It’s this beautiful round building on a large (for here) green expanse and surrounded by high medieval walls. It really reminded me of Ireland for some reason. It’s a really beautiful place and I plan on going back rather often, especially since it’s so close.

When walking there we walked through one of the many enormous stone arches here and through the fog saw the huge fortress tower that is right next to the church. It was almost like something out of Lord of the Rings. Up ahead the entire road was torn out and flimsy wooden bridges were set up to walk across. I felt like we were in a movie. When I slipped through a gate that was opened and walked up the stairs on the side of the fortress I half expected to come across an old caretaker who would tell us of the lore of the place but instead found pigeons cooing all alongside the walls of the tower. Later, after walking through the arch of the tower building, we turned to walk up a road that ran along the backside of the imposing walls that surrounded the church. We came around the corner and saw hundreds of pigeons on the grass. In one moment they all rose into the air, this huge mass of bustling pigeons, moving to the trees. It scared me, surprised at the suddenness and succinctness of their movement but it was beautiful, too. It was a good adventure seeing these ancient places in the Perugian fog.

Due to all the rain and homework I began to get really sick of being inside so that night Chris and I went on a walk with one of the girls that lives upstairs and then when we got too cold we watched a funny Italian variety show on the television in her apartment.

This morning Chris and I decided to walk to an area slightly below the historic center and I brought my camera. On the way back we came across an antique market, strewn through the Pauline Fortress, which is now the train station, and the street above it. We came across some old cameras and asked the price but they were really expensive. Walking back up the main street a man was playing a song from Amelie on his accordion and it was lovely.



I hope you had a wonderful birthday, Mrs. Smith!




Here are a few pictures:


This pizza is 30 centimeters, but the pizzeria also sells pizzas that are a meter.


They really like dogs here.


Pauline's Fortress, now a train station and place for people to sell their wares.


Secret Garden


There was a police ceremony going on today in the historic center. I wonder who was on duty.


Religious icons pop up around town.


One of the ancient fountains around town that are supposedly fine to drink from.


This picture of the accordion player was hard to get because he kept watching me.



I just snapped this while carrying the camera at my waist because I liked this man's outfit.