Just a little bit of chocolate!
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2009
1
109
214
Trip End
Ongoing
Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
With our 11 o'clock departing on time for a change we were soon headed out of Toscana and into the rolling hills, jagged mountains, swathes of olive orchards and ancient stone buildings that make up Umbria.
The scenery on the train ride down (although we had done this route before it was through the dark and didn't see any of the beauty) from Florences was some of the most beautiful we have seen so far in Italy. The train takes you past Lago Trasimeno a drop dead gorgeous lake with picturesque islands floating on its crystal surface, surrounded by lush green hills. Now this is the real heart of Italy, were you slow your pace to suit the life around you.
One of Italy's best preserved hill towns, Perugia is famous for its chocolates. You can see that little architecturally has changed with-in the city walls in the last 400 hundred years. With a mix of past glories and a youthful vibe from the university it has a charm that is hard to resist.
We walked up to Piazza IV Novembre which for thousands of years was a meeting point for the ancient Etruscan and Roman civilisations. In the medieval period it was also the political center of Perugia. Today the square is still a local meeting point for tourist and students alike.
The heart of the square belongs to Fontana Maggiore (Great Fountain) built between 1275 and 1278 by father and son team Nicola and Giovanni Pisano.
At the other end of the Piazza is the Cathedral of St Lorenzo with its pink façade, which was never truly completed. Work begun in 1345 and continued until 1587, however the door way was only built in the late 1700's.
