Viaggio in Umbria

We're back now from a great road trip through Umbria and Tuscany with Jim's parents. Train travel in Italy is generally very good, but there are some places it's not easy for us to reach on public transportation, and having wheels was pretty fabulous. This is easy for me to say, since I was not in charge of driving, or, more importantly, parking. Italian parking is neither art nor science, but falls squarely into the James Bond skill set.

Parallel parking? Why yes-- parallel to the other Smart car.

We visited Tivoli for some garden and fountain tourism. Margaret Thatcher and her entourage happened to be touring the gardens when we arrived, which made for some amusing attempts at surreptitious photography. (It is not my strong suit. I cannot find her in any of my photos, and I am not even sure which ones were meant to include her.)

Margaret, are you in there?

One of our destinations was Pienza, which is quite the renaissance experience. Its big claim to fame is Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who was a renaissance humanist, bestselling romance novelist, and, eventually, Pope Pius II. He was so admired in his hometown that the town was renamed Pienza in his honor.

Here's his well:

Pienza is also thought (at least by the Pienzans) to be the home of the best pecorino cheese in Italy. They claim it was Charlemagne's favorite cheese, and host a yearly pecorino festival that includes a cheese-rolling contest. For the ultimate alliterative experience, we sampled the local pecorino in Pius II Piccolomini's papal palace.

Perfect!

After a stop in Montepulciano, where our movement was limited by the filming of a vampire movie, we moved on to other, vampire-free (one hopes) hill towns. We admired the little town of Todi and its two fine churches. I particularly liked the columns on this one.

Good luck, little guy.

Spoleto was no slouch either when it came to churches, although I don't remember the sky looking quite so apocalyptic...

Spoleto also has a fancy bridge. None of our guide books seemed sure if it was a Roman aqueduct, a renaissance bridge, or some combination of the two. They just pointed out that it was tall, which we had already noticed while walking across. 

Behold! It is tall!

On our return to Tuscany we tapped into the good travel karma again, since all the vineyards in Chianti were welcoming visitors for free tours and tastings. Really, twist my arm...