Medieval gem, Gubbio, is a favorite tour destination for me….. – and turned out to be a favorite of the tours I offered Judy and Grady during their late-April week here. As we arrived in Gubbio, we passed the 1st-c A.D. Roman theater and I pointed out to them the Basilica di Sant’Ubaldo at the…
Assisi’s Good Friday evocative evening Processione del Cristo Morte is not to miss. But I feel the same about the Good Friday morning procession which winds out of the Cathedral of San Rufino about 8 a.m. Just ask tour guests Judy and Grady and Mike, too, who joined me that morning. As I arrived at San Rufino, some…
The best way to recount the joys of touring Umbria for a week with Judy and Grady? Sharing Judy’s comment: “What a wonderful week of touring the Umbrian hill towns with Anne Robichaud! We visited during Easter as we were interested in the Easter traditions here and she came through with flying colors. The Holy…
In the backstreets of Perugia, a medieval church houses artisanal wonders. Very eager to visit the Perugia laboratorio/museo of the Brozzetti textiles, never had I imagined that the textile looms would line a church nave! Marta, great-grandaughter of founder, Giuditta Brozzetti, told me that her father had purchased a de-consecrated church in the 1950’s. Called “San Francesco…
In Perugia, artistic treasures are innumerable. You’ll certainly want to include in your explorations, the splendid Renaissance masterpieces of Perugino in the frescoed Collegio del Cambio (Money-changers Guild),…. ……the medieval cathedral, backdropping the 13th-century Great Fountain,…. …. and the 16th-century papal fortress, la Rocca Paolina. These monuments are all linked to a perugino stained-glass master, Francesco Moretti (1833- 1917) and…
Foligno, often called “il centro del mondo” (“the center of the world”) was inhabited centuries ago (possibly as early as the 7th-century B.C.) by a native Italic people, the umbri. In the 3rd-century B.C., the Romans colonized the ancient city (then called “Fulginiae”) – and the area flourished after the Roman conquest, also due to its proximity…
Foligno – often overlooked by many visitors to Umbria – hides innumerable treasures. One is certainly one of the oldest religious edifices in Umbria, Santa Maria Infraportas. Santa Maria Infraportas is the most ancient church in Foligno, sitting on the western side of the Piazza San Domenico, near the medieval church of San Domenico, now…
After discovering the medieval and Renaissance wonders in Foligno, let yourself be drawn by a magnet. An enormous one. You’ll find the 24-meter Calamita Cosmica (“Cosmic Magnet”), mammoth sculpture of Gino De Dominicis, in an 18th-century de-consecrated church, the Church of the Holy Trinity . Started in the mid-18th-century, the Church of the Holy Trinity was…
While rural neighbor Chiarina was making her homemade pasta recently,…… ….her husband Marino took me over to their improvised “cantina” (wine cellar) in a converted garage near their farmhouse: Inside, guanciali (pork cheek), capocolli and lonza (meat cuts both made from the back of the pig) dangled over their wine casks and olive oil containers: Marino…
Farm neighbor Chiarina was dicing the carrot for her pasta sauce when I dropped in one recent morning, her husband Marino nearby and how he beamed when I asked him about his wife’s culinary skills: And these are the ingredients Chiarina had prepared for her sauce which I told her I’d call “il sugo di…