Small park happiness.

Piccolo park next to the Collegio at Via Innamorati, the place to be when the sun is shining and you're too lazy to walk too far away from the student hall.

Yes, I think I still remember the feeling.

Another Perugia "seaside" photo

Just to make sure the sun stays with the city, we offer yet another set of foggy waves.

Still not convinced to take your swimming suits?

Last Sales!

Believe it or not, you can buy a rabbit, a kitten, a parrot or whatsoever, on sales! Until 20% discount on puppy! Don't miss it! And buy a basket for your new pet for only 0.55euros!
Scary no?

Misty mornings, foggy days

Who said there was no sea in Perugia?
It's more than once that I saw it spread its white, fragile waves of fog upon the city. Luckily, from up high you don't have to swim. You just sit back, relax, and breathe in the peace.
Or maybe make fog castles with the tips of your fingers.

Gone With The Wind

Today, as well as the past two days, it looks like Spring is really chasing Winter! Evvai as would say Italians! The sun shines, the birds sing, the wind dries the freshly washed linen... so this tryptich came up to my mind when having a little bit of sun after my daily after lunch coffee. Sometimes, no need to wander in the streets of Perugia to realise how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful city! People complain about the cold and rainy weather of this city... and they might be right complaining but once Spring shows off... all these frozen feelings are gone with the wind...

They're watching us

All these architectural details that we miss while we're happily waking around, our eyes searching the ground...you'd be amazed!
It took me 6 months to notice the faces that were watching me, from a building you can find where Via Baglioni meets Piazza Italia.

and there's a whole army of them sleeping on other building facades!

Enjoy The Day!

Sunday relaxing Sunday... as "work kills", enjoy your day!

Not Only Medieval...

Very often, the longer we walk in the old city centre, the sooner we forget that a whole modern city belongs to Perugia as well... and this part is quite significant indeed. Going down the Rocca paolina
by the scale mobile - escalators, we reach piazza Partigiani. A new area lately built last century. The place is actually not really nice as it has the only utility to hold the bus service, nevertheless, it is always interesting to see such a contrast between the medieval architecture and the modern one so close to each other.

Yeah it's happenning

The Scalette, the stairs of the Cathedral. The social center of the city. The place where everyone meets. Always. In december in the late night hours you still have crazy napolitans making street music. And in mid-february on a sunny day people are sitting there like this. Like they've been doing it for the last half-a-millennium. As we always say: Perugia is happening!

Almost 500 metres high, but feeling higher

At the end of Corso Vannucci there's a neat little park and next to it there's this view point that smartly indicates the mountains nearby, the cities that you can see in the distance and a lot of other things.
I tried to get this fellow out of the photo, but after waiting for some minutes for him to walk away I realized that I would also stay there for a good half an hour if I were him, just staring and thinking about mountains, churches, nature and culture, what man destroyed and what man created. So I decided to immortalize him.

Now, as he's gazing at the sunny view and the mysterious view indicator, we're looking at him, and he doesn't know a thing about our close analysis of his back.

Skyline in Perugia

Talking about Perugia's students moving yesterday, we cannot escape from talking about the nightlife. Personally going back from one European capital yesterday, I could only realise how enjoyable is the nightlife here... as rapidly as you get to know so many different people you also get closer to a few of them. House parties, free aperitivi, hanging around in the centre, nightclubs out of town, free concerts in tiny bars, cinema for 2.50 euros, the choice is actually big here! And if you just do not feel like going out, just stay at home and if you are lucky, look at the nice view from your balcony! Almost a skyline!

Farewell

Well as cities go this one has nice curves... Like the curves of the stairs moving up the little hill just next to the house where we used to have so many parties... Used to, I say, since the guy Pascal who organized these feasts during the last four months will be out of town permanently by this friday. And here we arrive to one of the other essential things about Perugia. People are mostly here temporarily. This busy exchange town has it's extremely fluctuating student population. Every few months new exchange students come and go. Some light up the nightlife like a shooting star and then quickly fade away, some leave their marks behind, some of them are just pretty drunk all the time, and some even get stuck here for years. Three big institutions suck them up and then spit them out. The normal university (Universitá degli studi) has a huge Erasmus-student population mostly from European countries. The foreigners university (Universitá degli Stranieri) has people from all around the world, eager or not so eagar to be taught the misteries of the Italian language. And there is the Umbra institute  with it's 3 month rotation of Americans, a mostly female population, roaming free all-around town. At the end of february, the end of the first semester a lot of people are leaving. And hell: we'll miss you guys, yet still, life goes on.

Secret snow

After a night of intense snowing, we all wake up to see a totally snowless town, for the sun has melted it all away. Maybe if you managed to get up before 10 you might have caught a glimpse of some tree leaves made white or some steps of the town made slippery.
Just in case you didn´t see any of it, the mountains have been kind enough to save some for you. They do look more noble with the pure cape, more majestic, in the background of all the houses sprinkled on the hills.
The perfect view after a snowy night : Via della Pergola, from the Universita per Stranieri on the left, passing the Bella Shanghai Chinese restaurant.

The flow of information

Since the terrible murder of the british exchange student, 21 years old Meredith Kerchner on november 1st 2007, reporters often swarm around Perugia, just as we can see it on this picture, taken on saturday the 14th of february. The trial against Meredith's formal flat-mate Amanda Knox and Raffaelle Sollecito whom are currently being accused with murdering her, have been steadily going on for months now occasionally producing new sensations to the italian and british media...

Via del Paradiso

Perugia is close to the skies, heavenly, sunny, (when there is no silly rain popping in unannounced...) But we found evidence for its resemblance to paradise: a small street with a lovely view, Via del Paradiso. Want to find it yourself? Here´s a hint: it´s close to the Porta Eburnea... Ready to grow wings?

Wintertime love

The empty flower pots in mid-february are eagerly waiting for spring. But for now the late-winter days in Perugia are still fantastic with the cold, the incretibly blue skies, sunny-fresh air, and occasional snowflakes. Yes! And it's all here in the heart of Italy. What a wonderfull world!

Lights on at Teatro Morlacchi

There's nothing quite like Perugia in the morning, when the streets are barely populated and the town gets ready for another busy day. 

In Piazza Morlacchi, the lights for the Teatro Morlacchi are still on. 

Someone in charge of switching them off must still be sleeping.

You know what they say: "L'italiano é nato stanco e vive per riposarsi" (Italians are born tired and live to sleep/rest)

Have you ever walked the streets of Perugia bright and early? Give it a shot one day...you won't be disappointed!

Wild Into The City

Since now we saw the Medieval narrow streets and rests from the old times in Perugia. And indeed, Perugia's old centre is a small and condensed city up the hill... but it is not the only hill! The hill in the foreground of the above picture is part of the city and is inhabitated by this only old fattoria. You can see it from the upper floors of some buildings in the area of Pellini. It brings a pleasant view for those ones who think that Perugia is only made of old stones... Sometimes, we just do not give enough attention to the nature around the city...

An opening in the labyrinth

This mirror on the via del priori is 'reflecting' the medieval style of the city. It's the only little help, the intrepid driver who dares to enter the maze of the 'upper town' gets. There are narrow little streets up there, with cars constantly trying to pass pedestrians but in the end the later mostly win the race to the end of the street. In the historical center it's really easy to get stuck with a car or just get a fine, for not knowing the obscure, mysterius regulations of parking. It is also a no GPS zone, intelligent maps are useless there. Follow your instincts or die hard.

Religious... Or Not!

First Sunday post in this blog! Hallelujah!
Sunday is certainly the most religious day in Italy, of course, Italy is THE catholic country so it is kind of obvious! And marriage is the most important sacrement of Catholicism...
On a really sunny 20th of September, I was indeed sit on the stairs in front of the Dom, enjoying the nice view on Corso Vanucci. As well as enjoying the view of this really intimate moment when the bride went down the stairs and was warmly welcomed by her "brand new" husband (!) who kindly helped her to straighten her veil. You have to know now that up at the centre, the wind is always blowing. Should be sunny, rainy or foggy, the wind is almost always refreshing you! Perugia does have a specific climate... unfortunately.
You should also know that the stairs - le scalette, are a whole institution in Perugia. Non only, are they part of the heterogenuous Dom (a photo should be posted soon) but also part of the vivid nightlife. Early in the night, at around 11pm, people start sitting down, a beer in a hand, a cigarette in the other one, while chatting, laughing and looking at each other... well, the night just gets started and it always starts there on the stairs. On Winter, people do not forget this most famous meeting point and just meet at the Piazza, the abandoned stairs behind them, a beer in a hand, a cirgarette in the other one...
And on Sunday morning, people still get married and go down the tiring stairs looking at Corso Vanucci...

The taste of imperfection

This strange thing stands right on The Piazza, the nerve center of the town, where people meet and get drunk in the late night hours. The house is a metaphor of italy, and italian life-style for me. Chaos. Standing face to face to the beautifull Palazzo dei Priori the house is reflecting the same architectural elements, but it is messed up. The windows sliding behind the column, and that precise column is leaning inwards like the tower of Pisa. Did the builders run out of money? Did they keep for some obscure reason the front of a now long lost building because of some bizarre political decision? Were they just lazy to get the famous reneissance harmony? Well I don't know, but hell, it tastes like like a sweet bite from careless italian tranquility.

No City Without Doors

One fascinating characteristic about an Etruscan and Medieval city is the doors indeed. Perugia is infact still protected by a great wall, visible in mainly different part of the city, and doors. Here, at the background, is Porta San Pietro, which closes the Medieval city at the end of Corso Cavour and opens on Borgo XX Giugno. Not to mention the esternal front executed by Agostino di Duccio and Polidoro di Stefano in 1475...
But most of all, this picture shows not only the omnipresent historical rests but the San Costanzo market, which happened on the 29th February. San Costanzo is one of the three patron saints of Perugia and to celebrate and honour him, nothing better than a consumer event such as cheap clothes and jewels and above all, all kind of Italian food... Umbrian porchetta, Sicilian cannoli, Neapolitan pizza and so on!
Italians do love hanging around markets, especially families, the perfect target to sell those colourful balloons. So "come on kids, cry" and you'll honour San Costanzo!

A confusing insight

This building stands on the main pedestrian (and only flat) street of the Historical Center of Perugia: Corso Vanucci. Vanucci is infact the civilian name of the famous Perugian painter Perugino. If you watch carefully you can see that deep down from the inside of a seemingly church-like building, a giant poster is smiling on you, and you realize: Yes, this is just another shop.

Up and Down

Let me welcome you in this Perugia Daily Photo blog with the first characteristic that surprised me most when I arrived in Perugia: the stairs - "le scale" in Italian.
I knew Perugia was located somewhere up on one of those nice Umbrian hills but I surely hadn't realised that once you are up in the old city, you still have lots of steps to do!

Is this woman going up or down then? For those who live in Perugia, they'll recognise the stairs leading to the "acquedotto" from Via Appia.
So, that was basically my very first impression of this charming Etruscan and Medieval city. "Going up to the centre" had soon become my daily activity, a really physical one for my calves actually! Whereas going down some of those stairs which give you the best panorama ever in Perugia is simply and trully pleasant and enjoyable. Would you be able to find them?