Literature kills

Words are not much. You don't need words. Cambio la lingua. Capisci? Che ne ti frega? Words are decorative. Playfull. But profound? Did you ever get close to anybody just by words? And without using one? I don't need to write. You don't need to read. Just enjoy the picture.

Perugia is alive

Well now as spring is coming the city has just awakened from it's hibernation. January and february were as some of you who used to reside around here remember it. Peggio. But now as the clouds went away and light is shining all arund the reconquista of the piazza had begun. And it's just nice to walk around dizzy headed and easy-hearted as we go from gothic darkness to meditarranean summer. Sadly my camera is out of order and until I can get a new one I can't share any of the new beauty around, but I'll share a small cycle of my unpublished autumn favourites... Get ready. ;) Peace with you(z).
A.

Talking about that...

I remember the first time when I tried to talk to people about Perugia, people who never lived here. Outsiders. And I realized I couldn't. People nagging me about what's happening, asking for a story and I just stayed mute. I tried to talk in the beginning but then I realized there is a serious communications breakdown happening. Later I changed my habits and started to talk about something totally casual. After some time I realized a lot of us are haunted by this strange sensation. The mystery of it never stopped coming back to me.

Why? Could it be that we cannot talk of things because there is nothing real here anymore? Nothing that truely exist? Nothing? What if the old city has been dead for centuries by now, without anybody noticing it? And now as we love and caress it there is nothing else we hold between our arms, but a two thousand year old mummy? Maybe the only living things left here are the human beings that are called here by the darkness that lives in the middle of the mountain, called from different places of the globe, and then they are left alone wandering around in the dark mist of the Valley of the Shadows. Our eyes clouded by fog, our hearts filled with despair. We just float around like the particles of physical gas, people who rarely find one an other but when they finally do, they really stick together, gaining reassurance by feeling the light of other living creatures, because it really helps to keep the nothingness, that surrounds us, away. Little fireflies in the night. Chains, strange forms, circles of light. Maybe that's why we come here. The spectacle of light is always clearer in the darkness. We can see the beauty, the shining of the soul much better in this ethernal valley of the Umbras. A merry christmas to everyone. I love you my friends, this post is for all of you who enlightened my life.
(this picture is temporary i'll replace it as soon as I get my laptop back on the 11th of january)

Santa magic

As one walks it's path down the road in the twilight, as the end of the year approaches we sink deep down into our thoughts thinking about all the things we have done. Maybe in a way of good and bad, of darkness and light, how much harmony was there in the melodies we sang, how much hope we have left and how much love we could find, if we would just have the courage to look up a bit, and not just walk blindly onward down the path, on this twilight road.

Memories

We don't have memories. In Perugia the past the present and the future are all mixing up into a big mass of existance. The substance is a bit nubbly and in occasional moments we find fragments of our memories lurking behind the corner, attacking us with a sudden clearness that seams bewildering. Like little drops of the truth that is being witheld from us because the ever happening town doesn't let our mind focus on anything but our momentary social life. We are damned and blessed people without past and not thinking about the future. We are cripled by this way of life as much as we are gifted with it. The city wasn't built for us, it was built for people who leaved deep down in the sewers of history, but now we are using it, we live amongst it's aged stone walls, we walk on the labyrinth of it's roads each of us following our own personal Ariadne's thread, blindly holding on to our individual fates. This alters our perceptions too. We are living in a dream. And the dream is true. As I make my long conversations walking on the streets of perugia I realize, everybody relates to this town. Few can resist it's magnetic charm, and yet only a few can stand it for a long time. The photo here was taken right in front of the church of Monteluce. May peace rule the world.

Via Brunacci - Il cielo e sempre piu blu

Light and darkness can be devided sharply or softly... The harsh climate of the mountains of the shadows doesn't really leave a lot of room for the grey place between black and white. Our world is changing even though our Perugia in it doesn't. Recent studies suggest that global warming is happening even much faster then the previously anticipated worst case scenario. The permafrost lands in Siberia are melting, and thus letting loose a huge amount of metan in the atmosphere, greater and greater every day. The iceacapes are disappearing, suggesting that in about 10 years this planet won't have permanent icecapes, just seasonal ones... The seasons are getting divided as sharply as does the light in umbria... When you wake up the morning you can see the ever warming weather battleing with the air coming from the poles, the air that is cooled down by the melting ice. You can never know which will prevail, the collapsing summer or the desperately rampaging cold that gets nastier and nastier as it feels it's end closing up on it. This was a beautifull day, leaves getting yellow, and the people slowly walking on the streets, leaving there car behind as they are approaching the centro storico. So shall we arrive there soon as well. Yes a good omen we always need, because winter is coming soon. I can feel it.

Walking - bony hands in the dark

Friendly, you might think the trees are, when you start your walk to the city. Autumn has it's tolls, and life is slowly diminishing from the leaves, but in the light the shining colours of autumn are a joyfull view. After nightfall everything changes. The naked branches seem to be moving, trying to grab you, try to stop you, to not let you pass. You can only hope to reach the pale light that shines from a faraway house, shelter from the wreckless wind that blows between these mountains. 

- A - 

The arrival - spotting the city

Kindest follower,

in "Perugia Photos" first autumn sequel I invite you to take a walk with me from the outskirts of Perugia, from Monteluce, the mountain of light, to the core of Perugia, Perusia Augusta, Perusia vecchia, the ancient town, the meeting point of the shadows that are always lurking in Umbria. The City lies between it's aged walls, some of whom were erected even before the counting of time began in these lands. And they are still standing proudly, well preserved, virtually unchanged by the constant sieg of the tides of the ages. They had withstood these attacks so well, that even today on almost no other gap then the old gates it is possible to enter or exit this cage, this anthill of lost souls.
The traveller who first sets his eyes on the City in a sunset, like this, might wonder if he has left the surely bounds of reality behind him and set foot on the shores of a tale that is about to happen. The town is magnetic, you can hear it whispering in your head, you can feel it after a while as an entity, as a person as a friend as an enemy, as your love. The adventure grows more and more exciting after the first quick flirts with the City, and as the game intensifies, it sooner or later changes everybody but the blindest or the most callous hearted. Few can resist few can stay insentient. Can you?
Well a lot had been told today, and much more hadn't. Let's take some rest, maybe a good night's sleep shall we, before we continue this journey to the heart of this charming little place?

-a-

A new Era

After months of silence and a long wait a new era has come. The october sun is fading and winter is creeping upon us. The dark shadows are getting longer during the nights, the silence of the city in the cold hours after midnight is torturing our brains if we dare to listen to it through the drunkness we force upon ourselfs to escape this reality. Myriam has left so it's upon me to run this blog if I can. So try to get through the distance my kind reader, through the pointy bars, try to penetrate through this fake window through the thick walls that lie between your reality and ours, who live and fight to stay alive, here in Perugia, mystic city. Or WTF. The picture was taken on the way to Monteluce, one day before the arrival of the big cold. The cold that shall rule our life for quite some time from now on.
A.

Giotto

Giotto di Bondone, San Francesco feeding the birds from the lost polyptych of Siena

Tempietto

The San Michele Arcangelo Church, commonly called Tempietto, is the oldest church in Perugia. With a circular Paleochristian groundwork from the end of the V century or beginning of the VI century, the same internal structure as the San Stefano Rotondo Church in Rom, and its gothic front door from the XIV century, this tempietto is a pure visual surprise at the end of Corso Garibaldi. An isolated place in an extreme part of the city where silence, peace and spirituality emerge at the most!

Arco etrusco

Archi

Mitica Cinquecento

Not in Perugia but it could be as you can find Fiat Cinquecento more and more when you go down South Italy...

Vertical vs. Horizontal

Beyond the trees, the university of Perugia...

Dante

"Intra tupino e l'acqua che discende del colle eletto del beato Ubaldo

Fertile costa d'alto monte pende,

Onde Perugia sente freddo e caldo

Da Porta Sole..."

"Between a sand martin and the water that flows down the elect pass of the blessed Ubaldo

Fertile cost of the high slope mount,

Where Perugia feels cold and warm

From Porta Sole..."

Divina Commedia, Paradiso XI

Terrace!

... Because Perugia is not only made of arches and stairs but also by some private terrace right in the centre...!

Stairs and arches

Perugian equation: stairs + arches = città affascinante!

The Hottest City In Italy

Today, it was said that Perugia and Roma are the two hottest cities in Italy. And precisely now, it's exactly 29,5°C, not bad... not bad!

The sun is shining while the nature is giving its best, what a dream team!

Outdoor Life

The weather getting always hotter and hotter, people get more curious to what is happening outside... 

This old man stayed at least one hour in his balcony watching and glazing on the few passing people on Via Maturanzio.

Well, how do I know that?

I might have stayed staring at him for more than an hour too while enjoying my first sunbathing!

But do not think people are all enjoying the sun.... most of the windows blinds are down the whole day... hopefully to keep the cool inside!

Sad, isn't it?