Dear Readers,
Because market research is ingrained in my soul, I will start today with a one question survey. Do you prefer to get these Haber Reports on a daily basis as I have been doing on this trip OR would you prefer fewer reports (as I have done in the past) (but possibly longer ones!) that cover more than one town?
Also, a word of clarification about responding. I think I threw some of you off. You can just reply directly to my Reports; you don’t need to start a new email.
Spoleto turned out to be as delightful as the other medieval towns. Unfortunately, Marty wasn’t feeling great today and it rained on and off, but we managed. He was a good (great!) sport.
I just love walking through these old streets. They are so charming (when you’re not collapsing from the hills and steps!). Here are a few food stores that caught my eye today.
And here’s another typical street.
Our first stop today was the Ponte Della Tori. This massive and graceful bridge was built in the 14th century over the foundations of a Roman era aqueduct. It’s 750 feet long. One can walk across it, but we opted not to. We did walk 12,000 steps today though.
From there we went to La Rocha which is a fortress built in 1360 and Spoleto’s dominant structure. Once a high security prison, it now houses a small museum.
This is the outside.
This is the courtyard.
Here are some lovely views from the fortress.
And here are some incredible pieces from the museum. They are from the 12th century.
Next up was the Duomo. I thought the outside was just gorgeous and different from many other cathedrals we have seen. There are 8 rose windows. I took the 2 pictures at different times. You can see how wet the ground is in the second photo.
The Duomo houses the most notable art in town, including immaculately restored frescoes by Fra Filipino Lippi.
From here I wanted to go to Sant’Eufemia which is a church inside an archbishop’s palace. What intrigued me was that I read that the church had a gallery above the nave where female worshippers were required to sit. I had never heard or seen that about a church before. I Googled where it was, but got all turned around. We walked and walked and walked some more, on wet steps no less and eventually found these amazing escalators and moving walkways (all in this medieval town!!) and wound up back at the Duomo. Yup, the church was right there! My traveling companion was not too happy. And the church and its balcony were underwhelming. Ah well.
Our last stop of the day before we collapsed was Casa Romana. Excavated at the end of the 19th century, the house is thought to have belonged to Vespasia Polly, the mother of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. Some of the original decoration and mosaic floors are still intact.
At this point it was time for our mid-afternoon gelato stop. We have not been stopping for actual lunches.
Tonight was another low key pizza dinner. Similar to Perugia, rather than being in the old town, it was a 15 minute car ride away. Actually, it turned out to be in a suburb. The pizza was quite tasty.
Tomorrow will be our last visit to a hill town, but not our last day of this trip. See you tomorrow.
❤️
Irene