Driving Like an Italian

Yesterday was day 5 in Cortona.  Where has the time gone?  We slept in after the late night at the festival.  We decided to go to the town of Perugia mainly so Mike could get more comfortable driving in Italy.  He is doing good at the driving, but we are going further from Cortona a little at a time.  When I say driving like an Italian, I mean the other drivers, not Mike.  He doesn't pass in a no passing zone around a curve, doesn't tailgate, and stays in his lane when not passing.  Not to say that Italian drivers are bad, just more aggressive that us.  We did venture onto the autostrada (the equivalent of our interstate) yesterday and had no problems.

In Perugia we parked at the train station and walked UP for over 1 1/2 miles.  When I say up, I mean steeply up.  Refer to the picture.  That is how steep the entire walk was.  However, it was worth it when we finally got to the piazza.

Steep walk up to Old Town

Street on the way to the piazza  Some connecting
arches are actually ancient aquaducts.

The municipal buildings and fountain in the piazza.  The fountain was built in 1248 and 1249,  with the buildings being built not long afterward.

Mike in front of old municipal building

Mary in front of fountain

Old municipal buildings

Shopping plaza

The piazza looked like the Promenade of Perugia with stores lining the sides of the streets.  There was just no traffic in the middle.  There is even a Timberland shoe store here.

 A painting and a stained glass window on the side of an old church.

Painting on the side of a church

Stained glass windo

A church from the 1300's.  Since this was the weekend, there were young people laying out in the sun on the large grassy area.  Sorry ladies, I didn't get a picture of the handsome young man in his speedo.

When we got back our hostesses cooked us a most splendid dinner.  After the bruschetta (bread) flavored with garlic and olive oil from their own trees plus olives from those trees we had pasta with mozzerella, tomatoes, and fresh basil followed by eggplant parmesian with pollo (chicken) and beef on the side.  For dolce (dessert) we had homemade gelato (ice cream), apricot and banana with homemade chocolate liqueur creme to drizzle on the top.  Of course, we had local white and red wine to drink with dinner.  After dinner we had to test Patrizia's homemade limoncella.  Everything was so good.  We are eating lighter today.  We can't eat like we have the last three evenings everyday.  

So until next time,  arreviderci.