Sept 26 - Arezzo to Perugia

 Sept 26 - Arezzo to Perugia

Travel day. 


It was an easy train journey from Arezzo but our first impressions of Perugia were that it was definitely a bit ‘ordinary’!  Not somewhere that you’d definitely do an immediate ‘about-turn’ but not far off it!


However, once we’d off-loaded our luggage we took off for a walk into town which was a huge improvement. I should actually say we walked UP into town as this was one of the steepest hills we’ve encountered for a long time and it certainly burned off a few ‘cals’! 🥵


Our first stop was to the Rocca Paolina, known as a medieval fortress. This was built into the hills in the 16th century for Pope Paul III in order to keep the Perugians under control.  In order to build this fortress, a medieval part of town was destroyed, and, during its construction, turned the former streets of the historic centre into below ground passageways, a bit like an underground shopping mall.  Over time however, the fortress was destroyed, leaving this very interesting labyrinth of underground tunnels remaining. 

Having a bit of a wander around the place we decided that the historic old town here really is quite nice, with a number of lovely old palaces lining the city piazzas and some beautiful cobbled lanes and passageways, it’s certainly changed our initial opinion of the place.

We actually stopped in one of these old palaces, the ‘Palazzo dei Priori’, to visit the ‘National Gallery of Umbria’ (!).  Containing Umbrian art from 1250 to 1600 this is a pretty specialised collection and, I’m not sure if we’re just getting a bit jaded after 6 weeks in Italy, but I reckon you probably need to be a fan of religious Renaissance art to get the most out of this.

Bottom L: Bill Bailey? 😆
Bottom R: (!)

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