2008 ITALIAN ODYSSEY - Urbino and Urbania

Thursday October 2, 2008 – Urbino and Urbania

Another wonderful day. We have had many excellent trips, tours and cruises and enjoyed them all, but this Italian Odyssey takes some beating. It was cloudy when we woke up and Monika, the charming lass on the desk said the forecast was for showers this afternoon and rain tomorrow. The showers didn’t eventuate today – maybe the rain will hold off tomorrow?

Undeterred by the forecast, we set off after our normal breakfast. The woman serving the breakfast is somewhat doleful (and somewhat inefficient – there was no milk for Rab’s cereal and I took the last of the ham again). Mind you it is not surprising that she should look a little downhearted. When we left this morning she was cleaning the large plate glass windows in the foyer; when we returned seven hours later she was still at it, polishing mirrors and showcases. We suspect she may well be the Bianca who, we are told, services our room.

St Francis

Anyhow, leaving Bianca to her work we headed out first of all for Montecasale which Monika assured us was very beautiful. The flyer she gave us said that St Francis spent a good deal of time there. The drive up to the top of the hill was indeed beautiful but there was nothing to see when we got there except three cats and a statue of St Francis – and plenty of “Private” signs. So we went down the hill again and headed for Urbania.

What a drive that was! The roads were as twisting as those on the way to Cortina and on the way up we ran into thick cloud (we were about 800 meters at that stage). The road surface was excellent; there was very little traffic and we were not in a hurry so we could enjoy the glorious views (once we were out of the cloud) and the autumnal leaf changes. While not as spectacular as the American woods, these Italian woods are pretty special and may well get more colourful yet.

San Angelo in Valdo

Once we had descended, the road was a good deal straighter and the countryside, while hilly and green was not so mountainous but still very pretty. There were not as many villages as we had encountered yesterday but as we drove past one – San Angelo in Valdo – it looked so charming we thought we’d stop off. As I tried to find a place to turn, we spotted a garage with a car wash and decided to get the car cleaned. Most people would think we were bats cleaning a hire car (the lad at the garage clearly did) but we didn’t like it being dirty especially as we had hit a patch of manure somewhere on one of TomTom’s diversions. Rab’s side of the car was liberally spattered with it.

Tight fit going in

I thought it was an automatic drive through washer but the old man who ran the show said his son would do the job – and he did. Made an excellent job of it too, including touching up the tyres. He spoke very little English but was a motor cycle racing fan and was quite excited to find we were Australian and therefore associated with Casey Stoner, the current World Champion. He said Valentino Rossi lived up the road. He was such a pleasant bloke that I gave him my Australian cap which made him very happy.

View upriver from San Angelo

The town was pretty and old. We wandered around for a while (trying to find a toilet actually and failing to do so – they are certainly in short supply). I topped up my supply  of fruit with juicy grapes, figs, peaches and pears, while Rab found some of her favourite – bananas. Narrow streets, old doors, archways leading to cloisters – so much to see and try to remember – thank goodness for the camera.

This building was on the cover of our Italian book

On to Urbania which was of particular interest because it featured in the book we had used for our Italian language lessons back in Melbourne. The lessons were a bit of a flop because the teacher just couldn’t understand that we didn’t expect (or want) to learn Italian in ten weekly lessons – we just wanted to be able to make ourselves understood when looking for basic things – toilets, food, drink. In the end I downloaded some free software which was much more useful. But it was strange to see the places that had featured in the study book. Again we just wandered round admiring the views and absorbing the aspects of this beautiful town.

Urbino main street

Urbino, our next stop was somewhat different. Parking was outside the city walls and the main road up to the town was a steep one. The day had warmed up by now and we were happy  to flop into a pub where they were happy to feed us in exchange for our using their toilet. A tasty gelati – but no caramel for Rab – finished off our meal and then we took in the sights – including some very interesting graffiti, something that has not been a big feature of the country so far.

Looking down the main street of Urbino

The drive back to Sansepolcro was even better than it was this morning. The clouds had gone and there was nothing to mar the incredible views of the picture book farms. 

The dinner tonight was special too. The chef’s special tonight was a tripe dish accompanied by a side dish of beans – two of my favourites. Each was excellent and the tripe was the most tender I have ever eaten – talk about melt in your mouth! Washed down with our ‘usual’ half bottle of local chianti – what more could we want?