Making the best of final days in Italy

 We saw that our days in Umbertide were running out, and made an effort to go more places.  On Sunday, we went to Gubbio and included some upper areas where I hadn't been before.  The practical thing to note was that we parked at the Teatro Romano lot and saw ticket machines advising us to get the EasyPark app; I did the download and entered the payment method and license number with a projected finishing time.  If I was reading it correctly I could at the end enter an actual ending time and just be charged for the actual time.  In fact I missed the alert when time was running low, when I could have extended the time; after time was out, there was no extending it, but we were only over by a few minutes.  Anyway, some Gubbio pictures:

Discouraging sitting here.

On Monday we went to Assisi, where we'd talked about going every time since I've been making the trips with Margaret, and never did, even turning around on the way once.  Now we did the trip with just a little time at S. Francesco, first entering the lower basilica, then trying to enter the upper church from outside and seeing that we needed to go from inside, and missed seeing the highlights of the Giotto frescoes this time.

We did a little uphill walking, then went back to the car to eat at La Stalla, an out-of-town restaurant I remembered from the 1970s.  Ready to return home, we weren't getting a signal for Waze, I was pretty sure we'd find our way to signs for Perugia that would help us home, until the entrance ramp for the superstrada in that direction was closed.  We started what seemed like a parallel route until we got a dead end warning and it was time to turn on Waze, which continued to put us on small roads until we were on a big one.

For the last full day, we were figuring out a short trip to take and I thought of Monterchi, known mainly for the Piero della Francesca painting of the Madonna del Parto, the pregnant Madonna.  While that used to be easily accessed in the cemetery chapel, now it is the subject of a museum in town with a video presentation and other explanations of the geometry of the painting.  Then we thought to go to Città di Castello and have lunch at Trattoria Lea with its truffle specialties.  Time to return to Umbertide and wrap up our too-short time.

On our last day, we needed to gather our devices and chargers before our departure. After doing our best (problem to be reported later), we loaded the car and took off to return it at Orvieto.  We had thought of just waiting for a train around 1.30 p.m., but since we were there on time, we took the slightly more expensive option shortly after 12, giving us the InterCIty train with assigned seats. When it arrived, it was a strain to board the right car as they were whistling to clear it for departure,  but we made it to a nice near-empty car that had vending machines. 

I liked that this train had us change at Tiburtina rather than Termini, but still it took an effort to get between the right tracks. We got to the airport station, and it was time to get to the B&B we’d booked. There had been two B&Bs recommended by travel friends, and we chose the more modest one, L’Isola, recommended by Cheryl, who also turned us to the Orvieto car rental.  They had reached out through Cheryl to us to make sure we were set for our arrival. They told us where to wait after our arrival and to send a selfie. It took more time than expected, and they took us to the place, on the modest side but serving our needs. 

They also recommended the seafood restaurant Amelindoo, fancy looking but we got out with nice mostly one-course meals. 

On the way, Barbara had noted that my backpack might have a problem meeting Lufthansa’s carry=on allowance. When I arrived at the B&B, I noticed that the backpack didn’t have my laptop; as best I can determine, I left it at the house.  So as I blog, it will be done more slowly on the iPad. These weeks our last few days in Italy:  now we have Germany and the river cruise to look forward to.