Park Hotel Perugia

Back to the land of pay toilets. Don.t know why that bothers me so much but it does. It just doesn.t seem right. Anyway, we are now in Assisi. We got off the boat and it was raining, and then we had to take a detour to Assisi. the road was very narrow and hilly, It was a little tense for awhile. Saw St Francis ...

... pizzeria where I had delicious lasagna. After lunch we browsed through the many stands. Sample after sample led to some major purchases. It was hard to pass up the various chocolate products when the smell just filled the air. There was everything from chocolate beer to chocolate &#8220;pills&#8221; to chocolate pasta!! <br><br>Heaven.<br><br>I&#8217;ll update you soon,<br><br>Siara

... we made our way to some of the cathedrals and then down to the main center of chocolate wonders. I sasw a block of chocolate the size of a human being that was being cut with a giant saw the crumbled with a sledge hammer and sold by the gram.<br><br>By now the day was winding down and we had a long drive ahead so we made our way back down the hill and drove leisurely home!!<br><br>Good job, well done!<br>

... My friend has a nice, sparsely decorated flat in the heart of the village. We settled in and then went to the neighboring town of Amelia for a nice dinner.<br><br>Licia had worked in that region for a few months and had been recommended to a good restaurant near Amelia. We drove over the rolling hills to the small hilltop village ...

... and everything. We had a great view to the surrounding hills. <br>Perugia is a quaint town with cobblestone streets. We got a bit turned around and ended up back in the same spot we started walking but eventually found our way around the town. Then we headed to Assisi. We walked through markets and saw numerous churches. The stones and narrow streets reminded me of Siena. We grabbed a milkshake and gelato and headed back to Perugia.<br>

... Today the square is still a local meeting point for tourist and students alike. <br>The heart of the square belongs to Fontana Maggiore (Great Fountain) built between 1275 and 1278 by father and son team Nicola and Giovanni Pisano.<br>At the other end of the Piazza is the Cathedral of St Lorenzo with its pink façade, which was never truly completed. Work begun in 1345 and continued until 1587, however the door way was only built in the late 1700's.

... each student and, of course, I wrote an Ode to FHP '09. But we did forget to take pictures! Oh well. We have about 10 days left and will be mainly packing and shipping. We did have a fascinating look at some recently discovered Hebrew manuscripts from the 12th century and we will have a visit to a Raffaello exhibit in Urbino and maybe, if we have time, one more visit to Rome. I'll blog about these before we leave and I will remember to take pictures!

... of two hills and to get to class for example, I have to walk up and down and I get SO out of breath. It's been a little bit rainy, foggy and windy so far but I think that only adds to the mystifying aspect of Perugia. So far I have visited a local farm and learned how to make pasta from scratch and I've begun my Intensive Italian Language course. I usually dred language, but this Intro class was great ...

... were going to get there successfully, since the bus went through suburbs and industrial areas, and finally let us off across a mini-highway from a mall. We looked around, and we could see a big building with a Nestle sign, but no Perugina. Which is apparently because Nestle bought Perugina. However, we walked down the road a bit and the Perugina sign came into view, so we knew we were in the right spot. After Val determined that yes, we were in fact in the right spot, and we ...

... lunchtime street parade didn't eventuate, and the rest of the program doesn't start till around 6.00 pm each day. Most of the items listed were American college, school and army bands, and so spread out in time that it would have been midnight before we could head home. Nothing in the program inspired us to either stay, or plan on returning on a later evening. On the other hand, the two nights of the Cortona Jazz Festival, which they bill as being the end of the Umbrian Jazz ...