The Via Flaminia To Gubbio

The last day of 2017 was here and the streets were a carnival of people who were out and about to party and celebrate the New Year.  There are midway games and a Ferris wheel; street food and mulled wine. Like every other Umbrian town we visited so far, Christmas carols were blasting over the speakers set up in the street adding to the excitement!  Even though it was only lunchtime, everyone and their dog was out either walking the streets or in a restaurant fueling up for a long night of celebration and fireworks over the mountain that has the world's largest Christmas tree.   We are in the Medieval Masterpiece of Gubbio, Umbria!




We left our Airbnb palazzo in Spoleto and said farewell to our dear friend Sara who was taking the two-hour train journey back to Rome.  We have been driving The Via Flaminia which is the ancient Roman road that connects Rome with the Adriatic coast. This is where we were headed to today, with a stop in Gubbio.
The Via Flaminia (called the SS3 road in Umbria) wound its way through the foothills of the Apennine Mountains, passing by snow-capped mountain peaks and towns with Roman beginnings like Nocera Umbra and Gualdo Tadino that just begged to be explored.  We took a detour off the SS3 to go to Gubbio missing taking the Via Flaminia through Mount Cucco Park that is the border between the Umbria and the Marche Regions.  This was the most difficult part of the Via Flaminia for the Romans to build.

Gubbio With It's Never Ending Steps

Approaching Gubbio was a sight to behold!  This town is nestled on the lower slopes of Mount Ingino, with its ominous-looking grey limestone buildings winding up the treed mountainside.  Like Todi in southern Umbria, Gubbio is a Medieval wonderland full of imposing palaces and narrow arched alleyways.  Gubbio was settled on Mount Ingino by the Umbri tribes in the Bronze age and it was called Ikuvium.  Not like the Southern Umbri Tribes, the people of Ikuvium did not resist the Romans conquerors but rather joined forces with them and started to expand their town in the surrounding plains at the foot of the mountain.  When the Barbarian invasions started happening after the fall of the Roman Empire the inhabitants of Ikuvium deserted the old Roman part of town and moved back into the hills to build defensive fortresses.  Traces of the Roman walled city are everywhere and the giant city gate  "Porta Romans" is a Medival tower house built over the ancient Roman gate.

Carnival At Church Of St. Francis

Approaching Gubbio this afternoon, I got a sinking feeling that this would not be a quick and easy visit like we had intended.  The Ferris wheel was going full tilt next to the church of San Francesco, the midway was buzzing with people and the main parking lots were all full!  TIP#1:  when it's a crazy busy holiday, try to follow an Italian who looks like they in a hurry to find parking...they usually find an alternative parking lot a few hundred meters away!  That's what we did. Following a bunch of drivers around the Viale Teatro Romano to the old Roman theatre ruins, there was a public park with plenty of free parking.  This park would be just lovely for a summer's picnic with the Roman ruins nearby and views of Gubbio in front of you.  The Roman theatre here was built in the 1st-century B.C.E from local limestone.  It held 6,000 spectators and is the second-largest surviving theatre in the world.

River Camignano Running Through Gubbio

Walking through the city walls and across a bridge, was the weirdest presepe I have seen yet.   The Italian presepe is a nativity scene and it was invented by Saint Francis of nearby Assisi in 1223.  St. Francis himself lived in Gubbio for a while in 1220 and there are legends about his time here.  Every town in Umbria has a presepe at Christmas and in Gubbio, there is "Via Presepe" or "Nativity Road" in the San Martino neighbourhood, including along the Camignano River that runs through Gubbio.  The presepe is set up by volunteers each year and you can walk along the pedestrian road and learn the story of the birth of Jesus.  I tried to snap a few photos of the riverbank presepe, but I could not get close enough to get good shots and it just looked like weird rags and litter washed up on the shores of the Camignano!  😖

Palazzo dei Consoli

Walking uphill now, following the hoards of people, the streets quickly turned into stairs.  We marched along with all the excited townspeople of Gubbio past the stores selling truffles, ceramics and wines to the gorgeous Piazza Del Popolo.  This is an impressive Piazza that is more like a balcony than a town square, with the fortress-like Palazzo dei Consoli dominating its windswept terrace.  The Palazzo dei Consoli was built in 1332 and now houses a museum with an interesting piece of Umbrian history.  The Iguvine tablets are 7 bronze tablets created in the 2nd-1st-century B.C.E that are the largest surviving text of the Umbrian language!  The museum also has gorgeous 15th-century Gubbio lusterware ceramics.

Gubbio was a BIG deal in the Early Middle Ages; 1000 knights from Gubbio went to fight in the first Holy Crusade and they were the first to penetrate the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  This town just oozes Gothic vibes!   TIP #2: Look for the "Porta dei Morti" on some of the old buildings. The "Doors of the Dead" are said to be part of an Etruscan superstition stating that if the dead were carried out through the regular door, then Death would know its way inside the house.  Therefore, a special door would be needed to carry out the deceased and then Death would be confused and not return.  To learn about another Etruscan death custom check out the Via Cava.  Mysterious...

Fantastic Views From Gubbio's Piazza Del Popolo

For more stunning views you may want to consider going to the end of Via San Gerolamo to the little "funivia" that takes you up Mount Ingino to the Basilica of St. Ubaldo.   The ``Funivia Colle Eletto" is a little lift that takes you up to the top of the mountain in little 2-person baskets.  St. Ubaldo is the patron saint of Gubbio and his body is up there in the Basilica rotting away in a glass case for your viewing pleasure or displeasure. The ride to the top in these little stand cages that look like big Easter baskets.  While the funivia looked like so much fun, we needed to find some lunch (and viewing the mummified corpse of some long-dead guy didn't sound too appetizing).

On The Prowl For Lunch In Gubbio

We wandered up and down the busy main street of Gubbio looking for food, but everywhere we went was packed.  TIP #3: Head a few streets off the main drag to find small traditional restaurants; we use the Maps.Me app to find small local hangouts.  We turned down a quiet side street and went down the street/stairs there was a small skating rink with a few kids goofing around on the ice and a little trattoria/pizzeria called San Francesco and The Wolf.  With an unusual name like this, how could we say no? Click the link to find out more about this story. We went inside and it was packed full of families; parents, grandparents with canes, kids running around, babies in high chairs dogs sitting on the terracotta floor next to kids in highchairs.  Yup.  Remember at the beginning of this post I said everybody and their dog was in a restaurant for lunch in Gubbio?  Well, here in Italy there are many restaurants that allow dogs to dine along with their owners.  I find this absolutely charming!  Dogs are an important member of the family and are much more well-behaved than some of these kids in the restaurant today.  We squeaked in at a little table by the kitchen entrance and had our last meal in Umbria.  White truffles are the star in the cuisine of Gubbio and they are harder to find in restaurants and way more expensive than the black truffle.  We ordered truffle pizza and tagliatelle pasta with black truffle sauce, local beer and the house red wine which was absolutely delicious and surprisingly tasted more like the red wines of Northern Italy.

The late afternoon light was beginning to fade behind the mountains around Gubbio and soon it would be dark enough to light up the world's largest Christmas tree on the slopes of Mount Ingino.  Every year a different Italian celebrity is invited to push the button to light up the tree.  Even the Pope has lit up the beloved Gubbio Tree. This year, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli got to push the button and light up the tree from the space station; now that's FAR OUT!    Tonight at midnight there will be a grand firework display high above Mount Ingino and its tree, bringing people from all over the area to Gubbio to watch this exciting spectacle.

Happy 2018 From Gubbio!

As much as I would love to stay and watch the romantic fireworks above Gubbio, we must move onwards now along the Via Flaminia through the mountainous Marche region of Italy while we still have daylight.
We have an important New Years' date with our best friend and her family in Riccione on the Adriatic Coast and I can not wait to see her!

Buon Anno!

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