From our first look in the morning sun at the setting
outside our apartment, we were hooked.
The valley below us was covered in Spring green, with white lace accents
everywhere, courtesy of flowering bushes.
As we drove through Tuscany (and a corner of Umbria) this morning, the
evidence of Spring’s arrival was everywhere; rolling green fields, carpeted in
yellow and white, pink flowering trees, yellow forsythia, daffodils and wild
iris made for a glorious, if subtle tapestry.
We were headed for Urbino, in Le Marche, through the
mountains and east of Tuscany. We have
dubbed the voice of our GPS “Chiara” and, though we sometimes wonder why she
chooses certain routes, we’ve come to believe that she’ll get us where we need
to go … eventually. Today, that trust
was jeopardized, as we found ourselves on roads and in small towns that
appeared nowhere on our physical map.
Nevertheless, over hill and dale, on ever narrower roads, we followed
Chiara’s directions and found ourselves in the parking lot at the base of
Urbino’s hilltop location. Mel was
certain that we could have arrived at least 30 minutes earlier had we followed
roads that seemed more obvious, but we did truly enjoy the scenery on and from
the back roads.
Urbino is a university town, a Renaissance gem, beautifully
situated on a hilltop, but pretty much off the usual tourist itinerary. The biggest draw, in addition to the lovely
town itself, is the Ducal Palace. We
especially enjoyed the Duke of Montefeltro’s private study, a tiny room
entirely lined with inlaid wood panels depicting intricate architectural
scenes, landscapes, and still life renderings, all in amazing perspective.
We were close San Marino, one of the world’s
smallest
countries, completely surrounded by Italy, so we decided to go there. Chiara and the Republic’s inadequate signage
kept us from actually getting to the Centro Storico, but we did cross the
borders into and out of the little Republic – no customs, no immigration
control involved.
Our last destination was San Leo, near Urbino and San
Marino, but actually in the region of Emilia Romagna. This small mountain-top town has massive
fortress at its summit and gorgeous views in every direction below.
We decided to educate Chiara a little bit on our return
journey to Tuscany and were pretty pleased with our modifications to her
originally suggested route. Evidently,
she doesn’t take well to correction, or to our second-guessing her wisdom. We stopped in a supermarket about a half hour
from home base and, when we returned to the car, the GPS would not turn
on. For a VERY tense ten minutes or so,
we felt pretty much dead in the water and it would not be an overstatement to
say we were freaked out; we didn’t know exactly where we were, and could barely
remember the name of the town nearest to our far-off-the-beaten-track agritourismo! After some frantic fidgeting, and with a sigh
of relief, we found that Chiara had deigned to speak to us again and we were on
our way home, never to question her again.
Maybe…
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