Spello, One of the Beautiful, Walled Hill Towns of Umbria

From the Highway, Spello is just a stones throw, as you can see from the picture below.  It's another town that will test your legs if you decide to "walk up" rather than vie for one of the few parking places inside the walls.  Almost all of the hill towns have some version of the original walls.  Of course there has been maintenance over the years, but you are seeing "old" construction.

I opted to hoof it, and was rewarded with some great views of what it must be like to live here on one of the very narrow streets, sometimes without a yard at all, and sometimes with a small garden.  After all, this is a thriving little town and a popular residential place.

Below, you can see that one must share the road once inside the walls.  This is a two-way street.  In Italy driving is a sport, and you would be amazed at the highway driving.  However in these hill towns, everyone seemed to be very polite about giving way.

This picture of the famous church, Santa Maria Maggiore was captured before the attendant (sitting at his desk reading a newspaper) mentioned that photographs were forbidden.

The church houses amazing frescoes by Pinturicchio, famous in his time but new to me.  They really were something to see.

Yes this is a road, and those doors go to houses where people live.

One of the things call to my attention early in the week is the number of different building materials which have been used over the centuries to expand, repair and maintain the buildings of the hill towns.  Look at this wall below, and count all the different types of stone.

After Spello

I decided to do what I love most in a foreign country.  I hit the little back roads and head in a general direction to see what turns up.  One name on a direction sign interested me for some reason, so I set out south to find Montefalco.  I turns out that this is a central point for both the grape and olive industry in the valley.  As far as the eye could see, there were fields of one or the other, accented occasionally by a freshly plowed field which will be planted with next year's wheat.  Hard semolina of course, because that is what's best for pasta.


The grapes below are sagrantino, which are the best of all Italy,  I got it first hand from the man I ran into (or he into me) who was the owner of the grapes.  We had a spirited conversation making maximum use of my six words of Italian, and his seven words of English.  But we parted friends with a handshake and a Ciao!  Look at the density of the grape bunches.  This must be a banner year.

The next farm was growing olives, and several nets had been placed under the trees ready to catch the crop.  There were no workers around, so I assume it was their lunch break.  Nevertheless, here is a shot showing the density of the olives on a tree.  Remember from an earlier post, these are "raked" off the tree by hand.  Given the hundreds of thousands of trees in the valley, there is employment to be had in Umbria, at least now at harvest time.

Tomorrow, I pack up and drive to the Naples airport, where I will turn in my car and be picked up by the Untours driver who will then take me to Amalfi along with other Untourists flying into Naples.  I don't have a car in Amalfi, at the suggestion of Untours because parking is virtually impossible in the area.  Instead, I will be provided with a week of bus passes, so good bye to my little 5-speed, she has been a ball to drive this week on the twisty mountain roads and the high speed highways in Umbria.