May 11, Urbino, Marche

Today we left Umbria and crossed the Appenines to the Marche region. Beautiful scenery and very different to what we have seen so far. Our destination, the university town of Urbino, was important as one of the points of transition between the medieval and renaissance eras as demonstrated in the Ducale Palace of Montefeltro, shown in the first photo above. The fellow is our tour manager Luca. The city has a foot in both time periods, but the palace's style is clearly renaissance.

We had a wonderful lunch at Taverna deli Artisti nearby the main square with local specialities including crostini, salad, fresh pasta with porcini mushrooms and cheese, rabbit, veal, beef, and torte for dessert, plus wine and espresso. Dinner wasn't necessary!

While the rest of the group chose to ride a small "birdcage" down the mountain behind Gubbio on our return to the city, Edla and I took the bus, and got lost briefly trying to find our way to the elevator entrance up to the main square by our hotel. We did get back though, and the four of us took a short walk outside our hotel to get a gelato in lieu of dinner.