Urbi et Orbi

Although Monday saw the start of a full week of holiday for Douglas and Susan it was Stephen and I who were out and about, taking up their offer to dog sit so that we could venture a bit further afield from LCDDB than usual. That is why we were heading for the autostrada, at a time when by rights we should have been just finishing breakfast, as we travelled to Urbino.

Urbino is an old, walled city about 150 kilometres away in the north of Le Marche which was very important during the Italian Renaissance, hence its status as a World Heritage site. It also towers over the surrounding countryside, which is why you need to get a lift from the car park to the main square by the ducal palace at the top, having first paid for your ride from the tourist desk in the bowels of the hillside.

It was at the ducal palace that we started our visit, which is also the home of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche – and a very fine setting it is for the various works of art it houses. The palace dates back to the 15thcentury and the rooms are surprisingly large and airy. This is helped by the various art treasures (including, amongst others, Raphael’s La Muta and Piero della Francesca’s Ideal City) being displayed sparingly so you have the feeling of being not so much in an art gallery as popping round to your common or garden Renaissance duke’s place for a morning cappuccino. The fact that being Monday morning, visitors were at a select premium, also helped.

As the duomo was closed to visitors due to extensive refurbishment, we opted, next, for a couple of more modest oratories tucked away down a side street. The first, the Oratory of St John the Baptist, is a small, 14thcentury chapel notable for its late Gothic style fresco cycle by the brothers Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni, which we thought were striking in their naivety. The next, St Joseph’s oratory, was just a couple of doors along the street and of a somewhat different nature. Although built in the early 1500s, it was refurbished in the 1680s in that Catholic baroque style which seemed even more over the top after the honest simplicity of the Salimbeni brothers. What this oratory did have, however, in a side room, was a sculpted presepe from 1545, which was altogether more to our taste, and not just (as my regular readers will know) because we love a good nativity scene. You can imagine our joy when we discovered that a presepe is not just for Christmas.

After lunch of a crescia each in a quiet back street (all the restaurants were busy as we had happened to coincide with graduation day for the University of Urbino, more of which later) we took time out in the shade of some trees while we waited for the town to open again in the afternoon. A crescia, which was new to me, is a flaky flatbread originating in Urbino, which you have filled and folded as a kind of sandwich, and is highly recommended, its tastiness probably having much to do with the generous amount of lard used in its making. We then visited Raphael’s house, the place where he was born in 1483 and where he spent his youth, receiving his first painting lessons from his father, Giovanni Santi. While there was nothing there that really had to do with Raphael, apart from some copies of his work by other, lesser artists and a painting by Santi which may or may not have had some input from him, it was a lovely old house set to evoke the feeling of the time the artist lived there (only, probably, more serene and without the electric lighting).

Having exhausted Urbino, we headed south but, to take advantage of not having to hurry back for the dogs, we stopped at Sirolo, a seaside town in the Conero Park. By seaside what I really mean is situated on top of the cliffs overlooking the bay below, with access to the beach down steep tree covered paths. Unlike the usual local seaside town with its lungamare and abundance of chalets, this had something of a Cornish vibe, with a busy main street leading to an open piazza with views up and down the coast. Being still full from lunch (because, as I failed to mention earlier, we had a plate of salami and cheese and an extra crescia in addition to our sandwich) we had aperitivo in one of the bars in the square before heading home.

It was, all in all, a most satisfactory day out, and one of the things that made the atmosphere of Urbino so happy was that our visit coincided, as I mentioned, with graduation day (il giorno della laurea) for some of the students. Now I’m not sure what the actual ceremony was like, but afterwards the celebrations spilled joyously onto the streets. Here the graduates (laureati) wearing their laurel wreaths (so much more fun than a mortar board) with various friends and family spent the day having lunch and parading the streets completing various challenges set for them.

This is why, as we were looking for somewhere for lunch, one group stopped Stephen and asked if he would stand back-to-back with the laureato (unconvincingly decked out in blond wig and unflattering skirt– he wouldn’t get very far on Drag Race) to have his picture taken. Then later, when we were coming back from Raphael’s house, another group stopped us but this time the young woman asked me (in English – how did she know?) if I would buy one of her cartons of crisps as she had to sell them all for charity. Of course I obliged, which prompted much cheering from her friends and other interested bystanders - and very nice they were too.

Although we had glorious weather for our mini holiday, the rest of the week was a bit unsettled, veering between blazing sunshine and torrential rain. This started on Tuesday and all because of Susan. It had been a rather hot day and she happened to remark that what we needed was a good storm to clear the air, and an hour or so later she got rather more than she bargained for. It had begun to look a little dark up the valley towards San Rustico, and just as I was thinking we should close the shutters the wind started to whip up and Stephen phoned to tell us to batten down the hatches. This was easier said than done, because by this time the torrential rain was driving horizontally past the windows and the trees were trying to follow suit. We managed to close all the windows and the shutters – the ones outside with something of a struggle but working as a team as Susan looked anxiously on Douglas and I triumphed in the end. We sat it out as a storm of biblical proportions raged round the house and Stephen drove home from the factory, miraculously without incident, to make sure we were all all right.

As is the nature of these things, it was as fierce as it was short lived, but it did leave chaos behind. We were not so badly affected, a sun umbrella on the terrazzo being the only casualty, but a picture of the beach at Numana, just down from Sirolo where we had been twenty-four hours before, showed utter devastation. We did, however, have to alter our dinner arrangements as we had planned to go to Civitanova for pizza at Le Due Re and afterwards walk along the lungamare. We went to the pub instead.

Wednesday was a bit of a dull day and wet at times, but it brightened up in the afternoon when I took Douglas and Susan to Pasta Mancini as Mr M had kindly agreed, when I asked him, to give them a tour of the factory. They found it as fascinating as I had on my first time, and Douglas showed his enthusiasm, and that he had understood everything, by occasionally repeating back to Mr M what he had just said. Unfortunately, this confused Massimo and he thought Douglas was asking questions but couldn’t understand what he was meaning. Welcome to our world, Mr M.

The weather showed a bit of an improvement on Thursday, which was just as well as we all went, in the evening, to Fermo for the market. On the way we stopped off at Autopompei to see if there was any further developments on the Freeclimber front. There weren’t, though to be fair the lady on the reception desk did look as dejected about this as she had the last time. Little did she know Stephen had a card up his sleeve. The previous Friday whilst having our hair cut (one after the other, of course) Stephen had related the tale of the missing speedometer cable to Rocco. He, being interested generally in cars, perked up, took the details of the make and model and a couple of hours later sent details of what looked to be two suitable replacement parts on subito.it, an Italian free listings site. Stephen told the lady these were available, asked for her email address and said he would send her the details. This he has done, and we are awaiting a response.

As for the market, we enjoyed a stroll up and down after aperitivo at Art Asylum in the main square and managed to persuade Susan into buying a replacement hat for the white all-purpose beanie that Douglas had bought her from a golf shop in Portugal. This was altogether more stylish, being handmade from linen grosgrain with aluminium wire to keep the brim in shape (as the lady kept telling us, so you could wash it), and with a definite Enchanted April vibe, as befits a woman who shops at the Nero Giardini outlet.

She wore it the next day when she and Douglas, on our recommendation, took a trip to Sirolo and then Numana, which had seen a remarkable clean up operation, due to a large number of local volunteers. The weather there was very kind to them, though it was again unsettled around LCDDB, as it was yesterday morning. It did clear up enough for our evening at Lido di Fermo’s Palio dei Sapori, though the proliferation of grey clouds meant that even though it didn’t rain and the evening was very pleasant, it wasn’t as busy as last year. We ate and ambled through the various market stalls on the lungamare. Susan again purchased, this time a green agate bracelet; Douglas got nothing.

The weather continued to improve overnight so we were able to take our Sunday constitutional this morning along Porto San Giorgio beach. Douglas and Susan again joined us, and again we strode manfully ahead while they took an easier time of it. And whilst with her new hat Susan blended in more with the ambience of an Italian beach, Douglas, fortunately, stuck to his previous week’s look so it was again easy to spot him, though this time he may have lost the socks.