A Sunset to Remember

Over the weekend we traveled to the hill towns of Umbria. These towns were much smaller than the towns on our last weekend field trip. The first town we would arrive at was the town of Foligno, which wasn't really a hill town, but the town was quaint and relaxing. The town was located in a valley with hills around it so I guess you could call it a hill town. We were only there for a few hours, giving us time to do a few sketches and tour the church.
When we arrived back at the train station we would find that our train had been canceled do to a strike, so we sat and waited another hour for a bus to take us to Assissi which was very close to Foligno.

The bus actually worked out better than the train would have. We were dropped off at the top of the town which sat high up on the hill side. After checking into the hotel I ran up to Rocca Maggiore, a fortress that sits above the city and the valley below. From the tower of Rocca Maggiore you could see the entire town of Assissi and the entire valley below including Perugia which we would visit later that weekend.

That evening I met some locals who spoke a little English and were very friendly. I ended up spending much of the night with them enjoying home made Italian food and of course a little wine from the area.

The next evening we would join up as a group and enjoy an amazing sunset and antipasti atop Rocca Maggiore. The sunset was amazing, casting the orange and red colors across the entire valley. After the sun fell behind the mountains we enjoyed watching fireworks from the valley below. The sound from them would echo nicely off the walls of Rocca Maggiore. We spent much of the time creating shadows on the walls of the fortress. Watch out for Godzilla Nikki.




The next morning was a little disappointment because we had to leave the beautiful town of Assissi. We would arrive in Perugia that afternoon. That afternoon I spent most of the time sketching. There were many interesting places to sketch with the hills as a back drop. From Perugia you could look across the valley and see the small town of Assissi sitting on the hill side. Perugia was a much larger town home of one of Italy's Universities.

The last day of our field trip we planned to go to Orvieto, but when we got off the train to switch to the train to Orvieto we found that we again had another canceled train. As we sat and waited for the next train we found that it too was canceled. So all we could do was sit at the train station and wait for a train that would take us home back to Rome. While we waited we sketched like well trained architecture students. Even though the train station seemed to be in the middle of no where we still found something to sketch.

Even though the trip came to an abrupt end it was very enjoyable, but of course it always feels great to be back in Rome. Now with only three weeks left in the program we have to bear down and focus and finish strong.