Another Most Beautiful Medieval Village

Umbria has a plethora of officially designated “Most Beautiful Medieval Villages”. Spello, our home base for 5 weeks, belongs to this club, as do many of the borgo’s we’ve visited. We are taking a “mini-vacation” to visit another one. Gubbio is way off the beaten track up in the mountains. It does not have a train station and we do not have a car and it is too far and too mountainous to bike to for a short stay. Fortunately, public transport is pretty good in Italy. After a short train ride to Perugia, we transferred to a bus that queasily wound up and down two mountains, which then dropped us two blocks from our B&B in the historic center. The ‘stone village’ is noted for ceramics and linens. Shopping! I spent all my ‘pin money’ at the best linen shop across from our B&B, with none left over for ceramics. That’s just as well, linens pack easily and don’t break. Besides, I already have a cute ceramic espresso set from Gubbio. It was an incredible yard sale find years ago, a souvenir from someone else’s trip and partly an inspiration for this one.
‘Don Matteo’ is another of Gubbio’s claim to fame and another reason to add it to my “must visit” list. The first six seasons of the beloved TV series were filmed here. The last seven were filmed in Spoleto, where I was introduced to Don Matteo (the series, not the actor) in May 2022, just after they finished filming the last episode of the last season. My ‘go to’ TV show is a heartwarming cozy mystery that is more comic than dramatic. Don Matteo is Italy’s version of Father Brown. Instead of a sweet, frumpy, bike-riding Roman Catholic priest “detective” in 1950’s Cotswalds, Don Matteo is ‘Marlboro man’ handsome in contemporary Umbria. Entertainment, plus I practice ‘listening’ to Italian. What’s not to love?
Gubbio is even smaller and less touristy than Spello. It is much too far for the Cruise Ship Tour Buses, and other than a handful of couples or familes from Germany or the US, we didn’t see any foreign tour groups at all. The place is fairly quiet, except for the tolling bells. Palazzo Consoli’s clock tower keeps time for the town. One doesn’t need a clock, watch or iphone to know the time. The clock tower rings a deep toned bell on the hour, followed by a lighter toned bell on the quarter hour. Church bells around town (there are many) chime in randomly, but the clock tower keeps consistent and precise time. It never fails to ring. Every 15 minutes. 12:45? 12 deep gongs followed by 3 lighter gongs. All. Day. All. Night. The charming chiming became less so, as late night waged into early morning. Sleepless. Our apartment was centrally located, and very, very, close to the clock tower. Via Piccardi is shown In the featured photo, at about “Mike” level, the linen shop is on the left, and our B&B is across the street on the right. Towering just above is the Gothic Palazzo Consoli and it’s clock tower. The extra shows another view of this monumental building adjacent to the Grand Piazza. Many, many scenes of Don Matteo were shot in this Piazza. In fact, we had our ‘due cappucini’ at the cafe where Don Matteo and his Police friend drank esspresso and played chess. The table, their hats, and chess board are still there, as is the bike that Don Matteo pedaled down the piazza steps!