Perugia

A week and a half ago, we went on our field trip to Perugia. One of the first things we saw here was just getting from the bus station to the city. The ancient completely underground medieval city has been transformed into modern walkways between the two places. So, we walked through the dark stone alleyways that were once Perugia's entire town - I thought it was pretty cool, esp. that they are still used today and practically, not just a museum. The old shops and rooms were just left for show though, not actually used.

...surprisingly, when we exited the old ruins-turned-passages, this is the building we ended up in. ...talk about the outside not matching the inside. I would have never guessed that this was the entrance to what we just exited.
... just one of the nice little parks sprinkled throughout the city.
This is the entrance to the museum we spent the entire morning at, a museum dedicated to art of the Madonna and Child pictures. ... as neat as it was (no photos inside allowed) seeing the progression of how the subject was portrayed in all the different centuries, two straight hours of nothing but medieval art of Mary and Christ child ... got a little old. I would have much rather been able to look around at our own pace (esp. since after an hour and a half we were still only in the 1500's, so sped through the last five hundred years worth of work).
... the museum from the outside.

... views of the city.

... I'd have a hard time pinpointing what kind of city it was, like classical or medieval, when you see things like this: a gothic pointed arch design on the right with a renaissance design on the left and modern stores inside both. The city just kept growing throughout the centuries, with each new era building in its own style, creating juxtapositions like this one all over the place. While I can't put one label on the town, it was really neat to see the styles all come together.
... an example of some of the more fashionable stores and people... probably won't find that in my little town, but the big cities definitely have their chic and posh streets and shops.
... and of course, what Perugia is famous for - chocolate!!! :D
... Courtney and Taylor dig into their huge hunks of chocolate. mmm, delicious!

... some more views of more modern areas of Perugia...


The afternoon was spent with my teacher and one of his afternoon tours. This one wasn't too bad - he was actually on time! amazingly enough. He took us first to see a very modern technological advance that Perugia very recently installed, called the Mini Metro. Basically, it is a small light rail kind of transportation used to get throughout the city. It runs on a continous chain that reminded me of a roller coaster and had a series of roller things that took it off and on the chain at the stops, so that it didn't have to stop the chain, if that makes sense. That way, all the cars are guaranteed to come every five minutes at every stop. Each car is just one car and small, about the size of a monorail car at Disney World. They only had a few seats, mainly standing (and somehow we crammed all twenty of us into one car). It was a really smooth ride, and only a euro each way. It's main purpose, the end of the line on the outskirts of the city is a large free parking garage and shopping mall, so it caters to those who work in the center of town. I think it was pretty nice, especially since, like most of these places, Perugia was built on a hill, and the parking is at the bottom, and the Mini Metro takes you to the top - definitely better than having to walk up 30 degree inclines.

...a mini car leaving the station.

... Rob and Grace having fun pretending to be on a rollercoaster.
The place we ended up was a deserted piazza near the train station that is flanked by several modern buildings done by one guy (though, truth be told, I wasn't that interested in it so I don't remember the names of the guy or the buildings... sorry). Apparently, the one giant column on the corner ...
and the uber-tall huge column porch are signatures of the guy (to get an idea of scale, look at the stairs near the very bottom of those columns... a little ridiculous, no?). He was supposed to do all the buildings for the piazza, but ran out of money (that seems to be a running theme for much of architecture history), so only 2/3 of them got built. And for some reason, this particular square never got popular and is pretty much deserted, except for drug dealers who, apparently, like to hide in the large staircases, lol.
The center of the flat square is punctured by the same guy's water sculpture (which has become a haven for hobos... at the back of this narrow block is a staircase leading to the top where the water starts... and is now full of garbage and other evidence of homeless residency... probably not what the artist originally entailed). It was... interesting? I guess. I did like watching the water, and the pigeons really seemed to enjoy it.
... despite not liking the piece, I did like how this picture turned out.