Urbino: The town that has my name everywhere.

Europe » Italy » Marche
June 2nd 2007

Published: June 2nd 2007

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LDUCA

GianCarlo, the infamous busdriver.

We all piled into our infamous bus with our even more infamous driver, GianCarlo, and headed to the town of Urbino. The big deal about Urbino: il Palazzo Ducale (the reason my name ends up all over this place). This town was at the top of the hill, marked by the breathtaking views (reference the photos!) and the steepest hill I've ever climbed. Not even that relatively short, but very steep, hill right outside my dorm in Austin (oh, you know that one) can compete with this. The craziest thing though (of course, by the time this happened it started raining) was, I presume, a local girl: she was wearing a short jean skirt, stiletto heeled boots walking around the slick and steep cobblestone streets of this town, without a problem. I was defintely impressed. Well, we walked around the town a bit, before our tour of the Palazzo. Not many pictures from there -- can't take pictures inside the Palazzo. It was cool to see paintings and such from 1400something -- Although I did manage to set off the alarms (when you got too close to things) :D After the tour, we had some free time to explore the

Urbino

the city sign

town. We stopped at probably the cutest cafe I've ever been in -- it had pink walls! After a delicious lunch of caprese salad (although my only complaint is I'd rather have had balsamic vinegar, not white), and my one and only run-in with a "hole-in-the-ground" toilet (which reminded me of my lovely Aunt and the story she told me about her trip to Italia) we got some gelato (I got the whipped kind, pine nuts and marscapone -- che delizioso!). After getting back to the hotel, I made one of the best discoveries of Italy (in the supermarket that was attached to our hotel): HAPPY HIPPOS, a kinder chocolate creation. I wish I could find those in the US. That night, we went to bar, which turned out to be a bust. But on the walk home, we had a nice stop at a gelateria where I had a nice long chat with il barrista, before we returned to the famous Santa Cristiana hotel for the evening.

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