Umbria - Perugia - Pagentry parade by Susa folks in Perugia

Umbria ( Perugia - performance by folks from Susa )

Susa

One morning, as I was strolling around Piazza 4th Novembre, I saw folks dressed in pageantry costumes distributing brochures featuring a place called Susa. It is a city in Piedmont and is 51km west of Turin.

They were mingling with the folks in Perugia and promoting them to explore Susa. Shortly after, they gathering together and started marching into Corso Vanucci with the flag bearers waving their colourful flags into the air while the marching band providing the drumbeats for each set of movements.

The royalties walked in the front while the rest of the folks followed behind and they were posing with big smiles for the countless photographers trying to capture the procession.

Next, there were dance performance by the Susa guests and it involves folks from all ages. To me, they look more like French than Italians as they have French cultural influences due to their proximity to the French border.

Lastly, the event ended with a group photo taken outside the Duomo di San Lorenzo.

Toscana ( Cortona )

CORTONA

Cortona is 50km north of Perugia and is in Tuscany. Built on a spur of the Monte Sant'Egidio, Cortona is surrounded by powerful wails, smoothed down by centuries and winds, along which the ancient gates open in correspondence to the roads coming up from the valley. It is located on top of a hill around 500m above sea level like Perugia.

The visitor looking around from the top walls can admire one of the widest and harmonious views in Italy: the rich and immense Val di Chiana, limited on the horizon by the Siena mountains, fore most the Amiata and the Cetona; and closer up the wide expanse of the Trasimeno lake. Lago Trasimeno is in Umbria and the 3rd largest lake in Italy.

From Camucia or Terontola train station, there are regular buses bring visitors up to hilltop town of Cortona. At Piazza Garibaldi, the alighting point, tourists can head to Town Hall and be greeted by souvenir shops lining both sides of the street. If you have watched the film Under the Tuscan Sun, some settings might be familiar with you.

The town was filled with locals heading for the morning markets with stalls seeing various types of meat products ( salami and prosciutto crudo)and cheese. It was easy to roam around the town and there are quite a number of churches at Cortona as well. You can see some pastors and nuns chatting with the locals. For those planning to stay overnight in Cortona, there is a youth hostel at affordable prices.

Around lunchtime, I chanced upon a bakery and decided to grab a bite.
The foccacia bread ( with tomatoes , onions and drenched with olive oil )
is simply marvellous and cheap. For 1 EUR, you can taste the freshness
of the ingredients in the pizza.


I spent the rest of the day strolling along and almost covered the whole town. I like the area around Santa Margherita as I had a good view of the silvery waters of Lago Trasimeno. There was a concert that day (11th Sep) by Andrew Rieu.

The view from the top watch is breath-taking. As I was running short of time, I have to forgo visiting Santa Maria del Calcinaio and catch the train back to Perugia.