Exploring Anghiari and the Valtiberina

Anghiari is such a wonderful place to us and we are so excited about sharing it with Hunter.  After our first day here, Hunter said that he understood why we loved it so much.  It’s really not something you can tell someone about – well, you can try, but your really must experience it.  Some people get it and some don’t.  I’m so glad Hunter got it.

We walked all over town and pointed out all the things that are important to us.  Where we lived, where Millie (our dog) went to the bathroom, where our friends live, our favorite restaurants, our favorite views – everything.  We went down almost every street and went into every building we could.  We showed Hunter the City Hall which was renovated recently and dedicated while we lived here.  We showed him the old Roman wine making facility in the basement and the prison on the other side.  The renovation that was supposed to take six months but instead took 18 months because they found these ancients ruins underneath.  They incorporated them into the building and now it’s part City Hall part museum open to the public for free.  What a treasure.

We toured the two museums in town – the Taglieschi palace museum (next door to our old apartment) and the Battle of Anghiari Museum which gives a great history of the area and the Battle of Anghiari.  After that we went to Sansepolcro (a nearby town) for lunch.  We had a great time sitting outside and discussing the problems of the day and developing wonderful solutions to them.  If only we were in charge.

We sampled some gelato from Sansepolcro because we must try them all and decide who has the best.   We had dinner at La Pineta – a pizza place/beer garden just at the top of town.  Hunter loved it and pronounced it the best pizza in town.  He’s had two, so he should know.

The weather has been wonderful – bright and sunny and temperatures in the 80’s.  It’s a little hot, but it’s not humid so it’s bearable.  But we’re all good southern people and can take the heat.  And remember, everyone, there’s no AC here.  We have it in the car and every now and then you go into a store that has decent AC, but otherwise it’s fresh air.

This weekend Anghiari celebrated its patron saint, Saint Bonaface.  After dinner we heard music and walked up to the piazza and discovered a huge street party.  There was a jazz band and some kind of lottery/raffle/drawing thing.  We found out there was to be fireworks at midnight over the city wall.  The view from our apartment is over the city wall, so we had a front row view for that.  These are the kinds of things that we love about this town and about Italy in general.  There’s always something going on.  Hunter was not impressed with the jazz band (no feeling) but it was great fun strolling around the piazza listening to the music and watching the kids play and people dance and just generally have a good time.

We came back home at about 10:30.  At the stroke of midnight, the fireworks started and it was a great display that lasted about 15-20 minutes.  It’s the first time I’ve ever watched fireworks in my nightgown from my bedroom window and then when it was over closed the window and crawled into bed.  Nice ending to a nice day.