Day 13 Gubbio: Bathing in the crowd

You could definitely call it a culture shock when you see the lines of cars outside the gates of Gubbio after many lonely days. The ancient archaeological site behind the parked vehicles is hardly noticeable anymore. Yesterday (April 25th) was the day of remembrance in Italy of the liberation by the Americans. The city is overcrowded because of the long weekend. The few free rooms are being offered for several hundred (up to 1200 euros).

Architecture, art, culture and science

Gubbio is worth seeing and impressive. A well-preserved medieval old town with Gothic aristocratic buildings. The Prior's Palace stands high up on a steep slope. Its entire basement consists of just one room. It is considered one of the "boldest architectural undertakings of the Italian Middle Ages". Unfortunately, the square in front of it is cordoned off and long queues wait in front of the palace for entry into the museum.

https://www.umbriatourism.it/de/-/priorenpalast

Famous sons and daughters of the city

One of the city's most famous sons is Federico de Montefeltro, later Duke of Urbino. His portrait is well-known, painted from the side, with a red cap and a distinctive hooked nose.

Walkiria Terradura is still revered as a partisan today. It is important to know that Gubbio was the scene of a massacre by German Wehrmacht members after a partisan attack.

Louis Walter Alvarez and his son, Walter Alvarez, cannot be called the sons of Gubbio, but they play an important role for the city. They discovered an iridium anomaly in the region around Gubbio and were thus able to substantiate the theory of a meteorite impact 65 million years ago and the associated extinction of the dinosaurs.

Umbrian

Long before the Roman settlement (the excavation site of a Roman amphitheatre can be visited at the large car park outside the town), there was an Umbrian community here. Bronze tablets from 300 BC are on display in the Palazzi dei Consoli. They are important testimonies of the Umbrian language.

For me it means saying goodbye without being able to delve deeper into the peculiarities of the city. Tomorrow I will set off for the Eremo San Pietro Vigneto hermitage.