Our time in Umbria continued with visiting more medieval towns that pepper the green rolling hills. It remained a novel experience for us that week to discuss and wonder which hill town we were passing from the highway on our way to another particular hill town.

On Wednesday we decided to go to Bevagna and Montefalco. Bevagna has a very orderly piazza and does not sit as high as Montefalco. We were told by a local person in Spello that Bevagna at certain times of the year hold reenactments (similar to the US version of Renaissance Fairs we guessed) but designed to show how people lived between 1250 and 1350. The market days are recalled, as well as the artisan crafts and workshops of those times. Interestingly, Bevagna was more of an agricultural town during that time period, but since the 1970s, they have become a hub for tourism by teaching others about the ways of life during this time period. They have an established program called the Cultural Circuit of Medieval Crafts and their four active workshops are open on festival days throughout the year which are the Paper mill, the Beeswax shop, the Silk factory and the Painter workshop. They weren’t open while we were visiting, but we met many cats, and we met an American man who was sitting in the Piazza on some church steps. We stopped to say hi to his poodle that was holding and he surprised us with his big American voice. It turned out he had retired to Bevagna with his wife and poodle. He gave us a lovely recommendation for lunch and we all had some amazing pasta dishes of fresh orecchiette with pancetta and wild asparagus. Sitting on one of their outdoor tables was a box of GIANT porcini mushrooms that they would be incorporating into that day’s fresh offerings.

We wandered into Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo and also saw Chiesa di San Silvelstro. We continued to meet a lot of cats to Mira and Sebastian’s delight. They seemed to seek us out and made our wanderings up and down the streets there even more pleasant.

Upon leaving Bevagna, we were brought into more modern day history as the bridge we walked upon to exit the city had a plaque stating that it had been destroyed in 1944 in what we could only assume was related to WWII.

With our arrival in Montefalco was also the arrival of another downpour. We also seemed to get there during riposo also, when most shop owners were closed. The town seemed empty, with only a few restaurants open and one gelato shop which to our dismay only had a few basic flavors available. The town seemed more touristy than other hill towns we had visited with the particular shops we happened upon selling some more touristy items than we had been seeing (except for at Assisi) and with bus parking available right outside the town gates. Still, we used our imaginations for what it would be like at a more favorable time to visit – without thunder and rain and rather on a sunny morning.

We decided to pivot home to Spello for some gelato. We each had already settled into our favorite flavors from our favorite gelato shops and were becoming cautious to try something new in case we didn’t like it as much. Gelato problems. 🙂

We wandered back to our tiny house in Spello and settled in for an evening at home. We had bought some local polenta with porcini mushrooms and sausage at the grocery store and enjoyed that along with a salad for dinner. It was a cozy night, cooking and watching some American TV, while also making some plans for our next day in Perugia.