getting to Urbino

On Tuesday, we decide to rent a car and drive to Urbino. That sounds so easy, but first we take a train to Terontola, and the car agency there doesn't have any cars. They give us the number to try Hertz in Arezzo. Luckily they do have a car, so we get back on the train to Arezzo and wait until they arrive at the station with a Fiat Punto. Finally, two hours later, we are on the road. First we stop in Sansepolcro, the birthplace of Piero della Francesca, but after the debacle of the car rental we arrive smack in the middle of siesta, and nothing is open. We move on.

Amongst the many books we lugged abroad is an incredibly heavy book of Italian slow-food restaurants (locally sourced food, old methods of cooking). We don't have a guidebook to Umbria or the Marche, so we don't know anything about the towns we're passing, but we do know where we want to eat lunch, Osteria del Cucco in Urbania. So we leave Sansepolcro, and get on the road, which winds up a mountain and back down again. Although, it doesn't exactly wind. They obviously took the old donkey trail and just made it a road, so you have long straight-aways, and then a tight hairpin turn that requires almost a full stop. Unfortunately, again because we're just a bit behind schedule, we get to Urbania too late. The restaurant owner looks at us askance for wanting lunch at such a late hour. He sends us off to a pizzeria.

Sated, but now a bit grumpy, we drive to Urbino. We check out the Palazzo Ducale, which has a few Piero della Francesca paintings (now we feel a bit better about not seeing anything in Sansepolcro). It also has an amazing studiolo with inlaid wood used to create objects in perspective (trompe l'oeil). I've seen photographs of this room in the past, but before, without being able to stand in it and take it in all at once, the experience was somewhat lost. John and I spend a good deal of time in this room admiring the instruments, books, squirrel, armor, landscape, etc... all done in perspective with inlaid wood.

The best part, though, is that John gets a haircut. I guess he's been wanting to get it cut, but hasn't trusted the places in Passignano (with reason), and he figured that in a college town like Urbino he might get a cut that isn't too conservative. John tells everyone who walks into the salon while he's there that he came to Urbino to see the Palazzo and to get his hair cut by Marco. Everyone looks at him strangely until they realize he's joking. It's a good cut (the hairstylist kept saying "e un buon lavoro!" (it's a good job) over and over while cutting), and the whole trip is now a success.