The Big Trip - A Voyage of Discovery Around the Med: Sansepolcro

From L'Aquila we headed north through some back country towards Sansepolcro. During our day outing in Tuscany last week we were within 20 minutes of Sansepolcro in Monterchi but had to turn back to Arezzo because of the time. Sansepolcro is the birthplace and home of Piero della Francesca and houses one of his most famous works, the Resurrection, in its city museum. The only mention the town gets in guidebooks is for this fact and is otherwise dismissed as an industrial town. We did not find that to be the case.

It is a delightful medieval walled town (though not on a hill) with a beautiful walking old area. The museum is spacious and the collection is well displayed. Yes, the masterpiece is undoubtedly the Resurrection, but the rest is interesting. The Resurrection was actually designed for the building in which it resides (dating from the mid-1400's) which makes it even better.

The entry portal to the old part of Sansepolcro, which by the way, is named for the Holy Sepulcre

Randy on one of the streets of the old town

Sansepolcro apparently does not want tourists as there is nothing signed towards the old town or towards their main attraction, this museum, once you are in the old town. With the help of locals, we found it though.

Piero della Francesca's home in Sansepolcro

A statue to the master is in the garden across the street, now a small public park

An interesting ancient brick building in the old town

Sadly, no photographs are allowed in the museum so you will have to look up the painting on the web. I can say that in person it is much larger and more powerful than expected. Really, wonderful!

On the way back to the car, parked for free just outside the old area, we happened upon a wine shop with a friendly young British woman in charge. We loaded up on some local wine (including two bottles of 4 Euro each of quite good red and white wine - one bottle of each) and some grappa. We then took the mountain road over to the Urbino area, our lodging for the night.

A view east towards the valley of Sansepolcro from the road across the Mountains of the Moon to Urbino. This was taken from a sanctuary on a hilltop with an impressive chapel and wonderful views.

This was a remote (like, really remote - some 10 kilometers of gravel, mostly unmarked road) to an Agriturismo (Pietra Rosa). There are many Agriturismos in Italy - they are family farms which also offer lodgings. In this case, we stayed with an older man, Mauro (as the only guests of course). He has a friendly dog, Bolly. And, his wife came later. He cooked a rustic pork dinner for us (it would have been a long and difficult drive to reach a restaurant) and we slept exceedingly well in his simple but large and comfortable bedroom.