Hill Towns trip: Urbino, Italia

10.22.2008

Urbino, Italia

We got into town Tuesday night and went out for dinner. Six of us found a little place that had no English translations, which we took as a good sign. I got fettuccini with porcini mushrooms, followed by a panna cotta with mixed berries. The wine we got was excellent, as well. We stayed there long after our food was gone and had fun just sitting around chatting about the semester and cities in Europe versus America, and all sorts of things. It was nice. After we left, we went to a bar nearby that had live blues. When we went in, there were four guys playing Bob Marley: a white kid on a bongo, a guy with crazy curly hair playing accordion, a guy who sounded a bit like Bob Dylan on a guitar, and a wonderfully happy looking black man singing and playing guitar. It was so much fun! The setup was pretty informal, because musicians just rotated around for all the songs; after Marley they got into more blues and one guy came up and played the harmonica. I swear to God, I’ve never seen anyone play harmonica like he did! He had a solo at one point that went on forever and was flawless. Amazing! I never knew the harmonica could sound so good. We walked around town for a bit afterwards, but ended up going back early because we were pretty tired.

The next morning we had a good breakfast again (American coffee and the widest array of pastries I’ve ever seen outside of a café), then walked as a group outside of the city walls (which isn’t hard to do, Urbino is tiny) to a branch of the University. The part we visited was comprised of dorms and some classrooms, and had been designed by Giancarlo de Carlo in the 60’s. This place was amazing. We didn’t tour it together, but rather just had 2 hours to explore, sketch, and do whatever. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The architecture was just so well thought out, so balanced, so simple yet effective…I fell completely in love with it. The control Carlo had over the sequence of spaces was amazing, and something I haven’t reached with my own designs but am striving towards. He balanced curves and straight lines wonderfully, and incorporated the grain of poured concrete nicely. The whole complex was situated on a hill, which was fully integrated into the design and allowed for absolutely breathtaking views.

After exploring the interior, I wandered down the hill along some stairs that lead to the dorms themselves. The stairs were arranged very specifically, but the sequence followed so nicely. They would jog from side to side, attach to ramps leading to the dorms (some went up, some went down), and all of a sudden slam together in these wonderful nodes of overlapping paths. Benches were incorporated into the nodes, and I picked one to sit on. I probably ended up just sitting and looking for close to 20 minutes, just absorbing the views of the Tuscan valley, the dorms, and the sculpted landscape carved by stairs. I finally worked up the courage to try a sketch of the stairs (crazy angles made it difficult), but I think it came out pretty well. I also did two interior sketches of their main student union-type space, so in total had three from the visit. We all agreed, though, that we could easily have spent all day at the complex.

Once back in town, we went to the Cathedral, located on one of the town’s main squares. It felt a bit like the Palladio churches we saw in Venice, but wasn’t designed by him (didn’t catch the architect’s name, though). The interior was impressively bright and had zero artificial lighting…most of the churches have all sorts of ugly florescent uplighting, so this was a treat. The color scheme was white and a light sea foam green, which I’m sure sounds strange, but it made sense in the space and was beautiful. I didn’t really feel like sketching, so a bunch of us just sat in the back rows of pews and sat there chatting and just looking around. We had a good discussion about the progression of architecture today and the magnificence of the era of churches we were visiting. We took a lunch break outside, and all ended up getting food to go (I had pizza) and sitting on the Cathedral steps. Afterwards we all decided to go for gelato, because it was actually pretty hot out-so tasty!

The remainder of our afternoon together was spent in the Palazzo Ducale (the Duke’s Palace), which hosts a great art museum. We were all pretty bummed to learn that the famous Duke of Urbino is not actually in Urbino, but at the Uffizi in Florence! We were just there and had missed that museum! What a shame. The museum was long, but still worth it. We saw The Ideal City, which I had also studied in my senior year art history class at EWS. I was quite mesmerized by it; the perspectives were perfectly set up and the whole painting was just so…clean. Even though it’s a fictitious city, I sat there looking at it for so long that I felt like I was there.

We also got to walk through the duke’s study room, which is a small room entirely clad in wooden inlay. The designs are made to look like a study, with cabinets, shelves, and windows. It’s all made in perspective, so some parts only make sense from certain parts of the room. The level of detail in this was absolutely amazing. We saw slides of it before leaving for the trip, and our professor had to convince us that they weren’t actually photos of real cabinets and windows! It was absolutely crazy. Some of the open cabinets showed books, suits of armor, books, tools, and more. There were many beautifully inlaid wooden doors throughout the palace, as well, but the study simply took the cake.

We then spent a bit of time in the economy building of the Urbino University. The building was deceivingly large, and we got ourselves turned around a few times but had fun exploring. We at one point decided that it would be funny if 7 or 8 of us all packed into an elevator with a lone Italian student…but when we got inside, there were more people already there…it was packed! The elevator took us up to the library, which was beautiful and had sweeping views of the surrounding valleys.

The rest of the afternoon we had to cruise around the city on our own. Many people headed back to our hotel to read, nap, or write postcards, but I decided that was lame and kept exploring. I went into a clothing store with Jackie for a while, but then she too headed back so I was on my own. I’ve become very adept at navigating and exploring on my own while on this trip, and I’ve really come to love it. It’s so much easier to interact with locals when you’re on your own, and I’m freer to turn down random side streets or go into random stores and not feel like I’m slowing anyone else down. I went up one of the main streets, which goes up a steep hill for quite a while (felt a bit like San Francisco!) and was greeted by a lovely park and playground at the summit. Liz and Jeff were there as well, and I had fun hanging out with them for a while. It really felt like fall with all the trees around, many of which were starting to change color (even if only a bit) and drop some leaves. I soon set off on my own again, and went into lots of tiny little shops. I found a jewelry shop where the man had his studio set up right in the store and was working with different metals with a blowtorch. He made beautiful necklace pendants and earrings, and I had fun poking around. I went down lots of tiny streets; some were so small I doubt even a smart car would have fit, but they still had regular street signs like all the rest. Despite all my exploring, I never felt lost because the town is very tiny. I barely even needed my map, which was even better. Eventually I went back to the hotel to read for a bit and nap before dinner.

For dinner that night we went to a single restaurant all together (23 of us, including D.Bell). I sat at a table with Viv, Caitlin, Rachel, Sarah, and Bruce and we had a ton of fun, all in all it was a hilarious dinner. There was music playing, and we were sitting right next to the speaker, so it was pretty apparent. The music all sounded like soundtrack music from movies, and felt rather like a “soundtrack soundtrack”, which was pretty amusing. We kept imitating people running through fields saying things like “Oh, you waited me, after all those years in the war!” The wine we had was delicious, and my dinner was amazing- spinach and cheese ravioli with pieces and shavings of black truffles. I’ve never had truffles before, and they had a distinct but mild, almost woody flavor. Another funny moment: Viv went to pour herself some olive oil at one point from the little pitcher on the table, which had a spout and a cork. Just as Viv started pouring, Rachel said “I think you might need to take out the cork…” but it was too late, as the cork popped off and oil went all over the plate, bottle, cork, and Viv’s hands. Eventually it all got sopped up with bread, but the cork was still pretty shiny when we left, hehehe.

We left and went to a gelato place on the corner that apparently had gelato crepes, mousse, and specialty hot chocolates. I got 2 scoops of mousse: chocolate and meringue…they were delicious! Cold but still light and fluffy. It was actually deceptively filling, I couldn’t finish! Viv got chocolate mousse and pistachio gelato…it wasn’t nearly as good as Ventotene (obviously) but was still really good. I’ve come to enjoy pistachio gelato over here because it’s nothing like the ice cream in the states, which always tastes pretty sweet and fake to me…it’s going to be a letdown going home to US ice cream. :( Everyone else I was with got specialty hot chocolates; caramel and mint were chosen. They were super sweet and thick, piled with picture perfect whipped cream, and came on little heart-shaped saucers.

I went back to the hotel early to finish my book (“Gravity” by George Gamov, I highly recommend it!) and had fun hanging out with Sarah & Bruce talking about the book and swapping stories from our afternoons. We got up the next morning and headed off for our last stop, Assisi.

PICTURES: the view from the University, including one of the dorm complexes, some wooden inlay from the study at the Ducal Palace