Perugia, capital city of Umbria

Today we visited the capital city in the region of Umbria, where we are staying, by the name of Perugia. Catia, our tour guide/local who lives in Corciano is amazing. She knows so many dates and facts about the places we visit and speaks at least 4 languages! Anyway apparently Perugia has a very interesting history that includes domination by the pope for three hundred years starting in the 16th century which led to the building of a great fortress.

 The picture above is of an underground altar that was built in the early roman age in the pre-christian days before the church was an institution. They held hidden meetings here and the circular altar represents the fact that everyone was equal and there was no high priest to celebrate mass.

That altar was underground the main church in Perugia which also houses a large seismology center downstairs. We got to meet the priest who runs the center and is a world renowned seismologist. Downstairs he even showed us around and told us about the special machine they have that is the only working one in the world because the other one at UC Berkeley is broken, ha. The device above is the first to measure the direction, scale and length of an earthquake and was invented by a brother at the monastery.

The recording above is a sketch made by a more modern machine which depicts the scale and magnitude of the 1997 earthquake which damaged the Assisi basilica we saw yesterday.

This is the cloister, or courtyard, of the church we visited, which served as an official entrance to the town of Perugia.

Next we went to the National Anthropological Museum of Umbria which had quite a lot of interesting exhibits--from etruscan burial urns to pieces of an etruscan bronze wedding carriage, and more.

Then we stopped to eat lunch on the steps outside of the museum next to this impressive building, above.

A few pictures of walking around included a horse statue :), a fountain, and the village.

Next we walked down to see the largest arch in Umbria that is from the medieval ages and to see the aquifer that feeds the fountain in the town square.

The top of the aquifer is cover so it can be used as a walkway as well.

Catia tells us each time a fresco is painted or a facade is sculpted it serves to tell a story or teach a lesson. This entrance to a museum tells the story of the wise king Solomon who solved the problem of two women who each claimed to be the mother of a baby by threatening to cut the baby in half. As only the real mother would rather have her child safe than have it as her own, this story teaches the rulers of the town to be as wise as the great biblical king.