Gubbio Medieval Town in Perugia

Gubbio's Gothic Beauty

The beautifully modulated hillside town of Gubbio has all the charm of a small village pressed in as it is amongst the feudal walls of its boundaries. It is a town of substantial size compressed and intensified behind this fortified exterior armour of walls. Protected, almost hidden by its walls, the streets and squares open up to create amazing spaces, one minute small and twisted lanes, the next minute wide expansive plazas with sweeping views stretching out across the valley below, only to close in again around the next intimate cluster of shops.

Gubbio is a medieval town ancient in its history, in its buildings and in its atmosphere. The dramatic palace towers over the town, visible from almost every street corner. Its crenellated ramparts and cloister-like windows add expression to the vertical planes of its towering stone walls. Severe in its restrained grey Gothic style, it is a building which shapes and dominates the town. The houses which cluster around the streets and group around the foot of the palace often look untouched from the time more than five centuries ago when many of them were built.

Gubbio clings to the edge of  Mt Ingino, one of the tallest mountains in the Perugia region. The streets twist, turn, rise and fall around the edges of the mountainside. Narrow alleys turn into steep steps climbing up or dropping away to the lower levels. The city walls are broken by archways offering glimpses of the countryside and mountain beyond. Pedestrians share the cobbled streets with cyclists and the occasional creeping car. A dry channel where a moat once flowed, appears here and there around the perimeter of the town walls.

Below the town, restaurants are embedded in the caverns where once the wine was cellared. Gubbio is alive with cafes and bars, traders and dealers, tourists and locals. It is a historic town made vibrant and current by its inhabitants. It teems with enterprise and culture, welcoming in visitors to add to the trade which keeps the region alive.  Gubbio will always be a microcosm of the past in its buildings and architecture but in terms of its present it could not be more alive.

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