Remainders of the past

Around Faggeto Tomb

Passing below the fairytale Antognolla Castle,

you can start your walk not far from the mountainside of Mount Acuto.

After few minutes you can arrive at the ruins of Gualterotta Castle.

The ancient gate will welcome you between the high tower and the remains of the big main building.

On the tower facade you can see two entrances: the principal one is the upper, where you can arrived by a footbridge; the lower was used only to take materials up with a rope or a basket.

Come back to the main path, after Bisciaro Castle

end the view of Mount Tezio - the Perugia mountain -

you'll walk inside a wood. Few minutes on a steep lane and then, suddenly, a door... a big stone door.

It's Faggeto Tomb, an Etruscan tomb from II BC.
It's incredible! You can open it with a finger!

It's simply beautiful. It's simply Umbria, in Italy.

The Town of Sun

Like a new Babel tower

In the middle of Renaissance, one of the most important family of Florence, wishing have a holiday home, decided to built a... whole town up this mountain.

The family was the famous Medici of Florence, represented by Cosimo de' Medici, and the mountain is Sasso Simone (or "of Simone"), about 1200 m high. It's located between Marche and Tuscany, were arrived (yes! it "walked" :-) ) 15 million years ago from the Tyrrhenian Sea.
In the flat top of it Cosimo de' Medici founded this new town named "Città del Sole" (Town of Sun) and this was its coat of arms.

  There was all you nead in a town but the inhabitants. It survived only one century, from 1566 (the first stone) to 1673. The reason? You'll don't believe it... it was too cold. We was in the age of little glaciation (XVI-XVIII centuries).

The one on the left is "Simoncello".

Going up and walking on the original road...

Simoncello from Sasso Simone



October 4, ...1301

The divine Dante

Imagine to be seven centuries ago, at the beginning of Autumn, among the high wooded hills between Umbria and Marche, in center Italy.

You are arriving from Rome (250 Km distant), riding your horse in a regal procession. With you is Carl of Valois, brother of Philip the Beautiful, king of France, and you are entering in a nice fortified castle over Metauro Valley: Castello della Pieve (Pieve Castle).



The Pope Bonifacio VIII asked Carl to try to make peace (but it wasn't this the real goal) between the two major parties of Florence (200 km distant): the Blacks and the Whites.

In those years Whites came into power and among them there was the great italian poet Dante Alighieri, who was elected Priore (it was an important public office) of Florence between June and August of 1300.

He was one of those who decided the exile of the Blacks leaders, and the place of this exile was just Castello della Pieve.

Here - on October 4, 1311 - Carl of Valois and the Blacks decided the destiny of Florence (expel Whites and give power to Blacks) and, above all, the exile of Dante Alighieri.
On November Blacks took the power in Florence, and in January the divine poet was condemned to exile first and then to death. He never saw his loved native town and he'll die in Ravenna on 1321.

This happened in Castello della Pieve. Here you can arrive walking with us and have a suggestive "medieval" accomodation.

Metola Tower

It isn't a tower... it's mere sky

When I was a child, dreaming to live in a castle on the top of a mountain, there was always a high, big, white tower... like this:

It's Metola Castle.
No one knows when it was built; the early information is from XI century. It's ruined many time ago, and just only the tower survived. Recently well restored, with a small drawbridge also, we can only imagine the life and the people who lived there.



Last but not least, here was born - in 1287 - the blessed Margherita della Metola. She was blind... she haas never seen the sky around her... But she has known the real Sky...