Perugia
October 4-5, 2003
A Sweet City
Perugia
is a chocolaty town: Perugina, makers of Baci and gianduia chocolate, is based
here, and stores selling their products and other fine Italian chocolate abound
in the city. I also find wonderful hazelnut butter – the material that provides
Nutella with its flavor, but undiluted. If anybody thinks of peanut butter,
there’s just no comparison. My new expandable suitcase expands.
The
city is attractive in many other ways. It’s located on top of a hill, and over
the 2600 years of its existence builders have constructed an amazing complex
that’s three-dimensional in a way that San Francisco can’t approach. Buildings
bridge streets, arches connect buildings across courtyards, maybe in an attempt
to give the buildings extra stability in case of an earthquake. The ruins of
a 16th century fortress were built over to make room for a plaza, but then
reopened to accommodate escalators that move people from the downtown on top
of the hill down to the main bus terminal. The old fortress also houses a few
stores and an event space. A display in the Palazzo dei Priori, home to the
municipal offices and a museum, has to provide four different cuts through
the complex to explain its history, so often was the building expanded up,
sideways, and towards the back.
On
the back side of the hill, it all comes together: A pedestrian path on an old
aqueduct spans a street in the valley, meets up with another pedestrian path
from that valley, and climbs as a staircase through an opening in the city
wall towards the main square. Above, a road carries cars outside the city wall
(few cars are allowed inside). The city wall itself accommodates several floors
of residences or stores. 
Nearby is the Arco d’
Augusto, a city gate whose lower part was built by the Etruscans in the 3rd
century BC, with the upper part provided by the Romans, and which is topped
off by a renaissance loggia.
A university with thousands of students, many of them foreign students learning Italian, makes for a lively town day and night.
Restricted Access
Perugia offers another example of how many Italian cities restrict car access to their downtowns. Sometimes the restrictions are mandated by narrow streets, but far more often it seems they’re just a conscious decision to make cities pedestrian friendly. Even in Rome, major sections of the historical center are closed to cars and turned into pedestrian zones. And while in German cities the pedestrian zones are typically one main street with a few side streets, here a core pedestrian zone is often surrounded by large areas of restricted access. It makes life for pedestrians far more pleasant.