Collepino, Umbria

We hopped into our little panda-colored (as Ted pointed out) Smart car for the trip to the day’s painting spot, Collepino, a tiny medieval hill town in the mountains beyond Spello.  It seemed almost deserted–the group’s arrival must have at least doubled the population–though there are surely some locals because there was a bar/cafe open.  I wandered through the stone streets while the artists found their spots and set up.  Janice was right–it only took ten or fifteen minutes to see everything.  Curving stone streets, crooked stone buildings, steps, passageways, nooks and crannies (all stone), the big public laundry basins, the minuscule fortress church plunked down at the fork of a tiny stone lane–the town was solid and serene, with flowerpots here and there but not many just to pretty it up for tourists.  When I’d seen enough I walked out the road we’d driven in to enjoy the blowing poppies, dusty green olive trees in blossom, yellow ginestra (turns out that’s the wonderful scent in the air) and views back to the town.  As the church bells rang at noon we converged on the cafe for lunch, overwhelming the staff…. Keep reading