From Tuscany, we continued to make our way south to Umbria

A long travel day was next through Siena and Perugia both by bus. Our next destination was Gubbio, or actually, an area outside of Gubbio, called Mengara. Mengara was the home to our next two Servas host families. The area of Mengara and Gubbio is very rural countryside and was gettting very green on account of the late spring weather.

Our first hosts were Marie Claude and Tim and son Jefferson. They lived in Mengara on a gravel road. Their house had views of the countryside and nearby farms. Our next hosts lived just down the road on a large farm. Etain and Martin with their children, Ben, Camila and Melissa (although Melissa lives in London mostly). Both of these families were not originally from Italy and had very interesting stories of how they came to be in the Umbrian countryside.

Martin and Etain own a working farm of about 50 acres. They have sheep and make cheese from the sheep's milk. They have vegetables and chickens too. Olive trees are growing all over the property, which is fairly hilly. They put us to work one day, willingly. We cut grass along a small slope with sickles. It was hard work! We were allowed to stay on the farm for as long as we wanted, helping out and sharing meals. We were told by both Marie Claude and Etain about the Ceri Festival which was coming up in Gubbio in about a week's time.

We expected to be at the farm for at least a week, then a small bit of fate intervened. In passing we had mentioned to Marie Claude that we would love to get an apartment for a bit, to just settle down, relax from travelling and just be. She happened to find us a place in a convent! For ten days we stayed in the city of Gubbio. Gubbio has very old elements to it as well. Much of the city was from the medieval period and there are roman ruins in with city as well. It was very quaint and pretty. Our apartment had views of the city and the farms and land out to Mengara.

The high point of our visit was the Ceri Festival. The Festival has been a yearly event on 15 May since 1161. The ceri are three egg timer shaped wooden structures that weigh about 600 pounds each. These ceri are carried by teams of men through the city in a race honoring three saints which are perched on top of the ceri: Saint Ubaldo, Saint Giorgio and Saint Antonio. Even though its a race, every year the patron saint of Gubbio, Saint Ubaldo wins with Giorgio in second and Antonio in third. The race is dangerous as the city streets are narrow and hilly. The race is to the top of the mountain above the town to the Basiclia of Saint Ubaldo. (We walked this part of the course a few days after the race and were well winded by the time we got to the top and that wasn't carrying anything but ourselves). The race was great fun to watch too, the little saints riding on the top of these huge wooden structures. The whole event is also very serious, as its about paying tribute to these saints and what they stood for in their lives. Thousands of people come to Gubbio for this and it's not too much of a tourist attraction (yet). Most of the spectators are Italian and are locals or used to be locals. For a sense of the whole drama, we were wakened at five am by about 20 drummers parading the streets to signal the beginning of the festival.

The day is marked by not only the race, but several ceremonies and church services for the saints and the cerioli (men who carry the ceri). The cerioli wear white pants, red neck and waist scarfs and a differnt color shirt to signify which saint they support: yellow for Saint Ubaldo, blue for Saint Giorgio and black for Saint Antonio. When the day is over, no one wants to go home! The streets were filled till the late hours.

Other than the festival, we had fun keeping house: cooking meals, shopping every day for fun food and drinking local wine. Gubbio was good and our next stops are Verona and Venice then Vienna!