Perugia - alone in the rain

As a cure for the previous nights excess we went this morning to Perugia for a long walk and some coffee. Perugia has a town centre as full of renaissance gems as Siena or Bologna, but for some reason it remains strangely undiscovered and unvisited by foreigners. Clustered close together at the core of the city are the cathedral , still waiting after all these centuries to be clad in marble; the ancient fountain which has recently been restored; and the Palazzo Vecchio with its crenellations and the Griffin of Perugia over the door together with chains from which trophies from the wars in the 14th century were once suspended. It's something of a rarity in modern Europe to find oneself alone with a famous monument, but this morning we were the only visitors to the cathedral, and the post celebration silence that shrouded the whole town was all the more notable in that huge barn like structure where St.Bernard once preached.