Bike Touring Commences! Spello to Gubbio

​After a relaxing week in Spello, it is time to roll again.  I think we are both ready to get on the bikes and see some new sites.  We decide to ride in the morning to Foligno and take the train to Gualdo Tadino where we will start our ride to Gubbio. 

It is a pretty short day but starts out with a bang with a very steep climb right away.  It is a little worrisome when your bike tour starts with pushing your bike instead of riding your bike!  Well, that was only one of us mind you, Jim was loving it.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too long of a climb and the rewards were lovely views and the great downhill to follow.  

We arrive in Gubbio and we are really taken with the magnificent palaces and the very intact medieval character of the entire town 

It is evident that there is some event in the making and we learn that there will be a procession that evening for Good Friday.  We see large pyres all around town that will be lit along the processions route.  

We check into our hotel which turns out to be a rather elegant hotel and for reasons unknown we seem to have been put into a suite which seems to be somewhat of an upgrade of sorts.  The hotel is a palace replete with nooks and crannies and I am not kidding - across from our room is a secret tunnel used by the Duke of Montefeltro to go from one palace to another!   

We even have a lovely balcony.  

After checking in we feel a small celebration of our first day of bike touring is in order and we have a cocktail at our hotel bar which is on one of the most gorgeous piazzas we have ever been in all of our time in Italy.  

We manage to have an early dinner (not an easy feat in Italy by the way) and head out to find the procession. We head to where we see people going but don’t really know where to go.  We hear the procession coming and try to get close but unfortunately we can’t get a great view where we end up.  However, we can see a bit and can hear the beautiful choir.  Foolishly I only took videos so I can’t load them into this blog.  This photo is from earlier and these fellows were walking around town.  This excerpt is about them. 

The Gubbio nighttime silence is broken only by the dull, pounding, eerie notes of the battistrangole they carry, shaking them as they walk.  Literally meaning “beat and strangle,” these instruments of wood flanked with iron rings announce the arrival of the procession while setting a slow, even beat for those walking in the procession. 

Some more facts about the procession 

The skull symbolizing Golgotha follows the battistrangole. Many in the procession carry torches and falo (bonfires) are lit in various piazzas along the route of the procession, for fire is an ancient symbol of purification, as well as of strength and force. Symbols of the Passion follow:  the cup, the 30 silver coins, the column, the rooster, the crown of thorns, “Pilate’s basin,” the I.N.R.I. inscription, Veronica’s veil, the shroud, the nails, the hammer, the sponge, the spear, Jesus’ clothing, the dice, the ladder, and the pincers. 

Then comes the image of the Dead Christ on the cataletto (or bier; a stand on which a corpse or casket containing a corpse is placed to lie in state or to be carried to a grave) and the Madre Dolorosa follows. The Sorrowful Mother grasps an ancient wooden “rosary” of 33 beads, like those used by pilgrims and the flagellanti (flagellants) to whip themselves for penance. The two sacred images are accompanied by the singing of the Miserere by two choirs. King David’s penitential psalm whose polyphonic melody has been passed down through oral tradition and has been an integral part of the Gubbio procession since the 19th-century is sung with grande passione. 

The choir was beautiful and here is a screen shot of one of my videos.

All in all a rather spectacular start of a bike tour.

That evening we are preparing ourselves for a tough next day of riding.  It is supposed to be cold with a steady rain forecasted for much of the day.  We awake the next morning and are greeted with the updated forecast which calls for little rain and none until later in the day.