http://soundcloud.com/jarano/18-va-pensiero-verdi
Happy memories of singing Verdi’s Requiem and Va, Pensiero in San Lorenzo :)
Taken with my Nikon D3000 DSLR.
Io Sono Venticinque!
For my birthday I went via TrenItalia to the quaint town of Spoleto, 28 miles from Perugia. Spoleto has an annual music festival, Festival dei Due Mondi, that was in full swing while I was abroad. (The Spoleto Festival in Charleston is the USA counterpart.) We only had a few hours before our concert that night to check it out so the group left at 9am to make the most out of the morning and early afternoon.
I seem to have a knack for meeting random people when I travel. Not sure how we started talking, but I met a man on the train who taught math and English in Spoleto. He was an older gentleman in his early 60’s with a newsie cap and a light wndbreaker. He even helped us find a bus to the city center and figure out our return train tickets to Perugia via Foligno. I absolutely love meeting new people and finding out their stories!
We were dropped off by a cute park and walked the tree-lined road to the first piazza which had a Roman amphitheater and a building with a clock (there were a lot of clocks in this town). There were floor to ceiling posters for the music festival plastered all over but the odd thing was, there were no musicians to be seen nor music to be heard! It also was rainy and overcast so that probably contributed to the lack of people.
We split up and explored churches, side roads, shops, the Rocca, and the most beautiful aqueduct tucked in the valley between Spoleto and the mountain. We looked out over the valley and saw a picture from a fairy tale- a large stone church, clumps of tile roofed houses, mountains protruding the mist, and large expanses of green.
Our concert that night was in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo back in Perugia. The concert had awesome energy! We had a packed house and we performed for the Bishop of Perugia (there was a special seat reserved front and center, and the concert didn’t start until the he arrived and sat down). Afterwards, we headed out to the piazza and had cake by the fountain for my birthday, complete with a serenade :) We also hit up a nearby pizzeria with the University of Perugia choir and later, the younger crew and I had drinks in the Piazza.
In sum:
Visited Spoleto : Sang for the Bishop of Perugia in a 700 year old cathedral : Drank in the piazza with friends : Not a bad way to ring my 25th year!
