A Walk to Work

We are settling in this week for the first full week of school in awhile. As such, we haven't had much time to do interesting things so I will take the time to fill in another blank by writing a little about our neighborhood and the route we take on our way to work. The historic center of Viterbo is ringed completely by a medieval wall. The area of the city known as San Pellegrino is considered to be one of the finest examples of medieval architecture remaining in Italy, although many places make that claim. The western area inside the walls is less built up since it was largely destroyed during WWII and it wasn't considered feasible to rebuild it. We live within the walls near the Porta Romana on the southeast side of the city. One of the two train stations for Viterbo is a few hundred meters away from this gate. Below is the view of the Porta Romana taken from inside the city wall. The structure which housed the Macchina di Santa Rosa can be seen on the left side of the picture.

The entrance to our street, Via Vetulonia, is around 50 meters from the gate at approximately the point where the picture of the gate was taken from. It is a one way street (Senso Unico) in the direction of the arrow.

Once you turn the corner onto Via Vetulonia, our apartment is on the left another 50 meters down the street. In the picture below, the entrance to the apartment is where the street begins to bend, just beyond the last visible first floor balcony. The trees you see in the picture are in a garden area that our bedroom window overlooks. Technically there is no parking on the street, but motorcycles and the occasional car park there anyway making life difficult. I have yet to see anybody get a ticket for parking there. I wouldn't want to get one since they average almost 40 euros.

If you continue along Via Vetulonia through a couple of sideways jogs to the right, you encounter our favorite fruit and vegetable store, Eden Fruits.

The road which passes through the Porta Romana is called Via Garibaldi. This is the beginning of the route taken by the Macchina. If you continue straight rather than taking the corner onto Via Vetulonia, you see the view below. In the distance is the Piazza Fontana Grande, the first stopping point of the procession. To orient you further, the street where Symposium Vini is located is about 50 meters down this road to the left of the picture.

Below is a closer view of the fountain. The main road continues to the right of the building in the background. However, it changes names and is now called Via Cavour. The school is located approximately 50 meters down that street at Via Cavour 77.

The pair of large, green doors is the main entrance to the school. The school itself is actually on the primo piano or first floor in the Italian way of numbering. It is what we would call the second floor. The only indication that the school is there is the small sign to the left of the door which says Scuola Americana. The school is not the only tenant in the building. There are other apartments, several of which are occupied by teachers at the school. The entire walk from our apartment to the school is less than 300 meters and takes around 5 minutes, even dodging morning traffic.