Hill towns and Disneyland

Hill towns are all over the place and there is just something about seeing a quaint castle and/or duomo from the lowlands that makes you want to go up the hill. In addition to hill TOWNS, there is a hill REPUBLIC....San Marino, that for some reason fascinated me and Dick was interested, too. A republic that is completely surrounded by Italy and that has remained independent for centuries. HAD TO SEE IT!! It's site on the top of a hill is fantastic. These are photos from the top. The problem is that apparently LOTS AND LOTS of other people are also interested in San Marino such that it is a tourist trap rivalling Disneyland but without the rides. We walked around, saw the major attractions (duomo, municipal center, etc) and left to search out a town we had seen from the freeway that was also a top of the hill place. We finally identified it as Mount Gridolfo and after an hour or two of driving around, getting lost, asking directions, getting lost some more, we finally got there. It was a cute little place with a fabulous view and a black Madonna statue in a niche on the outside of the church. (See Loreto posting for black Madonna story and a photo of the Mount Gridolfo black Madonna.)

So here are pictures from Mount Gridolfo....the view and the church.

Just a few km from Urbania is a hill town visible from Urbania, called Peglio. Tiny place with this cool tower at the very top of it. There's a long pathway up from the town leading to the tower that has a variety of interesting, modern, kind of humorous metal sculptures along the path and on the top of the tower (that's a man hanging up the moon/or reaching for it depending on your perspective.)There were a number of sculptures of open books on the path and on the railing where Dick is admiring the view. An different type of "hill town" art.