Jazz Plus Wine Plus Assisi

As we came back to Perugia, the Jazz Festival was already underway. Who would have thought that a seemingly random, mid-sized city in central Italy would host the world’s largest outdoor jazz festival? I honestly have no idea what other jazz specific outdoor festivals are held to challenge this title, but it is a pretty enormous event for the area nonetheless.  Some big names came in for it as well: Santana, who a lot of friends went to see but the rest of us stood outside for free and just listened to some of his show; Prince, who I missed because he was playing on a Friday when we were out of town; Liza Minnelli, which seems to be a strange addition to the mix; BB King, who again played while we were out of town, on Saturday. There were also a lot of other ticketed acts and free concerts. Apart from the glimpse of Santana that I caught, I stuck to the free concerts which were awesome in their own right, held either in the main square or just past the Piazza Italia not far from our apartment. It was amazing how many people were packing the main streets or Gelato shops late at night on weekdays, out watching these concerts – but hey, free jazz is free jazz! They also played a lot of covers, mostly Motown, James Earl Jones, or Soul music. A couple of the bands that we saw were from Memphis and New Orleans – nice to get a little taste of Americana while we were over here.

Corso Vannucci packed with people

On Wednesday, keeping to our field trip schedule, we went to visit the Lungarotti Winery. It was one of the first true wineries in all of Italy, located just a short drive away in Umbria. According to our tour guide Francesco Lungarotti, grandson of the original founder Giorgio Lungarotti, wine used to only be for the family in Italy. Around the 1960’s, commercial wineries began to spring up, and Lungarotti was founded in 1962 – they even have four bottles in the cellar from their inaugural year…undrinkable, of course, but commemorative all the same. The tour was excellent, I learned a whole lot about how wine is cultivated, produced, stored, and sold – not to mention I got to see barrels containing more wine than anybody would ever know what to do with. There were whole rooms lined with gigantic barrels containing about 3000 bottles worth of wine each. Not to mention that these barrels just represented an early step in the process, and as we went on into the factory we saw more rooms filled with smaller barrels and racks on racks on racks (ha) of wine slowly being turned a few degrees a day to get rid of sediments. There were so many different steps and things that they considered when making wine, some of them incredibly scientific and others purely artistic and dreamy – exactly what you would expect from wine connoisseurs. I’m not sure there are any people on this earth as passionate about their drink of choice as people who simply love wine.

Wine by the barrel

The Lungarotti Winery was located in the valley between Perugia and Assisi – a distance of about 40 minutes and visible from one side of the hill Perugia is built upon. As the extension to our field trip, we got back on the bus and headed to Assisi after a surprisingly good strictly vegetarian lunch consisting of veggie lasagna, what was described by Mauro (who works at the Umbra Institute and sets up these field trips) as a “bread salad” made with leftover scraps of bread and a spinach based pastry sort of thing that I never thought to get the name of. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but hell it was good and I kept on eating it. Assisi’s claim to fame is that it is the place that St.  Francis of Assisi was born and lived. Granted I had heard of St. Francis and the Franciscan Church but could not have told you what they stood for. A refresher for some and a new tidbit for others, St. Francis believed in the blessing of pets and also the rejection of worldly possessions, in my very brief and uneducated understanding. It is a good thing that he encouraged all the common people to get rid of their worldly possessions, otherwise the luster and riches of the St. Francis Church in Assisi might not look so elaborate and wealthy. Granted, I do not know anything about the history of the church or whether or not St. Francis himself was directly involved in the building/planning/approval of the church that bears his name, but it is still funny that it is so intricate – seemingly completely defying what he stood for. Hypocrisy at its finest, I guess. Not to mention the church was cashing in on capitalism with multiple gift shops that I’m sure many religious folk are just drawn to like a magnet. There was some cheap, low quality stuff in there, but there was also a ton of really fucking expensive, low quality stuff. I mean, I love commemorative figurines and all, but I would never dream of dropping 140 Euro on a 7 inch tall statue of St. Francis – seemingly made out of plastic, possibly not, but definitely not anything of value, possibly like silver. I guess they make a killing on stuff like that, which is all fair game as far as business goes, but if you’re running on the front of a church I would think you would have a bit more integrity – it wasn’t even a gift shop out in the town (many of those had much more reasonable prices) – but a gift shop literally between two levels of basilicas featuring hordes of whispering tour guides with their groups, religious visitors deep in prayer, and nuns in traditional garb. Its location led me to believe it was in some way sponsored or supported by the church, but maybe it was just a business with a fine eye for knowing a sucker when it sees one. Still, it was a very off putting point to Assisi and religion in general.

San Francesco

Due to the winery touring running late – totally worth it, by the way – we did not have much time in Assisi. A group of us were going to head up to a castle on the top of the hill, which would have been pretty sweet if I do say so myself, but after stopping by a roadside stand and asking if we were on the right road, we found out that it was a 3 km walk. Instead of being able to walk straight up there, we would have to follow a road up and around it, then backtrack towards the center of town before finally getting to the actual gates. Lacking time and motivation, we quickly disregarded that idea and turned to walking the streets with Mauro as our guide. Given that it was so hot, we caved and got some slushies – very American, I know, but they weren’t made in the same way I picture the typical 7-11 Slushy. It was more like a SnoCone in a cup – regardless I got watermelon, and it was both pretty dang good and cold, so I was content. Other than walking the streets and seeing one main square with a fountain, we did not encounter much in Assisi except for the famous Franciscan church. I’m sure if we had more time there we would have been able to scope more out, but I was rather disappointed and expecting a lot more. I guess I can just add that to my list of reasons why I need to return.