In our little town, half the fun of it is that you never know what’s going on. (Half of that half, it seems, can be traced to Piazza del Mercata, where the misnamed Information Center prefers to dispense maps and little else. A long story, quite needless to say or tell.)

Back to the fun of it. Last year, we ran into a music competition, totally unawares, that kept us entertained for almost a week. This year, using a printout graciously provided at the Information Center by the one kind soul we’ve met there, it looked as if we were in for a return engagement.

And so we are, just not the one we expected. Instead, Concerti Pegasus 2015 will be performed in one of the deconsecrated churches around town. For four nights, with the participation of Teatro Lirico Sperimentale, we’ll be treated to Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Rachmaninov, Chopin, Liszt. What an unexpected treat!

Or else, the fool can’t stop shooting off his mouth with pixels?

Churches, churches everywhere.  Two of our favorites:

For those in the historical know, the portico on the left is a 15th-century addition.  And for those in the mathematical know, that’s a dodecagonal bell tower.  (Twelve sided, my internet dictionary tells me.)  Further, there was much written about the underground spaces from Etruscan and medieval periods. Never found them.

On the outskirts of the town, close to where it drops straight down, an old church.

This one was built at the beginning of the 11th century (in a Romanesque style, as if I could tell the difference between this and the “Romanesque Gothic style” of Chiesa di Sant’ Andrea.  Suffice it to say, cramming for tests in “Humanities” is no guarantee of long-term memory, much less life-long learning.  Nothing beats being there, soaking it all in–to the point that you are overwhelmed with a sense of the past, the long duration, in decided contrast to the short history of the U.S.)