Spello, Tulips

The sign saying “No Campers Allowed,” or words to that effect, prompted us to park outside the old city wall, enter through the fine Roman Consular Gate built in the first century, then walk, walk, walk.

While not really neat and clean, Spello is picturesque and colorful. It was their lunch time, and as is found in most places in Italy, the stores were closed for lunch, plus the first couple of hours of the afternoon. We remember a variety of flower beds, especially one huge bed of tulips in full bloom in a city park. In Spello they celebrate the “Infiorata,” the Festival of the Flowers where the townspeople parade past carpets of flowers laid in precision patterns on city streets.

The word unique means “one of a kind,” but our thesaurus contains a dozen synonyms for unique — peerless, incomparable, matchless — still not nearly enough to describe these old villages with cobbled streets and stone buildings.