There was a definite change in the weather. It had been very windy in the night and now the clouds were gathering. As I congratulated myself on finding a parking close to the old centre, the heavens opened.
I waited till the worst was over – no point using umbrellas – they turned instantly inside out – and walked over to what was supposed to be a series of escalators taking one up the hill to the old town. Except they were not working. So I think I plodded up something like five long flights of steps, still under the rain.
I have to say that this was the first hilltop town which I did not take to. I was not allowing it a fair trial, given the weather. But unlike the sparkling white of Pisa or the warm red of Lucca and Siena, the prevailing colour in Arezzo seemed to be a rather hard yellow or ochre. It’s a shame, as it is clearly a town which is good to live in; there were plenty of signs of parks and the scale of the town was much more manageable.
Actually my reason for coming was not the town, but the superb frescoes by Piero della Francesca. They did not disappoint. I suspect a lot of the vivid colour was restored in reestoration, but what a master of the early Renaissance. I would have liked much longer than the half hour allotted to look at each of the figures,
I took my leave of Arezzo, apologising mentally for my lack of enthusiasm for the town, and headed back north as far as I could get. I headed back to my old site in Lucca, taking a lovely route through the hills of Chianti which reminded me why the British love Tuscany so mucy. It is peculiar that there are these two sides: heavy traffic and over development on the west and then still this pastural feeling further east.
I spent a peaceful but very chilly night as the sole camper on the carpark. The temperature had plummeted in the night to 5 degrees! I was not really equipped for this.
