If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
We started out early, catching a bus from the Piazza Matteoti to the Stazione Assisi, a train to Perugia, and then a bus to the center of the old town. By midmorning we were finally starting a walking tour of Perugia, which we purchased online from WalkingCap.com and streamed through our phones. All those logistics and technologies worked, and we were able to follow the route linked to Google Maps.
Perugia is a big city, with about 170,000 people, a dense city center, and tall buildings. It is best known for its medieval old town, university, and chocolate factory. The walking tour started at the Etruscan Arch, wound through the university neighborhood, paused in the main piazza, and ended at a park overlooking the valley below. (Like most fortified cities, Perugia is built at the top of a rocky hill.)
The tour did not extend to the well-known Baci chocolate factory, about 4 miles outside of town. But it did pass several little chocolate shops where we were able to buy a few pieces of the expensive treat.
After the tour, we found a little osteria with a small menu and relaxed with bottles of cold water and plates of typical pasta, bruschetta, and salad.
For fun, we rode the minimetro back to the train station in Perugia. Off the train in Assisi, we walked to a supermarket near the station, bought groceries for the next couple of days, and then found our bus back up the hill to our apartment.
Dinner was whatever we wanted from the bags of groceries.
Ken and I spent the next hour or so figuring out how to buy a Wahoo navigation device. We actually started this process back in Spoleto, when I realized my cleats were quite worn, and Ken's old Wahoo went completely and irreversibly black after misbehaving for several days. First, I found my cleats on Amazon.com and figured out how to have them delivered to our apartment in Ancona the day we arrive there. Unfortunately, they shipped much faster than estimated, and DHL could not find the doorbell for the apartment. I was able to work with our host in Ancona to get them delivered to her home, and she will bring them to the apartment when she checks us in.
Ken's Wahoo proved a little trickier. Amazon.com processed an order for delivery to Ancona on July 31. But the seller apparently did not complete the international shipping documents properly, and DHL refused the package in Kentucky and returned it to the seller. So we had to start over.
I found a Wahoo in a bike shop about 30 miles from Ancona. After several emails back and forth with customer service, I was able to purchase it and have it shipped to a tabaccheria near our apartment in Ancona, where it will be delivered by Monday and held for up to 14 days. Ken is so happy.
