Two things, as I sit here in my hotel room listening to the bells from San Pietro. Which are, by the way, different from the way they were the last two years here. San Pietro got its bells -- what? Tuned? Adjusted? I dunno.

Anyway, two things. One, it's been pointed out to me, and quite rightly, that my last entry read as though I were the genius who invented the Perugia Egg Cream. Of course, I wasn't. That genius was Charles Kreloff, who lifted Barb Shoup's fizzy water for the purpose. They were my Perugia outing compainions -- both had been there before, Charles many times -- and deserve full credit.

Two, today being also a non-teaching day, Barb and I hiked to St. Francis's Hermitage, which was an hour and a half straight up. St. F. would plotz if he saw the chachkes being sold outside it, and the constant stream of people coming and going. Still, it's a place of serious pilgrimage for many, including the folks who left these:



People make crosses from sticks or rocks and leave them in piles, with names and pictures of lost loved ones. This is a detail of an extensive pile. I can't get over the family photo here. There's no way to tell who's gone. One of the adults? One of the babies? Why use the family picture, instead of the individual portrait of the deceased, as most people do? I found that photo riveting.