A room with a view at the Locanda Della Posta

This morning when I explained to the young woman at the front desk at the Locanda Della Posta that I needed to either switch rooms or change hotels, someone was immediately dispatched to move me to a slightly larger and decidedly more pleasant room with windows that open on to Perugia’s historic main street, Corso Vannucci.

The view from the Locanda Della Posta in Umbria, Italy. Photo by David Lansing.

The view from the Locanda Della Posta in Umbria, Italy. Photo by David Lansing.

 

 

Fortunately, it has stopped raining—at least for the moment. But it’s overcast and inordinately cold for this late in spring. School children, bundled in coats and scarves, are being marched by their teachers up the narrow street to the pink and white marble cathedral, which I can see if I stick my head out far enough over my balcony. Below me is a café and I can smell the invigorating perfume of espresso and hear the lilting Italian of those sitting at outside tables huddled beneath dripping café umbrellas.

Across the way, an old woman pokes and prods a large planter of somnolent wisteria on her balcony, as if demanding to know why, this late in May, it refuses to bloom. Above her, a lone swallow flits about beneath the red tile roof, no doubt searching for a fat insect or two for breakfast. But the morning is too cold and damp for bugs. The swallow retreats into a mud nest beneath the eaves.

It’s all very pretty in a Merchant-Ivory sort of way, I suppose. But here in Umbria they have a saying: Una rondine non fa primavera. A single swallow does not make spring; in other words, if you see something beautiful, it doesn’t mean that everything that follows will be beautiful. 

Tags: ,