After leaving Gubbio we stopped for a cafe around noon and were enchanted by it's quaintness so we strolled around, bought Italian wool scarfs and took the following pictures:

 On the bridge leading into the older part of town

 Self portrait

 A very clear river runs through it

Typical ally

 We had cafe at the corner to Nancy's left

 Leaving town

   I've been remiss about keeping up the blog due to working on Avelinda everyday as we try to get her ready for a late January departure and of course the madness associated with the holidays.
   Avelinda is coming along nicely and if all continues to go as they have been I should have her ready to move aboard by next week. Nancy's last day at Flagler, before a three to four month hiatus, is Jan. 20th and we hope to catch the first cold front out following it. Leaving as a cold front approaches has the advantage of giving us favorable winds to reach across the Gulf Stream in short order. As the prevailing winds here are south east we would be forced to beat our way outbound, not fun.
   As a cold front approaches the wind swings from SE clockwise through SW, W, NW, North and so on until they settle back into SE. Depending on the speed the front is moving this swing can last from as little as a day and a half to two or three days. We like to depart as soon as the winds move into the south, south west. This has the disadvantage of departing under conditions seen as unfavorable to many sailors but our motto is "Grim and Gray is OK". Plus we normally have higher winds which we favor. 

Avelinda with her new sails

   OK, so back to Italy pictures, after we left Urbino on the 16 of Nov. we went to Gubbio where we spent the evening and the following day had a delightful hike  starting at the top of a mountain which, thankfully, we took a lift to. Below are pictures taken in route to and during our stay there.

 Nancy in the VW Polo

 Nancy in our Gubbio hotel room

 Nancy makes this Fiat 500 look large

 This is a better scale of another Fiat 500.

 I owned one of these during a deployment to Sicily in 1984 and loved it.

 Looking up the lift, we were both in one of those baskets

 Looking down at Gubbio

 Gubbio's ancient Colosseum

 Love the window boxes

 An abandoned farm house

 Another abandoned farm house

 A close up of the one above. We had a picnic lunch here

 Solar farm, we saw many throughout our travels in Umbria

 Occupied house on a cliff with a long commute on a terrible road to town

 It's was getting late and fog was rolling in as we neared the end of our hike

On the morning of 15 Nov. we awoke early , dressed and went down stairs for a quick breakfast before heading off to visit Urbino and the palazzo Ducale di Urbino- National Museum of Marche.

The most impressive sights here I found to be the highly detailed inlaid wooden artwork  most of which were in the Duke's private study, a room only about 10' X 10'. Below are some examples:

Click on images to enlarge

Another very impressive room was decorated with the below tapestries which were approximately 12 feet high and 20 feet long.

A view across the main courtyard of the palazzo

We left Venice by train the on the 13th to Mestre, a rather dirty industrial town, where we picked up our rental car, a VW Polo with a diesel engine, and headed off to San Leo with a stop in Ravenna where we wound up spending a night.

Ravenna is re-know for mosaics and seeing some of them our main reason for visiting.

 As an example, this work is as tall as I am

 As we were leaving we stopped at a vinoteca for a jug of wine. You can bring in your own bottle or they have some empty water bottles for people like us who didn't have one. 2 liters of great red wine for $3.00

 We stopped just outside of Ravenna to check out this church... glad we did

The bell tower

 Unbelievable!

 Some of the bishops crypts line the walls

 For a sense of scale

 Nancy playing with the animals n the front yard of the church

 San Leo with the fort above, we will stay here for two days

A closer look

 The old church in the square

 The main drag

 Town square

Inside the old church

 Nancy in front of the fort

 Entering the fort... yep, ya gotta pay

 Inside the fort

 We got into the fort late and by the time we got to the top it was getting dark. This is a picture of the town of San Leo below

 When we got back to the hotel we could look up at the fort above all lit up

 The following  are some night scenes of  San Leo

  

The entrance to the city

 From the square looking up at the fort

 The fort from our hotel the next morning

 The surrounding country side

OK, I've got to get to work on my chores, the primary one right now is getting the heater on Avelinda to work without running us out of the boat on low setting, so I will close for now and continue updating the blog later.