After a last night in San Gimignano we head south-east to Perugia, where we will stay 4 nights to attend some Concerts of the 38th Umbria Jazzfestival. That means also we shift from Tuscany to Umbria, from the rich to the poor region but in any case Umbria is less known but at least as interesting as Tuscany.

Before we finally reach Perugia we do a stop in Sant Antimo. In this quiet and hidden (almost no tourists) monastery which is still active you can "feel pure religion". This romanic church with roots back to the 9th century (!) breathes, you get slower and feel it - its not really explainable to us but it is somehow special, we have the impression being closer to our dead friends and relatives than before. Quite an experience not only as we finally had the chance to listen to one of the 7 daily prayers of the padres in the church.

Sant Antimo

We cross the beautiful cities of Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano but we almost reached an overflow of cultural impressions - there is so much to see!

Later that afternoon we reach Perugia and our hotel this time is around 10km outside the town a huge park with pool to relax and wonderful rooms. A great hideaway for the next days - mornings at the pool, later music or sightseeing. That will be the plan for the next days.



In the evening we enter the first time Perugia city. On the corso - the main street where all the sights are - there are already a lot of people around. In front of the duomo the big stage for the free of charge concerts is already placed, in all corners some people are playing - Umbria Jazz festival started. At 9pm we listen to the concert of

Caro Emerald live in action

Caro Emerald - a dutch singer between Pop, Rockabilly and hiphop. Interesting music, interesting lady. Not bad for the beginning.

The second concert was Dee Alexander's Evolution Ensemble. This performance was dedicated to Jimi Hendrix and it was interesting how a band replaces the guitar of the guitar-god Hendrix with a violine, a chello and a bass player. To make it short: from our point of view this experiment was not successful. The power of Hendrix was replaced by noise. All his great songs like All along the watchtower, Little Wing, Hey Joe, ... couldn't reach the original and the scat-singing of  Mrs. Alexander could not replace the guitar solos of Jimi. Only the dress of Dee Alexander was impressive: colourful and she reminded us of a character of a Disney movie: the head of "Munsters Inc".

Dee Alexander