Suspended on great arches above its hanging square, the fourteenth-century Palazzo dei Consoli is the very image of Gubbio: a civic Gothic fortress with a panoramic loggia and the great bell that governs the feasts. Inside, the civic museum keeps the Iguvine Tablets — seven bronze slabs bearing pre-Roman Italy's most important ritual text, in the Umbrian tongue — and Mastro Giorgio's lustre ceramics.
From the loggia, Gubbio's roofs descend in order toward the plain.
Our tip: climb to the bell chamber: when the bell-ringers swing the campanone by arm for the feasts, you'll understand why the Ceri run. Piazza Grande at sunset, afterwards, is all yours.
