On the first week of March, the “Beast from the East” almost made me to cut Urbino from my plan after I heard that there was a weeklong heavy snow to this city causing many roads to be closed and some municipalities near Urbino declared emergency situation. After successfully secured rental car with winter tires, a hard to find in Italy and found out that clear sky would happen for only one day, I drove to Urbino directly from Rome in early morning. When I reached Urbino, the weather forecast was accurate, it was cold only -6 degree Celsius but with clear sky. The whole city was under the thick snow; however, the city was really lively by the locals who came out to use this one-day chance to clear snow from their home and moved their cars to underground parking which the city just announced to waive all parking fee, good news for me.

Unfortunately, because of heavy snow, all the attractions and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. Even it was closed, the Ducal Palace complex was really a main attraction for its sheer size compared to other places in town, the view of its front façade from the square in front of the City Gate was classic postcard. From there I took an elevator to upper part of the city and aimlessly walked around the city along the streets that full of piles of snow and broken ice. I walked to the famous steep Via Raffaello, passed the closed Rafael House and end at Parco della Resistenza to see the beautiful city skyline from the park in front of Fortrezza di Albornoz. At first, I wanted to walk back to lower part via Viale Rosselli, but the road was full of snow and not passable, so I had to walk back Via Raffaello. Along the way I decided to take a detour via smaller streets to see this historic town as much as I could. Finally, I found some café opened and decided to try local cuisine, Crescia, a kind of panini, and sampled some Casciotta cheese with local wine, a simple but great meal. I spent around 5 hours in Urbino until snow started to pour again and then I decided to leave the city before the weather became worsen.

In my opinion, Urbino was a lovely old town of Italy, it had fine architecture, and the city landscape was quite nice. It also had delicious local cuisine that I was really happy with. Despite the bad weather, I still enjoyed the visit quite a lot. It may not in the same league with other UNESCO World Heritage listed Renaissance cities in Central Italy like Florence and Siena and has many similarities on urban landscape like Assisi or Pienza, but the city really has its own charm enough to be stand out and should not be missed out by any casual or World Heritage Site travelers.