La Tramontana

Believe it or not, Italians have names for every wind. There’s the scirocco, a hot wind that comes out of Africa and carries red dust (from the Sahara) that it drops with rain to coat everything with a red film, usually in the summer. Then there’s the levante, a crisp humid wind from the Eastern Mediterranean that brings fog and rain. But Perugia now is in the grips of the appropriately-named tramontana, literally the “between- mountain.”

This frigid wind whistles down from the north, through the Alps, and because it’s dry, brings clear skies but bitter cold. Students at the Umbra Institute, therefore, are enjoying beautiful blue skies, but wrapped up in three layers. Put on your hat, we say!