Studying in Urbino: what to do outside lectures, from the Ducal Palace to the hills and workshops

Urbino is a small town on two hills, and you notice students on every corner: the university, which traces its origins back to 1506, the Academy of Fine Arts, the ISIA design school and the Scuola del Libro give it a rhythm few towns of its size have. For the first few weeks it is a marvel. Then November comes, fog rises from the valleys, and the question changes: what to do with free afternoons when you have already seen everything, or think you have.

The town, as a student

A tourist sees Urbino in a day. Those who live there can afford to look at it one piece at a time, and that is when the town shows a different face.

• The Ducal Palace: home to the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, with Piero della Francesca's Flagellation and Raphael's La Muta. It is not a museum to visit once: go back for one room at a time. The Duke's Studiolo, panelled in wooden marquetry, is worth a visit on its own.
• Raphael's birthplace: in the street named after him, the house where the painter was born and took his first steps in his father's workshop.
• The oratories: in San Giovanni Battista, the frescoes by the Salimbeni brothers, from 1416; in San Giuseppe, the stucco nativity scene by Federico Brandani, from the sixteenth century.
• The Albornoz Fortress: the park above the town, for sunsets, for reading when the sun is out, for seeing Urbino from above.
• Giancarlo De Carlo's university colleges: even if you do not live there, they are an open-air architecture lesson on the hill opposite the centre.

Outside the walls, without a train

Urbino has no railway station: trains leave from Pesaro, about an hour away by bus, or from Fano. It is a limitation, but also the reason trips need some planning. The Cesane, the woods on the surrounding hills, are the place for a walk when you need air. Fermignano, Bramante's home town, and Urbania, the old majolica town of Casteldurante, are a few kilometres away. The Furlo Gorge and Fossombrone make a half-day trip. And when you need the sea, Pesaro and Fano are right there.

An afternoon with your hands

In a town with an Academy of Fine Arts, a graphic design school and a school of the book, making something with your hands is not a strange idea. But for those studying law, economics or languages, a workshop is above all a way to step away from studying that goes through neither a screen nor a bar. Two or three hours in which your head empties because your hands are busy, with people who are not your coursemates, and at the end an object to keep in your room.

• Ceramics: the province has worked clay for centuries, and the wheel is the quickest way to stop thinking about Monday's exam.
• Bookbinding and paper: a hand-sewn notebook for your notes, in a town with a long tradition of books and printing.
• Printing and graphics: for those who want to try with their hands what they see on screen.
• Jewellery and candles: pieces you finish on the day and that become a present.

How to book, on a student budget

• The price on the listing is per person and all-inclusive: materials and teaching, nothing is added at checkout.
• Online you pay only the deposit, 10 euros per seat for group workshops. The rest you pay to the Maker on the day of the workshop.
• If an unexpected exam comes up, cancellation is free up to 3 days before and the deposit comes back.
• If there are no dates, on the province page you can leave your email to hear when a new one opens, and you can do the same on the listing of a workshop you like. You can also search Urbino only.

When your parents visit, or when you graduate

When your parents come to visit, a workshop done together is an alternative to the usual lunch, and if they want to give you a present that takes no space in a student room there is the gift card: it is valid for 12 months on any workshop on the platform. For graduation, a private workshop for friends and family is requested as a private event, up to 30 people: the guide to a graduation party in a workshop, written for Bologna but valid here too, explains how it works. For an overview of experiences in the province, there is the guide to workshops in Pesaro and Urbino.