Every now and then I think about innovation. It’s not an obsession, but as a recovering geek I look at my Mac and the various ways we do everyday tasks and remember how these devices and even cars were 20, 30, even more years ago. A life without streaming, iPhones, and ATMs might sound like paradise to some people, but not to me.

One of my problems with the concept of “innovation” is that Americans tend to think of computers as the only area where it takes place. And, maybe, biotech. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the drift. And a lot of them devalue how other societies come up with solutions to everyday challenges. One of the ways the rest of the world is innovating is how people move around. Not just the big voyages, like airports and railroads, but in their towns and cities.

We live in a mountainous area, and a lot, if not most, of our cities and towns are on hills. And that posits a couple of problems that lead to interesting solutions. Hilltowns tend to have narrow streets—some are just alleyways and staircases. And they are not car-friendly. They’ve tried to adapt, but for example our regional capital, Perugia, after letting cars go everywhere, severely curtailed their use in the historic center. And that’s led to problems with commerce and convenience, but it also means that you can walk past nicely scrubbed buildings without be afraid of being run over. It’s a paradox and hopefully planners and urban officials will come to a good balance.

All of this brings me to Spoleto, where we spent a recent Saturday wandering with one of our kids and her boyfriend. Outwardly, it’s a typical Umbrian hilltown or small city. It once was a powerful local force, and traces of that power still exist here and there, like in the splendid duomo (main cathedral) and fortress overlooking the city. You can usually tell how powerful a town was during the pre-Papal States era by the size of its piazzas, and Spoleto doesn’t disappoint. Its piazza del Duomo is majestic and Piazza del Market (Market Square) is a nice big comfortable urban living room.

These days, Spoleto exercises its power via culture. It’s the site of the Festival dei Due Mondi, more commonly called the Spoleto Festival. Classical music musicians, dancers, and their fans from the around the world gather every summer at venues throughout the city. Because of this preeminence, artists have decorated the city’s public spaces; for example, an Alexander Calder sculpture stands watch over the train station.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T SEE in Spoleto lies literally below the surface. Spoleto’s government has over the years built a system of tunnels that get you around the historic center and out to parking lots outside the old city walls. It’s pretty amazing. At first I thought the tunnel we used between the parking lot where we stashed our car and the edge of the center city was the only one, and pretty impressive by itself. But a few months ago we walked past what looked like an entrance to another one. With my obsession with urban transport and tunnels I just had to explore. It resembles a subway or metro without trains, but with kilometers of moving sidewalks that actually work (take that, JFK airport). The tunnel leading from the SpoletoSfera lot is decorated with large photos of festival participants and guests, so you know exactly what this former city-state stands for these days. (We can argue over whether festivals are a cure-all for urban woes another time.)

For some reason, every time we go there—and we’ll just go to hang out, feel the vibe and check out the restaurants—something serendipitously terrific happens. This past weekend, we stumbled into a street food happening and we bought enough good stuff to have dinner that night. (BTW street food is all the rage here in Italy, perhaps a reaction to the old days of formal dining in the country’s eateries.)

But a winter Sunday a few years ago topped every trip there. We drove there with two friends from New York, Wendy and Vicky. We walked around the town and when we got to the Duomo, we saw that some kind of mass baptism ceremony was in progress. Outside the church were plaques with the names of the kids. We thought, ok, cool, but there was more. We took the nearby elevator up to the old fort, which has an incredible view over the town and surrounding countryside. All of a sudden, dozens of helium balloons took off from the piazza in front of the cathedral, a riot of pink and blue, one for each baby.

That wasn’t all. We had a really good Sunday lunch at one of our favorite places, Apollinare (right). As we left and turned up the street, we stumbled in the crowd watching an exuberant Carnevale parade. Every participant wore a whimsical costumes, and a lot of them cheerfuly sprayed us all with confetti, sparkles, and silly string. DJs kept the beat going as people dressed as ancient Egyptians shimmied their way down the street.

And one of paraders, in the photo below, posed gracefully as I took my shot.