Perugia · IT

Arco dei Tei

The Arco dei Tei is one of Perugia's old city gates: a tall pointed arch built of honey-coloured sandstone, set into a surviving stretch of the medieval wall at the end of Via Pinturicchio. Locals more often call it Porta Pesa, the "weighing gate," after the toll barrier and great weighbridge that once stood in front of it to tax goods entering the city. It is a small, open-air monument rather than a site with tickets or guided tours, but it makes a satisfying stop for anyone curious about how a hill town grew, defended itself and took its money. Dating to roughly the 12th–13th century, the arch belongs to a first ring of walls that stood outside the older Etruscan perimeter, and together with the Arco di Santa Elisabetta it is one of the few readable traces of that early expansion. Always visible and free to approach, it asks little of a visitor's schedule and rewards a slow look at its weathered stone.