My Favorite Italian City

Sorry I'm so behind kids but I promise to catch up soon.  As in  next week when I settle into life with my bestist of buddy's Leon.  Until then here is the 411 on my favorite Italian City.

I love Assisi!  It is a beautiful quaint town on a hill in the middle of Umbria and yeah it has some famous roots.  As the Catholics in the crowd hopefully know Assisi is the home of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of Italy.  But also the home of Saint Clare (of the Poor Clare's) and Saint Rufino.  I kid you not there is a Saint Rufino.

So the rents and I got up nice and early and packed to car for our little road trip.  It was going to be a busy day seeing Assisi, Sienna and driving to Pisa.  So we took off and drove through beautiful Tuscany to Umbria and up the hill to Assisi.  I'll say it again, thank the lord for Melba and Rick Steves. We arrived and parked our car in the lot then started the walk around.  Our first stop was the old Roman Forum, which is now a quaint little neighborhood of houses in a circle around a common area.  We walked around and waved at an old Italian woman sweeping her back patio.  We saw the old laundry area and just soaked in lived in atmosphere the area projects.  After that we walked around the corner so to say and took a look at the view off the hill over Umbria, which is really quite spectacular.  Then weaved our way into town through the construction on the street and finally to Saint Rufino's church.

Saint Rufino pre dates both the other famous Assisi saints by a couple of centuries.  But interesting while Saint Francis is Italy's patron saint,  Saint  Rufino is Assisi's patron saint.  We walked in and enjoyed the calming atmosphere of the church.  Nuns were actually walking around and shushing people.  The church is famous in Assisi as the town Baptistry and was the church where both a baby Francis and baby Clare were baptized.  The church is simple which to me makes it all the more beautiful.  It was great fun seeing the glass paneling in the for showing off the Roman ruins.  Apparently during an earthquake several years ago there was some damage to the churches foundation and when an excavation team went down to see they found Roman ruins.  So now for an extra fee you can go down into the crypt/ruins and take a look around and what has been excavated.  Mom and I opted to sit and enjoy the church while my Dad the Roman nut went to go take a look and the ruins.  We me him outside since we got kicked out by the nuns going to lunch.  He said it was okay but not worth the entrance fee which I had a feeling they wouldn't be.  But after our lay over at Saint Rufino's church we headed farther into town and stopped in the square to get some lunch as Mom was feeling a little out of it.  I had a piece of pizza from a cafe and the rents each had a chicken sandwich.

After our little power charge we headed down to St. Francis's Cathedral stopping briefly for Mom to buy a ceramic St. Francis tile to hang at home.  We got to the cathedral and admired the outside for a moment before heading into the upper basilica.  Upon entering I was a little shocked to find out I hadn't made it into this part of the basilica last time I came through Assisi.  But thanks to our Rick Steve's guidebook we were able to walk through the upper basilica and decipher the amazing frescoes depicting Francis's life.  We took our time touring through and enjoying the art, the smell (nothing smells like church incense), and the monk shushing people.  Silencio!!!!

When we left the upper basilica we headed down the pathway to the lower basilica which is the one I remember from my last trip to Assisi.  It's also one of the most amazing churches I've ever visited and gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.  It is also frescoed all over with various images of Jesus and Francis's lives.  We walked directly down the stairs into the crypt area and took a seat in front of the altar where St. Francis's bones are kept.  It is really crazy to sit there and think that his remains and his energy are still held in that place.  A little trivia for the unknowing, when St. Francis died he was buried up on the hill outside of the original city of Assisi.  The hill was then known as the "Hill of the Damned" and was later changed to the "Hill of Paradise" when the basilica was erected.

We all took a few minutes to soak in the sacred and say a few prayers for everything from world peace to health, wealth, and happiness for all, and babies for some and boyfriends for others.  I would be praying for the boyfriend and the babies are for my brothers and sister in laws, just for clarification.  And all the general stuff I always pray for.  Mom and I each bought a candle to be lite at some future time by the priests.  Then we headed upstairs to view the rest of the lower basilica.  We walked through and took in the beauty of the frescoes and the sacred energy of the place then checked our watches and got ready to head back to the car.  Even though we were a little behind schedule we stopped to hear the tale end of a service being done in the apse of the church by one of the monks.  It just was the perfect end to our visit.

When we left we hiked back up to the car pausing briefly at the pastry shop to get a little dessert.  We piled into the car and after a couple of attempts were able to make it out of the parking lot.  We got down the hill and after some recalculating from Melba made it onto the main road to Sienna, the famous medieval hilltop town.