Amazing Assisi

Evidence here of Roman times. This was the local amphitheatre outside the original town, now encompassed by the medieval town that built houses around and in it.
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Amazing Assisi

We chose to visit Assisi at the end of the day, when the majority of tour buses and day trippers were ending their visit and drove up the hill town of Assisi into the underground carpark at the top of the town. When this was built Roman ruins were discovered, and these are on display.

From there, we headed off to see the remains of an ancient Roman small amphitheatre, which was taken over by the village in medieval times. The houses are all built around the oval wall. Next, through one of the old town gates for a view of the tower that was used as a refuge in times of attack in medieval days.

The place of safety in Assisi in times of peril..
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Then we wound our way down to the church of St Clare. St Clare was someone from a rich Assisi family who joined herself to the Franciscan order, much to the displeasure of her family. She started an order called the "Poor Clares", which I believe is still going today. We found the church and the crypt where her remains were kept very moving. There is a bit of a medieval version of a comic strip of her life around the walls of this crypt. The final one quotes her dying words, something like "through all the days of my life, God has cared for me with the love of a mother tenderly caring for her baby.."

See the Roman temple to Minerva, converted to a church now.
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Assisi is built on a hill, looking back west across the Umbrian valley to where we are living and it is a stunning view, which is not captured well on camera. The view back up to the fort is also interesting. You could imagine in medieval days, when the alarm was sounded, the mad panic to get up the hill before the marauding army’s horses clattered through the square.

From the church of St Clare, we wandered through the streets again. Assisi is a very touristy town, with many overseas tourists, but also many Italian pilgrims. It is the third most visited pilgrimage site in Italy. The shops on this street are very picturesque as well, with some having their own hidden stories, such as original Roman walls within, printing presses used to forge documents for Jews during the war etc.

Lovely shops on the road to St Francis's huge church. See me in the mirror!!
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The Piazza this led to had a true historical centre. The original temple of Minerva from Roman times is still there. It was converted to a church in the 9^{th Century and has been fully decorated in Baroque style. At the front of the church, you can still see the original Roman floor, complete with the channels to drain away the blood from animal sacrifices…}

We then wandered down to the church of St Stefano. This was amazing, because of its stark contrast to the ornately decorated and refined churches you come to expect. This was rough and simple, with only stone walls, rough wooden beams and generally quite dark. However, it felt quite a holy place, No architect designed this one, just simple local stone masons. You can imagine the real Francis being very at home here. Legend has it that the bells of this church rang spontaneously when Francis died.

Kathy took this great shot outside the church. It is too big to photograph in its entirety close up. This is the second of 3 levels of the church
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From here it was down through the medieval streets to the main attraction, the church erected in honour of Francis. Its foundations were started two years after his death in the mid 1200’s. It is a huge edifice that can be seen for miles in the valley below and has three levels. The main church has amazing frescoes dating from this time with many famous painters and unfortunately you get blase about all this after a while, having seen so many. If this was the first one you had seen, you would stare at them for hours. But we were there close to closing time and went quickly through the main church, then the crypt below and then to St Francis’ tomb which is below again. For security reasons (since relics are have been so treasured through the ages), the exact location of St Francis’ tomb was kept secret for hundreds of years. When they wanted to find it earlier in the 20th century, it took them 3 months to locate it!! There was a substantial earthquake in this area in 1997 and many of the churches were damaged. The lower level of this one though has walls 9 feet thick and suffered no damage! The upper levels have walls only 3 feet thick and these did sustain damage and it was only opened for public viewing again a few years ago.

Colourful pastries to die for..
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We felt our decision to go late in the day was confirmed. It was still pretty hot, but the crowds were not an issue at all (early July) and if you are just conscious of closing times of key attractions, this is a great way to see this stunning town and get a feel for it’s most famous saint.