Our Day in Assisi

Today we spent the day in Assisi, a city made famous by St. Francis and St. Clare. Assisi has a completely different feel from bustling Rome - the town is famous for its Franciscan shrines. We had a local guide who told us the hostory of St. Clare and St. Francis and then we toured the Bascilica di S. Chiara (Saint Clare) and the Bascilica di S. Francesco (Saint Francis).

 

Assisi is built high up on a hill in the Italian region of Umbria.

 

We saw lots of Franciscan monks around the town - they seemed very open to interacting with the tourists like ourselves.

Here Greg is asking them some more specifics about how they tie the knots they wear as a belt around their cloaks.

This is the Bascilica di S. Francesco which includes a lower church (under which St. Francis is buried) and an upper church. Both churches were built after his death to be a shrine for St. Francis.

Asking our tour guide for a restaurant suggestion, we had a very good lunch at a restaurant where we were the only English speakers (in other words, not as many tourists).

We got some good walking in today on some hilly streets - it reminded us of some of the towns Greg and I hiked in through in the Alps.

After our day in Assisi, we had a 3-hour bus ride to Montecatini where we will base ourselves for the next 3 nights while we tour Florence and Cinque Terre.

 

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