YEAH ASSISI

Hello small peaceful and mountainous Assisi!! We arrived in Assisi mid-afternoon will lots of light and time to get some exploring in before dark! So we hop on the bus from the station that takes you up into the old city of Assisi and we happen to sit down across from two Americans, one priest and one sister. They were going to St Damiano (the place where God said to Francis “rebuild my church”) and because we once again did not have a map or any idea where we were we thought we’d just tag along. It was a great idea because they were lovely and the priest knew all about Francis and told us stories along the walk down to the chapel. Then when we arrived we met and Irish Friar who told us even more stories about Francis and Clare too! Hurah!

This is where we first started to experience the beautiful peace and silence that is Assisi! It was such a welcomed change of pace for me as I quite dislike cities and unfortunately to see all the amazing things in Rome you have to be in a city...boooo! Assisi is still pretty small and out in the country and there were trees galore which I hearted. It’s the kind of place I could just set up a tent and stay for a long long while. The Irish Friar taught us all about St Domiano so it made our exploration of the little chapel all the more real.

We parted ways from our American friends and headed to Santa Ciara ( St Clare’s Church). It has St Clare’s tomb...which we had no idea about...and just stumbled upon! Morgan loved St Clare , so she was so moved, as was I. They also had a whole display of things that were Francis and Clare’s, like clothing and such. We went outside into the big square after and sat in the sun while we waited for 5:30 mass. We went to mass in the little side chapel and then headed to our hostel for the night.

Our hostel in Assisi was quite tricky to find but once again Morgan came through by asking for directions for us! Good on ya Morgan! That night in our hostel we made a new friend Jill. She was a middle aged Australian lady who was staying in our room. Also there happened to be a piano in the dining room so Morgan (who happens to have a music degree...in piano and is amazing) played for everyone. The few guests that were around were so delighted!

After a good sleep we began the last full day of our trip! This hostel had breakfast included so Morgan and I chowed down as much as possible to fuel us on our big day of exploring the very hilly Assisi. The first and more important thing that I wanted to visit was the heritages/caves up in the hills that Francis and the early brothers used to pray in. Basically you take the city bus as high up as it goes and walk outside the city wall and it’s about 4kms up into the hills. You can’t take the city bus up there and you pretty much can only go by car or foot, not even tour buses can go up. I really wanted to go so Morgan agreed to make the walking trek. Of course after about 30 minutes of walking up hill we thought we might want to come up with plan B.

Plan B = hitchhiking. Our roomie from last night, Jill, had said that she had done it the day before so we thought we would also give it a shot as it seemed like it was going to take us forever to get up to the caves. Sure enough the second car stopped and a lovely middle aged Italian couple picked us up. They were soooo nice and the man even spoke some English.

This was by far my favourite place we went. It was so beautiful and so peaceful. It is cool to see big churches and paintings and such because they are for the glory of God but personally I find He’s a lot more striking in the small simple things! The first thing we did before we walked around the trails where all the caves where was that we visited the little chapel there. UNDESCRIBABLE! Favourite moment of the whole trip. Then we quietly in awe walked around and visited the little caves where the first friars had prayed. First was Francis’s, he actually has a whole little building built around it but the others where more or less just out in the woods.

Basically Morgan and I could have easily spent all day or maybe even the whole trip! You can climb right down into the caves and go right inside most of them and pretty much pretend you were one of the early Franciscans! This little portion of the trip just confirmed my growing love for Francis and all his ways. Not to sound lame....but I just think he is super cool!

After we had adventured all through the hillside we decided we had better get back to Assisi. On our way out we met up with the couple that drove us and they asked if we would like to go to the very top of the mountain with them. We of course agreed and hopped in their car. We drove us this crazy windy road forever on a road that seemed like only a 4x4 truck could go up and then we reached the top! Beautiful!!!! You can see all the other mountains surrounding you and you are just as high up at they are. We were way above the tree and all there was was cows....with horns...very strange!

Our new Italian friends dropped us off back in Assisi for the afternoon. We ate some lunch; crackers, with jam we had from breakfast at the hostel, SCORE! Then we went on a whirl wind tour of Francis life. We visited where he was born, where he grew up, where he was baptized, the first church he preached in and finally San Fancisco, The huge bascillica built shortly after his death where he is entombed. So we had a huge Francis filled day! I also went to mass in German and Morgan miraculously found confession in English and of course we had some gelato in between all the adventures!

We finished off the day by picking up our stuff from the back shed of hostel where we stayed (apparently it was safe to leave them there??) then walking ALL the way to the train station. By this point as you may have guessed our feet where a little sore. So when we arrived I had more place I wanted to go so which was right behind the train station; Our Lady of the Angels (aka the Portiuncula). This was one of the places where the Franciscans really all began. It was Francis’s Fav places and it is also where he died. It was pretty cool they have the little chapel sitting right there still intact with a huge church built right around it...very interesting J! This completed my Franciscan pilgrimage and I made my way back to Morgan at the train station. Mission accomplished! Good-bye new favourite place on Earth: Assisi!!!

 We successfully made it back to Rome by train and then all the way back to .........you guessed it, Country Club Castel Fusano. You just can’t beat that  6 Euro a night price! We needed to get back to Rome because we had to get to the airport in Rome by 9am the next day....but that is another story all together!