Assisi

I had never been to Assisi, so we decided to take a day trip and visit. Assisi is a walled in city, and you can see many parts of the wall from Roca Maggiore.  Within the walls Assisi is very hilly.

We climbed lots of stairs to get around.

Here is a panoramic shot from Rocca Maggiore. We didn't go inside or climb to the top of the tower.  The views were good enough from the hill.

This church is in the center of town.  The facade was originally a temple to Minerva. The inside is a stark contrast to the outside. Ross was particularly intrigued that there was no Christ or crucifix inside. That is pretty odd for a Roman Catholic church.

We didn't visit all the churches in town.  I decided I wanted to see St. Peter's church.  It was a very humble church and only one other person was there. Ross and I liked the kind of bee hive looking dome. The church also has some catacombs or something, but unfortunately they were closed when we were there.

This is one of the portas into the city.

This is a view of the Basilica of St. Francis from Rocca Maggiore. It is enormous.

I didn't take any photos inside the Basilica. Pictures aren't allowed--more on that later. The Basilica and its frescoes were damaged by a major earthquake in 1997.  You can see gaps where the frescoes just broke apart and fell to the ground. The Basilica was beautiful. We saw both levels of the church. We also saw the art collection and a special exhibit of watercolors. Below the church is St. Francis's tomb and an area showing some of his things.

Visiting the Basilica was free, which surprised me. We had to pay ,60 € for the toilets though. The men had an awesome view (huge window) from their toilets. The women had a tiny little slit in the wall.

The bus system in Assisi is confusing, even for Italians, but we managed to make it back to the train station. Pope Francis had visited the week before we did. I met someone who was there during the Pope's visit.  He said it was amazing--40,000 people crammed into the town and the air was electrified with excitement. I'm so glad I missed it.  I don't deal well with crowds.