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| Piazza del Comune, Minerva's Temple |
On my first afternoon in Assisi I was sitting in Piazza del Comune getting my bearings, when my son Franky announced that the bread there is stale and unsalted. Oh no! I had read in a guidebook about the dreaded pane sciocco and hoped to avoid it. The reasoning for the poor seasoning dates to the Middle Ages when there was a flap about salt taxes. In protest, the Umbrian bakers made bread without salt.
Otherwise my trip to Assisi was perfect.
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| Saint Francis |
Although travel writer Rick Steves says “Assisi is worth a day and a night," Franky spent two and a half weeks there, my son Peter and his fiancé Nila spent 10 days, and I spent a week. The three of them are students of hagiography and particularly interested in the life of Saint Francis. St. Francis has broad appeal to believers and nonbelievers. He renounced his family riches, and was known for his deep compassion, humility, and love of nature and animals.
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| Franciscan Friars |
There are several sites in Assisi where one can retrace St. Francis's footsteps. In a sort of Christianity Carousel, we visited them over and over. Not only were they the most interesting sites in Assisi, they were often the coolest. The heat wave was very much alive in land-locked Assisi, with daily highs of 97 and cloudless skies.
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| The Basilica of St. Francis |
The Basilica of St. Francis is a gorgeous piece of Gothic architecture commissioned by Pope Innocent in the 13th century four years after Francis died. Much of the artwork is by Giotto, considered Europe's first modern painter. The Tomb of St. Francis on the lower level of the basilica is a wholly serene spot.
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| Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli |
Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli (St. Mary of the Angels). This beautiful church houses the tiny Porziuncola Chapel, where Francis founded the Franciscan order.
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| Basilica di Santa Chiara |
Basilica di Santa Chiara (St. Clare) Francis’ friend Clare also renounced her family wealth and became the mother superior of an order of nuns called the Poor Clares.
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| Santuario San Damiano |
Santuario San Damiano
This served for many years as the convent for the Poor Clares and its garden is where Francis wrote the Canticle of the Creatures.
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| Peter and Nila Eremo delle Carceri |
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| Franky Eremo delle Carceri |
Eremo delle Carceri (Hermitage) Before I arrived, Peter and Nila and Franky had hiked the steep three-miles to the hermitage at Mount Subasio, but during my visit we took taxis. Eremo delle Carceri felt like a beautiful national park with spirituality in the air. There are shaded walkways and trails and vivid vistas of the valley.
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| Piazza di Santa Clara |
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| Umbrian Valley |
Just outside the Basilica de Santa Chiara is an elevated square with a grand view of the Umbrian valley with its neat farmland, olive groves, and cypress trees. Assisi is a beautifully maintained Medieval city.
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| Leaving the City Walls |
Hotel il Palazzo may have started as a palace, but it was missing a key regal touch, a coffee maker in the room. This was my penance. I had to wait until 7:30 for the breakfast room to open. Once when I woke up at 4:15 a.m. I found myself wandering the medieval streets in search of coffee to no avail, the espresso machines stood cold and closed. My hotel mercifully was air conditioned, a rare commodity in Assisi. Peter and Franky and Nila stayed in Monastero Santa Colette without air conditioning which was their penance.
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| Basilica of St. Francis |
Mangia! My travel mates are vegetarians so I followed suit. Oddly I had no craving for porcetta sandwiches, wild boar, pigeon, or rabbit. This meant a limited choice for our lunchtime torta—mostly mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and argh, arugula. One day I thought I was getting spinach in my torta but it was argh, arugula.
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| St. Francis and the wolf |
We had our best lunch at Chiosco Vamos in a shady grove preceded by a steep hill. When I asked for potato chips the owner made me French fries served with ketchup and mayo! This place is a gem, and hard to find on the internet.
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| Ristorante il Frantoio Juniper-infused, osmotized watermelon, almond cheese, gazpacho, etc |
Dinner offered more variety. My travelmates had been defaulting to quick dinners in the main piazza where an electric guitarist was nightly slaughtering “Halleluja.” We ate at several spots there including Ristorante Il Tempio di Minerva, Bar Trovellesi, and Keramos where Franky had "cannelloni,"served crunchy, fried, and delicious.
I tried to upgrade our restaurant outings but that meant waiting until 7:30 or 8 p.m. to eat dinner which was hard for the jet-lagged, almost as hard as waiting until 7:30 a.m. for coffee…Our best dinner was at Ristorante il Frantoio which was a gourmet delight in an elegant setting with a panoramic terrace. It was at La Lanterna that I admitted I didn't like the pizza in Assisi and think that Cheeseboard in Berekeley does a much better job. But the pasta, oh my, is always perfect. I asked why I can't duplicate it at home and they said "different soil, different grain, different water and different sun."
On the question of dessert there was no controversy, we always went to Gelateria Leccapaletta. OMG they serve the very concentrate of your flavor selection. Coconut gelato tasted like it had just been scooped out of the coconut; chocolate was the essense of chocolate in its purest form: artificial flavoring was one million miles away. We got to the point where we didn’t ask if we were going, just when we were going. Sometimes we went before dinner.
The minute I left the sainted city of Assisi, my luck turned and I fell into the proverbial Devil’s Hole (a site at Eremo). I had booked a first class train ticket expecting coffee service. There was none. When I arrived at Roma Termini after five hours without caffeine I stumbled into the station like a monster just woken from the dead. Praise god Italy is very accommodating to the caff-fiend.
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| Rome Marriott "Park" Hotel |
Then on the way to the airport United Airlines sent word that my 2:30 p.m. flight had been cancelled, followed quickly by “good news, your flight has been rebooked.” Rebooked that is for the next day, 18 hours after I arrived at the airport. United agents herded me and the 50 other “cancelled” passengers to a small area to wait two hours for an un-airconditioned bus to take us to Rome Marriott Park Hotel in the middle of nowhere. As we rushed the registration desk, the Marriott staff said they weren’t expecting us, so to sit back down until they found us rooms. I don't know why they call it a park hotel, the only plant I saw nearby was one belonging to Toyota.
Back in Washington as I was going through customs, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt reading “No crying on the yacht.” How far I had come from the world of asceticism.
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| Until next time |
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