Assisi you later

Originally, our plan was to visit Assisi, famed home of St Francis, after Perugia, on our way to the Adriatic coast. However, luckily I did my homework and found out that the 4th of October, the date we planned to visit, happens to be Francis's feast day. Dealing with the probable crowds of pilgrims and tourists would have been bad enough, but even worse, the famous Basilica was closed for Mass that day, removing the main point of our visit. Happily, Assisi is so close to Perugia that we simply moved it up to between Orvieto and Perugia, and Bob's your uncle.

As it happens, Assisi is well worth a visit even beyond seeing the basilica, although that is undoubtedly the jewel in the crown.

Assisi is another steep one

The Temple of Minerva, now a church

Outside the (Upper) Basilica

The lower plaza

Statue of St Francis by Norberto Proietti

The church is divided into an Upper and Lower Basilica, along with a crypt containing the remains of St Francis. It was kind of overwhelming to visit really. I had seen online recommendations to take an audio or actual guided tour, but we didn't see anywhere to do so. With the size of the place and the number of visitors, it was not really easy to take everything in. Photos weren't allowed either, so to be honest, I've pretty much forgotten what it looked like. Nice, I'm sure. I was disappointed that the frescoes depicting the life of St Francis included, like, one painting of him with some birds. The general stories you hear about Francis focus so heavily on him being friends with animals (maybe this is the primary school version I'm remembering) that I was expecting all kinds of cool pictures of him hanging with animal bros. Not so. However, they are by the likes of Cimabue and Giotto, so I'm sure they are still top notch even if I can't remember what they looked like. 

I managed to sneak one photo of the lower Basilica though, of bad quality but showing just how rich the decoration is:

Since we didn't have to stop every five seconds for me to take a hundred photos, it was actually a fairly quick visit to the Basilica. I decided next to take us to the Rocca Maggiore, a scenic lookout point with a castle. This seemed an easy saunter according to Google, but that didn't factor in the heat and how steep it was getting up to the 12th-century fortress. The views from up there were well worth the hike though. 

The basilica looks just wee from up here

Walking up - or maybe down, since Jules looks relatively cheerful

Not a selfie! With ornamental rusty fence

On the way down, we were pleased to have some delicious cheese and pasta on a terrace with a view:

Back on the main street, we wandered past a little shop where our attention was caught by unusual paintings depicting little monks frolicking in medieval landscapes. We were lured inside and discovered a whole array of charming monks having fun. They were the work of local artist Norberto Proetti. Name seem familiar? Yes, the very same who made the statue of St Francis outside the basilica. A self-taught artist from a working-class background, he is known for his naive style and his joyful depictions of busy little monks in local landscapes. It turned out the works in the shop were mostly limited edition screenprints and were... quite a bit more expensive than anticipated. But we had been given some money from Jules's grandmother for the express purpose of buying An Art in Italy, so we gave into temptation and brought this bad boy home:

My one regret leaving Assisi was that we hadn't seen any of the striking views I'd seen online of the basilica clinging to the edge of the cliff. Imagine my delight when we finally caught a glimpse heading on the road to Perugia:

Basilica and friary on the left, the Rocca Maggiore up on the hill at the right

It was surprisingly easy to spend a full day in Assisi, without even hitting up other sights such as the Basilica of Saint Clare. It really exceeded my expectations.