Didn’t sleep well our last night in Rome, but I still had to wake up early to be ready to leave for Assisi via a three hour motorbus ride. We were all pretty exhausted and in different states of being that morning so let’s just say I woke up in Assisi.
I couldn’t tell if I was still extremely tired (despite sleeping on the bus) or enchanted by the city of Assisi, but it was everything I expected Rome to feel like. Assisi was a dream-like state full of long lasting architectural masterpieces and a lot of love and care for the area.
Even after taking a rest stop break, we still managed to arrive in Assisi earlier than scheduled, which gave us more time to explore before going on our guided tour. It was around lunchtime when we’d arrived so we looked around for a place to eat. Our tour guide, Matteo suggested this self service food court called Foro Romano, which was pretty affordable. At this point of the trip, I was feeling a little sick in the stomach so I wanted to eat blander foods like potatoes and spinach. They also had sausage, which I couldn’t say no to because I needed the protein.
We walked around the shops and took pictures of the beautiful buildings and flowers. Casey was on a mission to buy a pin for her sister while we were in Assisi so we went to as many souvenir shops as we could until we found one that sold pins. We’d already walked a lot while in Assisi so we knew we wanted to rest while staying cool since the weather was so nice and sunny today. There were large groups of school children visiting Assisi and they were all holding these slushie drinks so we went out to look for where they were getting them from. There was a lovely restaurant that seemed to sell these slushies, which I later learned would be called granita. The restaurant was actually considered a bistro called Monna Lisa and the interior decor was so elegant.
We then had our guided tour where we visited the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and it was for lack of a better description… beautiful. The exterior was well made and has obviously lasted for a long time. The frescoes on the inside, although were missing a few pieces, were still standing strong and are able to tell the same stories that the artist wanted to tell.
I grew up following the Roman Catholic faith so being in these basilicas acted like a refresher course of all the religion classes and church masses I’d attended when I was in elementary and middle school. I don’t practice the religion much now, but it’s amazing how much I remember.
Following the guided tour was a last minute wine tasting, which I couldn’t tell if it was a planned schedule or a last minute selling ploy? Maybe both. I wasn’t really feeling any of the wines or cheese pairings, so I settled on waiting until they passed around the slices of bread sprinkled with their special olive oil. There were a few students who ended up buying some of the wines, cheeses, balsamic dips, and olive oils. Then we walked over to the selected restaurant for our dinner reservation.
I think collectively we were all still pretty exhausted, so we decided to sleep early in the hopes of waking up early in the morning to head out to our next destination, Florence~ If only I knew what it meant to sleep early….