Assisi

After getting up at the crack of dawn and enduring a three hour bus ride, I spent the day in the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Full of blooming and colorful flowers, picturesque buildings, and dozens of unique gift and treasure shops, Assisi was an absolute dream.

Unfortunately, last night, I packed my camera up in my suitcase and therefore did not have it with me…I’m still extremely sad about that. Fortunately, Apple has made iPhones with pretty okay cameras, so I was still able to capture some memories I will keep FOREVER (cheesy, but true). Enjoy these semi-crappy, unedited, iPhone pictures of this beautiful place:

 

As you can probably tell, we had an absolutely gorgeous day for walking around. The sky was so incredibly blue, and the clouds shifted and changed throughout the day in beautiful ways. And yes, that is a carousel in the center of the square right in front of the Basilica of St. Clare.

Once we arrived, we had about three hours of free time. Em, Beth, and I walked around in search of a lunch place, and landed in this beautiful little eatery with stones as table markers and fresh flowers everywhere. I ordered the fiocchetti di gorgonzola e crema di pera (yes, I looked up the menu online…), which loosely translates to “bite-sized purses of pasta bursting with Gorgonzola topped with spiced pears in fresh cream.”

Oh….my….goodness. It was SO GOOD.

 

Em, Beth, and I all swapped plates once (or twice!) and took bites of each other, which has been the way to do it. You get to try even more! Em got gnocchi in truffle oil (mamma mia, that was good), and Beth got some good Italian lasagna. We all agreed it was a good choice for lunch, paid our bill, and headed out.

We wandered up an down the streets of Assisi, occasionally stopping in stores and finding little things here and there that struck our eye. Em got this beautiful glass necklace with a white dandelion piece inside. Beth fell for the olive oil soap (I was tempted…), and we all fell in love with a store that sold the types of music boxes that you can crank. Some of my family knows the meaning behind those types of music boxes…you know who you are(;

We also stopped to get some DELICIOUS gelato (I ate it before getting a chance to take a picture), and Em and Beth both got a cannoli. Look how cute they are eating them on a little Assisi street!

After our three hours of strolling, we met with a tour guide and went on a guided walking tour of the Basilica of St. Clare and the Basilica of St. Francis (I learned today that Fran is a prettyyyy big deal in the Catholic Church). As with all of these Catholic churches, monuments, shrines, etc., the art and architecture was breathtaking. We also got to see the actual body of St. Clare, which I thought was going to be worse than it actually was. A handful of decades ago, they covered her body in a wax layer to preserve it better. A little creepy, but not as bad as I was expecting.

We also visited where St. Francis was buried, and we walked around the Basilica of St. Francis that was built for him after he died and acquired his sainthood. Unfortunately, with both of the buildings, pictures were strictly prohibited on the inside, but here are some pictures of the outside of the Basilica of St. Francis:

The sky gave us all a beautiful background for our pictures, as you can see. These places don’t even seem real, and the fact that they were built with such precision so long ago still continues to baffle me. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go into the upper church of St. Francis because of a big event happening tomorrow, but our tour guide really fought for us (she was upset on our behalf, and I really thought she was going to get us in).

After we finished up the walking tour, we had some wine, cheese, and balsamic vinegar tasting under the direction of a very charismatic Italian woman who was trying to sell us everything in the store. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t felt so dehydrated and in need of a very tall glass of ice water, but it was still fun. Gourmet balsamic vinegar is the cat’s meow, but the €19 sticker price on the extremely small bottles deterred me from buying any.

Then, we all headed to dinner where we had (more!) truffle oil pasta. They also served a salad and LOTS of chilled water, which my table sucked down as we patiently awaited our ride to the hotel (dinner was great, we were just very tired).

Our five minute bus ride to our hotel was short and sweet, and we all checked into this absolutely beautiful hotel that actually used to be a convent. It’s a bummer we’re only here one night, because it is lovely. Here’s a view of the center courtyard:

We’re waking up very early again tomorrow for a three hour bus ride to Florence! Not looking forward to that ride so early in the morning, but I’m very excited to see Florence. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog…until then!

Peace + love,

Carrie

 

P.S. Here are some more pictures from Assisi, including a panorama…if you’re interested.