Ciao! We started our morning a bit earlier than usual today, as we had to be out of the hostel by a certain time. We met in the lobby for breakfast, and soon departed via charter bus.
As much fun as I had in Rome, it was amazing to see the scenery change from city life, to mountains. When I think of Italy, Assisi is exactly what I picture. We were on the bus for around 3 hours before making it to our destination. We rode up a huge mountain, which was breathtaking. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this area.
At the top of the mountain, we left the bus and embarked through the streets on foot. Again, when I say I’m slightly obsessed with Assisi, I’m not kidding.
I felt as if I was dreaming. This is the kind of stuff I was waiting for, and it was absolutely worth the wait. We had a short meeting together around 12:45/1:00 to go over what the plan was for the day. Then, we were set free to roam the streets and enjoy the views until 3:30. A group os us split off and decided to just check out all of the amazing little shops they had to offer. Eventually, we found our way into a restaurant for lunch. Almost all of us ordered the gnocchi, which was served on a bed of arugula. The plates they were served on were (almost) my favorite part. Each one was different and so beautiful!
Once we finished with our lunch, we continued on to explore a little bit. We went into some small shops in the area with beautiful hand painted items. You could get plates, salad tossers, bowls, etc,.
The next thing on our agenda was a guided tour of Assisi and the Basilica of St. Francis. Learning about Assisi was my favorite part, since I was so obsessed with it. Unfortunately we weren’t able to enter the church, because the German Chancellor Angela Merkel was coming into town and they were setting up the church for her. (She’s also the reason why we had to get up very early the next morning to check out and avoid roads being shut down).
After our tour, we had dinner as a group. I was given bruschetta with olive oil and tomatoes. For the main entree, we all had truffle pasta (I forget if it was white or black). This pasta was my favorite dish by far. Everyone else had a creamier sauce and mine was mostly oil but still, so so amazing. I could eat that every single night. After the pasta, we were given roasted potatoes and a side salad. The potatoes were roasted with oil, salt and rosemary and were so amazing. They were almost as good as the pasta (almost).
Finally, we left for our hotel afterwards. We arrived at the hotel and fell in love. Here’s the view from our room.
We were only there for a night so we couldn’t get too comfortable. Since the weather was so beautiful and we had such an amazing view, we decided to keep our window open all night.
BAD IDEA.
Mosquitos in that area are apparently very bad, as we all woke up with bites all over us. It looks like I have chicken pox. They’re on my face, neck, ears and arms. I’m hoping they won’t last too long and will go away soon.
Next stop is Florence for a few days!