After a long night, we all sleepily boarded our bus to Assissi! I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect as I knew little about the region, but I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of my classmates remarked that this is what they ‘expected’ Italy to look like, and I agree. The greenness, the cleanliness, was a refreshing change from Rome. Don’t get me wrong, the historical sites of Rome were amazing, but the city itself was a lot dirtier than I had always imagined with a fair amount of graffiti and trash. Assissi was more like the postcard version of Italy that I had imagined.
We had some free time before our guided walking tour, so we stopped for some lunch at a self-serve restaurant called Foro Romano. Needing a break from typical Italian fare, I picked up a plate of sausages and potatoes, along with a fruit cup. I was careless, however, in picking up my beverage and got sparkling instead of still. I still don’t understand why that is the preferred way to drink water in Italy!
After lunch, I stopped in a souvenir shop to buy my sister a pin, then Kayla, Kristina, and I explored and found a beautiful little square with a rose bush where a nice British couple took our picture. (They didn’t know Pittsburgh, but they had been to Boston).
Their was a large group of high school students also visiting that day and I spied them with a delicious looking icy treat. It was our first nice, sunny day and we were ready for some time to cool down. Especially because we knew we had a lengthy walking tour coming up and I was already having foot issues (a swollen ankle, a broken toe). So we followed the trail of high schoolers until we found Monna Lisa, a beautiful cafe that was the source of the icy treat called granita. I ordered the lemon flavor while Kayla and Kristina ordered mango. The man making them shaved the ice on the spot and expertly layers the flavored syrup between the piles of fresh ice. They were served in brightly colored plastic cups and were very refreshing.
We then headed back to our meeting point to begin our guided walking tour. The main attraction was Basilica of St. Francis , which was gorgeous. Unfortunately, due to the impending arrival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, we were unable to enter the upper part of the church. However, the view from outside the upper part of the church was still stunning.
We finished the walking tour with a special wine and cheese tasting at a local shop which I was all for. Our large group barely fit into the shop, but we could certainly hear the owner loud and clear. I’m sure she had good intentions, but on top of Matteo lending her his microphone, she also SHOUTED her sales pitch at us:
“DRINK THIS AND YOU WILL HAVE AMAZING SENSATION.”
To be fair to her, everything was pretty amazing. We tried two types of cheeses, a couple different balsamic sauces, and five different wines. The one and only white we got to try was a pino grigio. It is by far the best pino grigio I’ve ever had. It was smooth and delicious. We tried a variety of reds, but being a white girl myself (literally and with my wine tastes) I didn’t love any of them. We finished the tasting with a typical dessert cookie and dessert wine. Loved the cookie, pass on the dessert wine.
Finally, we headed to our group dinner where we enjoyed truffle pasta, and some delicious salad and rosemary fried. Those FRIES though. Exhausted, we headed to the hotel. This place was NICE. The nicest we stayed at all trip. I watched a bit of a comedy sketch show on RAI (sadly no subtitles), then switched to BBC. I got into bed thinking I’d just lay there a bi before starting this blog post.
WRONG. I passed out until the next morning, running late to breakfast before we moved on to Florence.