Month: June 2019

Of course, most of you have heard of St. Francis, and that his longer title was St. Francis of Assisi, so you can imagine how much of this city is dedicated to his story and his achievements. We spent most of today (our second night here), exploring, first the Basilica of St Francis, both upper and lower. Photography wasn’t allowed, and there was almost too much to take in, so I was actually glad to not be able to take any photos. Mallory could of course give you much more detail, but suffice it to say that the frescoes in this basilica, dating from the 12-1300’s are among the most revered in the world. The artist, Giotto, has been credited with creating some of the most innovative work ever seen up until then. We were duly impressed with all that we saw.

We then visited the “Bosco di San Francesco”, or St. Francis’s Forest, which involved an almost 5 mile hike, with… you guessed it, a lot of up and downs! Here are some highlights:

The forest has belonged to the Franciscans for hundreds of years, but only relatively recently has the Italian Trust taken it over, and put a ton of time and money into not only cleaning it up, but adding features that make it better than ever. One of which is a piece of land art called the Third Paradise, designed and built by a contemporary artist named Michelangelo Pistoletto. More photos!

At the lowest point in the hike, about halfway along all told, sits La Chiese di Santa Croce, part of the beautifully refurbished woodland park, and an old bridge & mill, the latter of which has been turned into a restaurant.

It turns out it was quite the busy day, as I still have another bit to report on. After climbing back up from the ‘bosco’ (woods), Mallory decided to head back to our room while I headed up to the fortrezza that overlooks Assisi. In this case, it’s called the Rocca Maggiore. I took my bike, but that was pretty much a joke, as the route from the basilica was narrow and full of stairs, and as you’ll see below, just a very narrow gravel path for a long ways…

Once inside, I was able to get this fun shot of the “Third Paradise” land art we’d visited just an hour or two earlier, from very high above it.

I’ll close with a couple more, and tomorrow I’ll report on the ride from here to Bevagna (our shortest yet!)

Tuesday’s ride to Assisi was our longest yet. 😊 34 miles and pretty flat, aside from the compulsory climb to the city at the end.

Assisi is a bigger town than most that we’ve visited, and very touristy. Lots of pilgrims from all over the world, and many people in religious garb as well. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Here are some photos from the ride here:

Here are a few more agriculture-related shots, the first is of some folks planting a field, the second is just a nice view of a recently planted field, and the third is an example of these interesting fields of espaliered apple trees we keep seeing…

Then, of course, the inevitable climb…

Once we’d gotten settled in our hotel room, we took in some of the sights…

Yesterday’s ride was yet another 25+ mile ride with about 1000 ft of elevation gain. It’s starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day around here, though not really, because each day’s ride is so uniquely great. (Spoiler alert: we’ve got longer rides ahead too!)

Anyway, Here’s a couple of shots I took as we were leaving Sansepolcro…

Fortunately, since it’s been so hot, we were glad to have a little overcast at the beginning of the ride. More pics from along the way…

Città di Castello is the home town of our Italian guide, Giovanni, so we sent him a selfie from the square to give him a smile.

Once again, the ride finished up with a fairly grueling climb (especially due to the heat), up to the hill town of Montone. Some photos of that last part of the ride…

Once again, we found our hotel (which had a pool!) showered, rested up, then explored and had a lovely dinner out. I’ll close this post with a few more pics from our evening’s explorations (since, as you may have guessed, we have much better internet here in Assisi tonight). More about the ride from Montone to Assisi tomorrow, since we’ve got two nights here!