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!)
