Please, let me Assisist you, Signore Francesco

Assisi kids, is beautiful. I think this trip may have been one of the best trips we've gone on in Tuscany. I don't know if it was because of the mystical mood of visiting St. Francis, or the mercurial weather, or the general giddiness of us girls, but it was a near perfect day.

We hopped on the train to Assisi (train, if you haven't noticed, is our main form of transportation around Italia); it was a long trip, 2 and 1/2 hours. We arrived at the train station and noticed a definite difference in temp. I am not sure why Florence is generally warmer than the other tuscan towns we visit, but it is. Pollution? Anyway, we froze until the little bus came to take us to the main area of town. This time we did not get lost! Yay!!

Directly upon arrival we headed towards the Basilica of San Francesco. Let me tell you straight up that this was the biggest church I have ever seen. We later found out this is because it was enlarged later in time, but it was quite impressive on first glance. But before we even went inside the basilica, there was an exhibit of pictures from Mother Teresa's mission in India, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth. These pictures set the mood...and tore me up. We headed into the Basilica which actually was pretty normal looking, in fact it was a little unimpressive. It is super old so most of the frescos had been rubbed off. Then we went down to the crypt. This place was magical. They had (semi) recently allowed access to St. Francis's remains, and the sat in the middle of this brick column. All around the column were lanterns, and people had left pictures of (I assume) deceased love ones, mainly children. Everyone became very quiet and contemplative. It was like how I imagine churches were in the medieval times; in addition to the rather pious nature of the crowd and obvious reverence, there were quite a few people with maladies with their families praying for healing. The whole thing left quite the impression.

Afterwards we traipsed over to the "newer" part of the basilica. Another cool thing about San Francesco (well not about him but the site)? There are still SO MANY monks. And not just old dudes, but young guys. As a non-Catholic, I'm not sure why I thought that was awesome, but I did. Anyway, the new part of the church was teeming, teeming, with elderly people on tours. I am not usually afraid of crowds, if anything I get annoyed, but this was terrifying. We girls literally hung on to each other for fear we would be washed away in a sea of three and six legged centurions (canes and walkers for those of you that need a little more coaching). Needless to say we stared from the back and then exited quickly and quietly. No need to disturb that ant hill.

The weather had been kinda shaky earlier in the morning, but the transition from clouds to light made for some really cool pics. Here is an example:

We wandered the adorable town, saw a few more churches. Two of note: the Temple of Minerva and San Rufino Cathedral. The Temple of Minerva is now a (rather gaudy) small Catholic church, but it was a pagan temple. Assisi was founded around 1 AD, but wasn't Christianized until 3 AD. The Temple still looks pretty darn Roman, with giant marble columns. The San Rufino Cathedral is (to my over-saturated eyes) pretty par-for-the-course as far as Cathedrals go visually. What makes it significant is that it was the place where Saint Francis was baptized. I supposed I should give a little run down on St. Francis, as he is the key element that takes Assisi from just another darling Tuscan town to a place for pilgrimage.

Francis of Assisi was born in the early 1180s. His is the classic tale of a pivotal religious figure (though sort-of atypical of a Catholic saint, i.e. he wasn't martyred). He was born to an affluent family, the son of a prosperous cloth merchant. He lived as a typical well-to-do young man, and fought as a soldier. It was actually while he was off fighting that he had his first vision from God, directing him to go back home to Assisi. He began to lose his taste for worldly life, and made a pilgrimage to Rome where he begged with the beggars there (I'm not sure why). It was then that he decided to renounce his trappings of wealth and live simple life with very few possessions. He began preaching around Europe and eventually Egypt and the Middle East, amassing many followers. He was almost always cheerful, able to charm even the Muslim kings (to this day even in the most stringent political regimes, the Franciscan brotherhood is allowed in many Muslim nations). The Pope endorsed his brotherhood, and the Franciscan Order was created (as well as the Order of Poor Ladies, or the Order of St. Claire - the first of the ladies). Towards the end of his life he received the wounds of stigmata, and even though he went through many types of treatment (I guess because he did not realize what they were?) they never healed. He died not long after that, legend has it while singing Psalm 141. He was made a saint two years after he died, in 1228. He is the patron saint of animals and the environment, and one of two patron saints of Italy.

Anywho, after all that, we headed up a big hill (yes, of course this has not changed) towards La Rocca Maggiore. This is the name of the big fort at the top of the hill overlooking the town, which has served as the main defense, refuge, and point of contention for the many different ruling parties which have presided over Assisi. I think this was my favorite thing we saw. Does anyone remember the big tunnel playground things from back in the day? Like bigger versions of the ones in McDonalds and such? Well, this castle/fort/whatever was kind-of like an adult version of one of those. It had multiple towers, open courtyards, and one really, really fun "secret" tunnel. Well, fun for me - I practiced my speed walking. Unfortunately, for those more blessed in the height department (Jennie) it was a little hazardous. Poor girl suffered a serious blow to the head and almost broke her sunglasses. That put a bit of a damper on the playing, but all was forgotten when we climbed the largest tower, the polytagonal tower, and were rewarded with beautiful 360 degree views of the area. It made me wish I still had my elph (anyone remember those?) which had three different settings (regular, wide, and wider).

The only down point of our day was lunch, which took place in a seemly quirky and cute cafe...but the pizza probably came from a box and the wait staff imported from Romania or some other Eastern European nation. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just would prefer my Italian food from someone more...Italian. And less crabby pants.

All in all, the day was excellent and I think Assisi may win for my favorite town in Italy I've seen so far. I highly recommend it.

THE Cinque Terre

Hello there lads and lasses - I mean, ciao uomini e donne. Come stai? I hope you all are well!

Today we will be discussing our trip to Cinque Terre! For those of you that are not in the know, Cinque Terre is a group of five villages located on the "Italian Riviera", or in the north western part of the country (please refer to the map below).

They were reputed to be both beautiful and isolated - which means I desperately wanted to go!

To reach the towns, it is necessary to take a two-and-a-half hour train to La Spezia, and then take the little local train to the first town, Riomaggiore. In order to do the whole thing (even though we didn't actually end up doing it all) we got up really early, like 5:30 am early. Ugh. But we did it and made it to the train by 7-ish. The train ride was fairly uneventful except I got sat on by a rather large high school student in bright green pants. Luckily the loud (and obnoxious - I apologize to EVERYONE for my adolescence) kids were only on the train for a half-hour or so. I tried to sleep through all of it.

We arrived in La Spezia without any problems (except for one of my legs being flatter than the other). Then the wait began. Our train was supposed to come an hour after our arrival in La Spezia...but then an hour became an hour-and-a-half, then two hours, then two-and-a-half hours, etc. We finally ended up hoping on a different train than our original choice, but it all worked out fine and we got to Riomaggiore only an hour or so behind schedule.

A train runs between each town, but the girls and I were set on walking it. Now, I bought "50 Hikes In and Around Tuscany" before coming to Italy and the folks who wrote that book classified the hike as "moderate". (A word of warning about this book - it has been almost completely unhelpful. Almost all of the starting locations can only be accessed by a car, which means I can't get to any of them.) Indeed, the first lap between Riomaggiore and Manarolo was exceedingly easy, to the point I was concerned about the phyiscal state of these so called "hiking experts" that wrote the above book. And it was crowded with old people. And it was utterly beautiful.

We walked through the Via dell'Amore, where I took a few romantical pictures of the girls. We admired the locks of love, literal padlocks that couples hook to the nets guarding against rockslides (safe??!!) to symbolize that their love will last forever. It's a thing they do here -- there are a whole bunch in front of the Uffizi in Firenze. After the stroll we arrived at the train station for the second town, Manarolo. (Looking back, we never actually went through the town...oopsie!) We hopped on the train there because the trail was closed between the second and third town due to something...possibly a rock slide? So we got off the train at Corniglia, and that is where things started to get interesting.

In order to get up to the town we had to climb A MILLION BAJILLION stairs. SO MANY. When we finally got to the top we were congratulated by this sign:

We thought that this sign signaled the decline in the difficulty of our trip...it did not. It only marked the beginning. After the stairs we wandered through the quaint, tiny town of Corniglia (according to Jenn's guidebook, the least impressive of the five...snooty snoot snoot). We climbed the winding streets of the town, noting the ivy-covered restaurants and colorful buildings, the terraced vineyards winding up and down the hillsides. When we reached the town, located on a summit, we looked outward and forward to our unknown destination. "Is that the town all the way out there," someone said, pointing to a tiny speck of pink in a mini-mountain. "No, couldn't be, that is way too far away," someone else replied, but this someone was wrong. Very, very wrong.

The book said the hike was set to last an hour-and-a-half. Jenn, the speed walker that she is, thought that they probably had padded the time. Nope, it took exactly an hour-and-a-half because even though we went at a good clip, the first half was STRAIGHT UP, and the second half STRAIGHT DOWN. Over unsteady boulders and slippery stones, logs, and mud holes no less. Again, I questioned the "moderate" rating in my hiking book, but for a completely different reason. I no longer pictured the writers as asthmatic, wrinkly elders wrapped in synthetic fabrics and zinc oxide; but instead evil, evil sadists with walking staffs and pitchforks. That is probably overstating the point but still...it was more challenging than a mere "moderate" would lead me to believe.

By the time we arrived in Vernazza, we were pooped. Which was perfect really, because Vernazza was the ideal place to unwind. We basically fell down the street leading into the town, and landed at the steps of a darling shopping area. We looked in a few stores, seriously contemplated buying a few items, and took in the glorious day. By the time we made our way down to the Marina, we were hongry. We grabbed pizza, and jeebus, I don't know if it is because I hadn't eaten since 6 am that morning, but it was delicious. I picked a pesto pizza, which has officially converted me to the cult of pesto (I was on the fence before). And after that I had the unicorn of ice creams - cinnamon gelatto, which previously I'd heard rumor of but never actually seen. It was worth the wait.

We took our food down to the inlet area, and laid out on the rocks. The wind dried our sweat and the sun warmed our tight muscles and this is what we had to look at!

Not bad.

I'm sorry to say kids that we never made it to the fifth town. We really did contemplate hiking over to Monterosso...but for some crazy reason, laying in the sun seemed more appealing. Jenn's guidebook told us the hike over would be even steeper than the one we had just climbed, and also assured us we had seen the best town anyway. We didn't need to hear anything more than that.

Until next time kiddos -- which will be Assisi! Are you excited?!? xxx