Assisi and Perugia

We are now officially on our quest to see as many Tuscan/Umbrian Towns as we can before we have to leave. Probably have to do 2 per day. The kids will likely be a wreck after a couple days.

We did Assisi and Perugia today. Both are hilltop towns pretty close to each other, but Assisi has a favorite son who is a celebrity.

It seems as though every town here is a hilltop town. I'm sure it is a function of the age the towns grew up and the need for strong defenses. It make for some very scenic overlooks but some pretty scary driving. I was driving a street today that puts Corkscrew Hill in San Fran to shame and it was in the middle of a very crowded section of the city of Perugia. I'm certain that if there was any rain at all, the car would have slid/ping ponged all the way down -- it was that steep.

Assisi was very enjoyable. St Francis' story is a very compelling one and it was something to see his original, tiny church with the huge basilica built, quite literally, on top of it (Santa Maria degli Angeli). The basilica is huge (3rd biggest?) with some very impressive frescoes and paintings.

We drove up to the hilltop with in the walled section of town and saw the St Francis Basilica there. We saw St Francis tomb, lots of art, including some impressive frescoes by Giotto. The girls we sitting in the pews playing some sort of game so I forced them to get up and follow the St Francis story line via Giotto's successive frescoes. I don't think they enjoyed it, but maybe they'll remember it now.

They learned the definition of the nave, apse, transept, chapel, etc, just a few minutes after I learned it. I pull out my black berry a couple time an hour for some translation or definition or historical clarification. We also use it as a quasi-GPS. Dad would have been brutal if he had this capability at his fingertips.

We could have used a real GPS when trying to find a parking lot in Perugia. every road twists and turns, nothing is marked and the streets are so narrow and busy we couldn't pull over til we had driven around for 20 min. We finally found parking near the funicular railway that takes people up and down the very steep incline to the city center. That was a lot of fun to ride and the vistas at the top were incredible. The girls wanted to swim, so we just headed back to the funicular and headed back out of town.

It was about an hour to get back. The girls swam for a bit. Pizza for dinner and off to bed.

I had a call scheduled but after a bit of phone tag, he never called back. I got a lot of work done though. I'm headed to bed soon.



It might be worth noting that while everyone else in town is cashing in on St Francis, the 2 churches did not charge to get in. It seemed that almost every other church we've been to charges admission.