When in Rome...: Assisi - One of the most famous Umbrian Cities.

It was quite an early morning. We were supposed to be at Piazza Francesco (the main square in San Gemini) at 8, and I had to shower, finish laundry, pack, and have time to run to Café Centrale before meeting people! I managed to squeeze the intensity in an hour and fifteen minutes. We “bounogearuno’ed” everyone and strolled down to the bus station, which was to tear down the mountain, taking us to the train station in Terni. We purchased tickets to Assisi, and were on the platform with 5 minutes to spare, the entire group of 15. I ended up sitting backwards, watching the terrain we had already passed, and enjoying the view of two sleeping girls across from me. Haha. J

The first thing we did when we got to Assisi was to see the church of St. Francis (I think that’s what it was called….), which had been built in the 1200’s and renovated several times. It was HUGE. It had a dome, and a golden statue on top. Inside contained another miniature chapel, housing a lock of St. Clair’s hair. We then caught a bus up to the old city, and really began the tourism business. I don’t really know how else to describe it with words rather than pictures. Basically it was climbing the hill, stopping at pretty much every important church on the way…. Which was …. Many. The names all blurred together, of course. The highlight of traversing upward was, however, the stop at a nice little restaurant where I enjoyed a couple glasses of white wine, homemade pasta with a creamy smoked salmon sauce, and fantastic company. J Technically though, if you want to talk about the literal high point of visiting Assisi, I would have to say that Rocca Maggiore, the castle, was the coolest. It topped seeing St. Francis’ sarcophagus. True to tradition, it rained around 3:30 pm… and the group of us were waiting out the short storm in the castle’s octagonal tower, watching the rain sometimes blow down the stairs and collect in puddles on the uneven ancient stone stairs. It can’t say that I was “upset” about being stuck in an ancient castle tower. Toward the end of the day, we headed back down the hill, and discovered that the bus we planned on taking did not come on Saturday. Needless to say, we had to make different arrangements.

Somehow we made it to Perugia, which landed us in an even more lost position, if that is possible. We had no idea where to find our hostel. About 4 miles mostly uphill, many twists and turns, and an hour and a half later, we stumbled into our hotel. And guess what?!?!?!? The receptionist spoke English, something we were not blessed with again the next morning when we were trying to check out. Dinner at Iris consisted of more pasta and wine, things I have had pretty much every day, and am not even close to being tired of. Gelato from downtown “iced” my evening, and it was time for bed.

I had been COMPLETELY chill the entire day, despite the many transportation and minor problems of being completely and utterly lost. My only moment of extreme panic happened when I was almost asleep and my foot itched…. And I remembered the warnings of bedbugs in hostels. I LEPT out of bed and turned on the lights, whipping back the sheets and using my 20/20 vision 6 inches away from the bed to thoroughly examine the bed. bed. My roommate consoled me, saying that that problem pretty much only really still existed in New York. Only after intense investigation was I able to sleep.