This morning, we again walked across the Roman bridge into
the old town of Ascoli Piceno, which is just as lovely during daylight as it we
found it to be by lamplight this morning.
In fact, when we had our first look at the bridge, river, and city,
touched by both fog and morning sun before breakfast, we just had to stop to
take it all in.
The city has lovely cobblestoned streets, lined with old
palazzi, several medieval towers, and lots of churches. The church of San Francesco (Every city in
Italy seems to have at least one church named for the beloved saint!) has an
old cloister which is now the site of an open air market. The church faces the beautiful terrazzo-paved
Piazza del Popolo, which is ringed with graceful loggias. The nearby Duomo and its Baptistery also
front a large square that is home to an art museum and both civic and diocesan
offices. Though there’s quite a bit to
interest visitors, the city appears to be more about people going about their
everyday lives (often on bicycles) in a centuries-old setting.
Today’s destination was Tuscany, but to reach it, we had to
travel across the Apennine Mountains, which run length-wise through much of the
country. We climbed through passes that
still had significant amounts of snow, through a national park and small towns
in the middle of, or high above, nowhere.
It was a pretty dramatic ride, especially when we realized that we were
traveling along the Adriatic beaches yesterday.
Closer to sea-level, we arrived in the region of Umbria,
where we visited Assisi this afternoon.
Before entering the walled city, we visited two sites associated with
St. Francis and well removed from the tourist mecca that the city is. The hermitage where High on Mt. Subasio, which is now a
protected regional park, the sanctuary remains.
It offers places for prayer as well as a chance to see Francis’ stone
bed, the sites where he preached to the birds, and a sense of the solitude he
must have found there. Down the mountain
and below the walled city is the small church of San Damiano, where the young
Francis heard God’s call and embarked on a life of love, service of the poor,
and reform of the Church.
Francis and his band of brothers went to meditate and get away from it all is still away from it all.
Assisi seemed relatively quiet when we arrived to visit the
Basilica of St. Francis in mid-afternoon.
We walked from the center of the walled city to the Basilica and
practically had the streets to ourselves, though there were quite a few tour
groups at the Basilica. After viewing
the Giotto frescoes in depicting the life of St. Francis in the upper church,
we visited Francis’ tomb in the lower church, also elaborately frescoed.
Then, it was on to neighboring Tuscany, our home for the
coming week. We’re in a beautiful
agritourismo near Arezzo but, to say that it’s off the beaten track would be an
understatement. We were beginning to
think we should have a high-clearance vehicle to travel the last mile or so to
our digs, but once we’d arrived, we were delighted. We’ll see if that feeling holds after a week
of coming and going on our unbeaten track.
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