Assisi

Last Saturday, a few days after St. Francis' feast day, George, Giorgio, myself, the Dukes and the Zepedas woke up incredibly early to catch an train from Roma to Assisi. It was wonderful the wives to be able to spend some quality time with our husbands (and for little George to have a whole day with Dad) and it was great for the guys to have a break from work just to be able to relax with family and friends.

Georgie had a ball on the train. He went back and forth between George and I reading books, cuddling,  flirting with other passengers and observing the world flying by. For about haft of the trip to Assisi, we sat next to two priests from India. They loved interacting with Georgie and he loved the attention. By the end of the trip, he had made two more friends.

We arrived in Assisi around 10 am and took the city bus from the train station to the top of the hill that Assisi is on. We first stopped at San Rufino. 

We also ended up being introduced to am American seminarian who had just been ordained deacon (we were actually at his ordination as he is in the same class as Brandon) and who was serving this semester as the ND architecture seminarian.

That is the baptismal font where St. Francis and St. Clare were baptized. 

After visiting San Rufino, we headed down the hill towards Santa Chiara. 

This is the church were St. Clare is buried.

Outside of the church is a stunning view of Assisi and the surrounding area.

We stopped for a nice lunch and then set off to explore Assisi some more. We first went to Santa Maria Sophra Minerva. This church used to be an old pagan temple that was then built upon by Christians and made into a church.

I was particularly struck by this painting in the church. You do not see too many depictions of the death of St. Joseph. I am always drawn to the Holy Family and particularly the depictions of those intimate moments between the members of the Holy Family. I really loved looking at this painting.

There was an organist practicing in the church while we visited. Little George loved the music.

After our visit to Santa Maria Sophra Minerva, we kept wandering down the hill and saw a sign for San Stephano. Since we were with a Stephen and our godson is a Stephan, we had to stop at the church.

The bell tower in the image is the bell tower of San Stephano. Legend has it that when St. Francis died the bell of this tower rang.

Then we headed towards Basilica San Francesco. The reason that we came!! We had to go up and down a few hills....

But it was worth it to visit the Basilica! We were able to visit the lower church and the crypt where St. Francis is buried. The upper church was closed when we were there and there was a conference going on in the piazza. We were not sure what it was at the time although we speculated that it might have to do with the Feast of St. Francis that was 4 days prior to our visit. After we returned to Rome, I looked the conference up online and found out that it was an annual inter-faith conference in which the Pope was one of the main speakers. He had come to Assisi and spoken at the conference the day before we came to Assisi!

You may have wondered how little George has been traveling around Italy. Well the answer is he travels like a king!

After visiting the Basilica, we split up. The husbands went off to do a watercolor for a class assignment.

What George choose to watercolor was a gate into Assisi. 

The wives and little George went shopping! I did not find as many items as I had hoped for. I wanted to get quite a few family Christmas presents there but I just did not see what I was looking for. But I did find a few great items, the best being this holy water font! (The picture does not do it justice.)

George had actually joined me about an hour before we were to leave Assisi and stopped in a few shops with me. The last one we went into was a great find. They had the most beautiful ceramics there and we both fell in love with this holy water font.

We loved our visit to Assisi. It was nice to be in a smaller town and one filled with so much history and beauty. Maybe we will have a chance to go back some day.