On the Road to Assisi

View of Assisi from the bottom of the mountain

The courtyard inside San Damiano

View from the top of the mountain

Panna Cotta

First day in Italy! A little background before I tell you about our adventures. In Core, we read The Road To Assisi about Francis of Assisi's conversion and life. Saint Francis lived in and traveled all over Assisi and Italy, and now I am here in Assisi walking the streets he walked on, praying in the churches he prayed in, and seeing the same landscapes he saw. Random fun fact: there are apparently a huge number of Franciscans who settled California, and they named their cities after cities in Assisi (for instance, here we waked on Los Angeles and Sacramento street, and San Francisco is Italian for Saint Francis)! Our first stop here was to the basilica Santa Maria di Algeli constructed in honor of Francis. Beautiful frescos covered the walls and ceilings, and statues of St. Francis' life were scattered around both inside and in the gardens. He's known for his preaching to the birds and flowers, and there was actually a live dove on the statue of Francis today. Maybe there's something to that. After the basilica, we went to San Damiano church. This is the church where Francis saw Jesus speak to him from the cross, and it's also the convent where the female Franciscans lived. We walked around the cloisters for about half an hour, and then at 5, we participated in the evening vespers. Monks and priests led the service with prayers, songs, and scriptures--all in Italian, of course. I didn't understand a word of it, but it was still beautiful. And speaking of beautiful, the town of Assisi is located on the side of a mountain, so by the time we hiked up to San Damiano, we were on top of the world as far as I’m concerned. Our view was incredible from there; the countryside is so green, and the land is scattered with olive trees and vineyards in between the few houses. The clay roofs on all the houses are a great burnt umber color (turns out that the color umber is the color of the dirt in the Umbria region, which is where we are)! The next beautiful thing we did was stop at a gelateria. A hallelujah chorus sang when I bit into that caffe gelato. Why is gelato so much better than ice cream? I don't know, but study abroad gave us 80 euros for food this week, and I have a feeling that it may all go to gelato (possibly some pizza and pasta as well). They're paying for some of our meals this week too. For lunch, we went to a restaurant and had a 4 course meal of lasagna, grilled chicken breasts, salad, and raspberry panna cotta. The panna cotta was our dessert, and it's sort of like a crème brûlée but without the brûlée part. Delicious. Dinner at our hotel tonight was possibly even better, however. We are staying in a convent with nuns, and they're the ones who prepared and served us dinner tonight. Another multiple course meal presented itself, but this time we had shell pasta, a pork roast, salad, roasted potatoes, and fruit. My goodness, it was delicious. Now, I'm very full, very happy, and very sleepy, so it's time for bed. Another fun filled day to prepare for in the morning!

Assisi: Day 2
This morning we went on a three hour tour, not to Gilligan's Island, but around Assisi. Our tour guide Daniella was awesome because she had the best combination of valuable information mixed in with a great sense of humor. First, she took us to Santa Chiara, which is named after the first woman follower of St. Francis. The crucifix that spoke to St. Francis when he was in San Damiano now hangs in this church, but we got kicked out because we didn’t know to cross ourselves before we passes by the communtion table. Apparently, in the Catholic church, that’s a big thing, so the nun ushered us out. Opps, bad tourist move. The tour was not to be stopped however; we still had more places to go to. We left and went to San Francesco church after. It’s a totally cool building that has been decorated by painters like Giotto and Chimabue. These two talented artists painted or oversaw hundreds of frescos all over the church, and some of the pieces we studied in Art History were actually here. This basilica is dedicated to Francis because his tomb is downstairs along with the tombs of his closest followers. I actually got to stand next to the body of Saint Francis! I thought it was really cool. After Daniella took us a few places more, the tour was over. Goodbyes were said, and then it was lunchtime. Cheap pizza greeted us right around the corner, and we were eager to say hello. My pizza had roasted peppers and olives on it and cost as much as a gelato. Winning! However, I still broke even because I got gelato after lunch anyways. Oops. Hey, when in Assisi, right? The coolest thing we got to do today was probably climb a mountain. Yes, that’s right. We heard about some caves up in the mountains, and we decided that we should go check them out. The view was absolutely spectacular from where we were—I could probably see Abilene from up there. I hiked even further up the mountain with a friend, but it was all off trail. On hands and knees, we climbed up that mountain, and it actually took a decent amount of both strategy and strength to get up there. Very worthwhile. After coming down the mountain, we felt like we deserved another helping of gelato. I really do think we burned over a thousand calories on that hike. Back in town, we did a little shopping for gifts for people while we waited for dinnertime. Yet again, the nuns wowed us with another wonderful meal. This time we had rice, meat and veggie kebabs, potatoes, salad, and cake. Those nuns really know how work it. Post dinner was our weekly 9@9 service, and this week was my week to lead. Our focus was on peace—both within us and in the world. I thought it went really well with the teachings of St. Francis whose hometown we were in. After the devo, we all went out to get gelato (Okay, I get that makes three times in one day. Don’t judge me.) with Janine and Ron. First part of the great night was my great gelato--the flavor: fiorre di latte. This translates roughly to "the best of the cream," and it's basically lots of creamy milk and sugar. And what could be wrong with that, right? The next best part of the night was sharing all our hilarious travel stories with Janine and Ron. I laughed harder than I had in weeks that night! I really love our professors, and it's great to get to know them better in Assisi over a cone of gelato and stories of far away places. This is only the first of 5 Italian cities I'll be visiting over the next two weeks, but it may already be my favorite. Then again, it's probable that I say every city is my favorite at the end of each post, but I'll take that as a good sign.