If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
Our apartment is on a quiet lane near the top of the old part of Assisi, in a small neighborhood of mostly holiday rentals. The buildings are all stone, built into the hillside, with two stories on the street side and usually three stories on the garden side. A little noise from a nearby bar filters down our street, but mostly it is quiet. The only thing we are really missing is a garden or terrace--but we are outside most of the day, and the windows open wide.
We started out mid-morning with the Rick Steves Assisi Town Walk audio tour loaded on our phones and our earbuds or hearing aids plugged in. After a couple of false starts, we figured out how to navigate with the map provided, and got all three of our devices working. The tour took several hours with stops to explore and eat lunch.
By midafternoon, we were back at the apartment to rest during the hottest part of the day.
Dinner at La Cucina Dell'Hostaria was perfect. The meals were simple, prepared from local, seasonal foods, and nicely portioned so that we had appetite left to share a couple of desserts. As we were finishing, a man sat at the small table beside us and asked how the food was. He was traveling alone, camping and driving, revisiting Italy where he had been born and lived when he was a boy. His parents had relocated the family to Belgium, where he still lived and now was married with a three-year-old. He commented on how much Italy has changed in just the past few years, how "Americanized" it has become in so many ways including food and culture. We are not the only ones noticing a difference here.
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| A street of holiday rentals stretches out from our apartment. |
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| I had the pigeon, and it was excellent. We can't drink enough water. |
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| The Rocca Maggiore tops the hill behind our neighborhood. |
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| The first stop on our audio tour of Assisi was the old arena. The arena walls now surround private garden space just off the Piazza Matteoti. |
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| Assisi is built largely from a pinkish limestone that comes from Mount Subasio. |
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| Like most fortresses in Italy, Assisi is built atop a rocky hill, with 360-degree views of the valleys and plains below. |
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| Behind the Basilica di Santa Chiara, stone buildings overlook the valley. |
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| The piazza outside Santa Chiara offers benches and shade for enjoying the view beyond the town. |
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| At one time, brilliant frescoes covered the walls of churches and major public and private buildings throughout Umbria and Marche. Over the years, many were lost or damaged. It is wonderful to see the results of restoration and recovery efforts. |
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| The Basilica di Santa Chiara. |
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| One of the main portas into the city. Cars are allowed inside the city walls, and the congestion from them, motorcycles, and pedestrians reaches its peak midday. |
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| It was nice to stay in the city and roam the streets later in the day, when the crowds thinned. |
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| Most of the large piazzas contained refreshing fountains. |
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| The Tempio di Minerva is an ancient Roman building in the Piazza del Comune. The portico with six Corinthian columns has been preserved. |
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| Behind the portico is the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which has occupied the site since 1539 and was renovated in the Baroque style in the 1800s. |
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| In a walled city, space is precious. When people need more room, they build an arch over the street and extend above it. |
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| The green door leads to an open space with the ruins of a small church. |
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| The door is locked, but you can see between the slats of the wood. |
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| Resting in the shade. |
