Later 21 August Assisi, Cortona and Arezzo

Assisi

Well, things went amiss because staff weren’t told we needed an early breakfast, so we hit the road looking for a fast food outlet. I bought a baguette-style roll with tomato and mozzarella and a few other tasty things. It turned out the best thing to order there was a large Americano with milk added. At least it was a good size coffee! I also bought a ball donut thing which turned out to be filled with custard. That was for the road, to make sure I had enough fuel if lunch was late.

We travelled to Assisi with much happier tummies and met Mickele, our young, very friendly guide for the walking tour. He was very knowledgeable about the life of St Francis and shared his faith in God openly; it's obvious that St Francis is deeply revered by the Italian people and they are particularly devoted to him in this area. It took the full three hours to go through the Basilica, where the artwork was explained to us in great detail: incredible picture stories of the life of Jesus and the life of St Francis. In those days, most people were illiterate, so the pictures were vital for spreading the faith.

The body of St Francis is interred in a deep crypt, very different and unadorned, compared to the bright colours of the art upstairs. It was a very sacred place. We walked to the little church where Francis attended as a child, and a later church he attended.

Lastly we went to the church of St Claire. Many of the artworks here are frescoes and because of the nature of the plaster-based colours, these have not withstood the test of time so well. Again they were picture stories and this different style of painting produced an amazing 3-D perspective. After 3 hours of walking, we were very happy to rejoin Max in the van and set off for Cordona for lunch.

In summary, the holy places in Assisi are filled with great peace; you can never capture this with a camera!

Cordona

Max dropped us at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the valley, shady out of the heat and quite windy at times. Lunch was delicious and reasonably priced; I had spaghettini with a vegetable sauce, E10. Then we were left to wander around the town, up and down the very hilly streets. Lots of shops to investigate, and lots more walking!

Arezzo

The purpose of this town was a booking to do a tour of the church of San Francesco with famous frescoes. We arrived and found great difficulty in communicating – the response to “in English, please” was “no – Italiano!” Because of the lack of understanding, after waiting in the designated stop for a guide, it took us a while to realise that this was a “walk around the church and have a look” tour and then go downstairs and watch a 3-D film, followed by a walk around the exhibition. Well, it was amusing in the end to find that we had purchased pricey tickets to an exhibition of very early 3-D photography; when we finally discovered the displays of these very early slides and cameras, after sitting through the slideshow with difficulty because 3-D glasses over distance glasses don’t work too well. So we were none the wiser about the church itself! However, it was one of the rare ones where photography was allowed.

We did walk around the cobblestone streets of the church and I took a picture of the Church of San Domenico for Dom to send to him on Wednesday for his 12th birthday.

Max picked us up, we stopped at a supermarket to get supplies for dinner and then the weary campers bundled back into the resort around 8.00pm. Having had the large breakfast/brunch/lunch, I was happy to tuck into my cheese and bickies and lovely fresh fruit for dinner.

A recommendation so far: Assisi is a must on any Tuscany visit, and having a private mini van with driver at your disposal is fantastic value for a group because it takes all the stress out of the driving.