Friday May 14 - Assisi

In finishing my blog from Friday, I don’t think it could have rained any more while I’ve been here. Assisi was a downpour, but absolutely beautiful. But as I describe everything as quaint, looking up at Assisi, it was not quaint. The bus took us through this town with this pretty good sized church with a gold statue outside. And we pull over for a “check point” and I’m thinking that this is Basiilica San Francesco (St. Francis). But we keep driving and as I look up the hill, there is this enormous town of hugely grand buildings. And at one end of the town is this enormous almost castile looking building…

I was so wrong. The little gold statute building didn’t even compare to the real Basilica. We got dropped at one end of Assisi in the pouring rain and as we made our way into the city, me and some of the girls stopped for lunch. It took probably 2 hours (30 minutes plus of that was waiting for the lady to take our order…again, no sense of urgency). And then we walked through the rain and took pictures of the little town of Assisi (which I put on Facebook with some pictures from our school and Rome).

But when we got to the other end where Basilica of St. Francis was, I was blown away. This building is incredible. And there is so much history and ancient artifacts that I didn’t even know where to start. The frescoes on the wall start at the top with the Old Testament series, under it the New Testament series, and then at the bottom, story of St. Francis. The Cathedral was huge and immaculate. Nothing like I’d seen before. Sadly a lot of the frescoes were damaged by an earthquake that hit not too terribly long ago, maybe 20 or 30 years, and the paintings weren’t able to be restored. But still, what an amazing building to be standing in.

The bus ride home was spent reviewing for my test, and so was the night before. I sometimes forget, when in Cortona….you still have to study.