Day 12 - Saturday 23rd September - Perugia - Assisi

Up earlyish, had breakfast and headed off to catch the mini-metro to the train station. Bought our tickets, had a coffee and pastry at the bar and our taxi driver from the other day was there. He recognised us and asked how we were. He seemed pleased when we said we were going to Assisi. I asked him about getting a taxi to the station when we were leaving and he gave us a card with the phone number and said they came quickly. Got on the train and the trip only took about 30 minutes. We knew we had to catch a bus p to the town so we went into the tourist office and the man there was very helpful. He sold us tickets to get there and back and gave us a map suggesting we first walk around to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and we could catch the bus up to the town from there. We found our way down the underpass, crossed the street and found ourselves at the side of the huge church and square lined with mainly religious souvenirs. The square in front of the church was fenced off and you have to go through a check point and bag check manned by the military in khakis and carrying machine guns. We went through and found that this huge church had been built around the tiny church that St Francis had built or started and this tiny church was smack bang in the middle. We had a quick look inside  rather than queue to walk through. And wandered through and then out. We passed the few military again and then waited for the bus to take us up the hill. The bus wound its way up and up and we could see the Basilica up on the side of the hill in all its glory looking very white against the green hills. It is enormous!  We got off the bus and discovered that we then had to walk a ways uphill to get to it. Again we had to go through Checkpoint Charlie then walk up some more steepness before we got to it. The inside of the Papal Basilica of St Francis of Assisi is quite impressive which makes you think that poor St Francis would be turning in his grave to think of the money that was spent to build it! Like all churches - what a waste of money!  I think we were too tired from our trudge uphill and forgot to look for the devil in the clouds of one of Giotto's paintings as instructed by our waiter. I found real candles and they were red so I lit one for our lovely Brenda, guessing that this would really cheese her off and she'd tick me off for wasting money on a candle which was a nonsense. I even took the one at the top of the stand off and put Brenda's there. When we cane out of the Basilica we then had to start the slow and steady walk uphill into the town. John was impressed to see so many priests, nuns in all shapes and colored garb and monks but we weren't impressed at how well fed they all looked. We stopped at a little bar for a panino each for lunch which John washed down with a cold beer and I had water because they had no chinotto!!!   After lunch we continued our trudge and eventually got to a flat bit - a piazza. We had gelati and I looked in a few shops and we went into yet another church for a few minutes then continued up to Piazza Mazzoti where we waited for the bus to take us back to the station. We had a while to wait for the train so we went in search of a cafe for a coffee or spritz but none to be found so back to the station bar where we had very nice coffee and I bought a bag of Baci d'Assisi, delicious almond and orange biscuits,  to have with it. Train from Rome to Florence got us back to Perugia then we caught the mini-metro back up the hill, stopped for a hot chocolate on the way home & collapsed on the sofa. After giving my poor feet a rest we headed out to dinner and went to a restaurant called Ferrari which had been packed every other night. Found a table this time and John  had gnocchi with cingiale (more of that wild boar) and I had risotto with porcini mushrooms and tartuffo nero, black truffle. Both delicious but they didn't bring any bread! For dessert I had Tiramisu and John had Crema Catalana (like creme brulee). Headed home for a well deserved rest.