At Home With St. Francis

Assisi is probably one of the prettiest little towns on earth. It is sparkling pink with bright red geraniums dotting the windows as the town climbs the hill. And the town has sort of a mystical feel to it. I’m sure that’s largely due to the influence that St. Francis, and his companion St. Clare, had on the area. Still, as you gaze out onto the pretty hazy hills that are lined with cypress trees and other little towns in the distance, you can’t help but feel the hand of God.

Having said all that, however, Assisi is a little too spruced up for my taste. It is clean and bright and flowery and has clearly been bought up by wealthy Americans or Europeans who are looking for a small-town get-away. Though not nearly as commercial as Lourdes, every little shop sells all things St. Francis. I guess I prefer the sort of dark mysteriousness of someplace like Perugia where you aren’t sure what you’re going to find around the next corner. But Assisi is so pretty that I would come back again and again, if I can outrun the tour buses (something we were able to do for the most part today).

We visited the Basilica of St. Francis, which is enormous and extraordinarily beautiful. There is a church upstairs (superior) and downstairs (inferior), and both are lovely. Down below the “inferior” church is a crypt that holds the body of St. Francis of Assisi. Since St. Francis is one of the best known and best loved of Catholic saints, it was pretty awe-inspiring to visit his tomb.

We walked around some of the narrow streets (having to literally dive out of the way into a door well to get away from cars coming quickly down the street). Wandering around the neighborhoods has become my favorite thing to do while visiting Italian towns. It is fun to see the locals walking their dogs or their children, and you inevitably see the classic black-clad old woman on her way to church. She could be a Hollywood prop. One sort of fun thing about Assisi is that all over town you saw members of the Franciscan order of priests walking around, wearing their brown hooded robes tied around the waist with white-knotted rope. It was very nostalgic for me, because the church to which we belonged my entire childhood and young adulthood, and the school that I attended kindergarten through 12th grade was staffed by the order of Franciscan priests. It was like going back in time.

We had lunch, and then headed out of town to our next stop, which was the Perugia suburb of Deruta. As we were heading out of town, we spotted an Assisi police car that made us laugh. It was a Smart Car, which is the tiniest car you can ever imagine. I guess the crime rate in Assisi is such that you don’t need big Chevrolets to outrun the bad guys.

On the way to Deruta, we stopped at a little town just outside of Assisi that had a church that was literally built around the original Franciscan monastery built by St. Francis. The church also was the spot where St. Francis died.

Deruta is unremarkable except for the fact that it is the home of Deruta pottery, which I ADORE. We stopped at a ceramic shop right in town, and I bought a couple of pieces – a plate and a garlic dish. Bill was likely thinking about the full trunk and wondering where we were going to put it, but there’s always room.

One little note: shortly before we embarked on this journey, we visited Bill’s mom in the Chicago area. She gave me a beautiful mantilla, pointing out that perhaps I would be able to use it when visiting churches in Europe. While I have never needed it for my head, I have used it very often while visiting churches in Italy where you are not allowed in with bare arms. I drape it over my shoulders and pass muster. Thanks Mom-in-Law!

Tomorrow we will visit some more Umbrian towns.