Aurora Spoleto

... today. That has to be my favorite saint. Very busy here even though end of season. No wireless interent. We have one more day and we start home. I think we are ready to get home. It has been beautiful here and I have learned so much, but all good things must come to an end. See you all next week I hope.

Day 1 &#8211; Thursday 3rd September &#8211; We arrived in Assisi this afternoon for a walking tour of the town and a one night stay. I must say that I wasn&#8217;t looking forward to it as I was kind of getting a bit over walking tours. I decided to go though as I wasn&#8217;t sure what else I could do with my time. <br> We spent some time walking around the markets for half an hour before our tour started and I was amazed ...

Wednesday, We are alone in an Italian villa. It was magical. We slept in and then had breakfast on the veranda.<br><br>I made a picnic lunch out of the things we bought yesterday and feeling very brave we drove to Pettino. It is a small mountain village about a half an hour away from M &amp; J's house. Reaching Pettino, we blinked and were out of town. Turning around and heading back down the hill to find a place ...

Today Mike takes us for provisions for our picnic we are planning for Tuesday. They leave for NY today and we will be on our own. Mike has us drive so we get the feeling of Italian roads and drivers. He takes to the local butcher, Hugo, an artist with meat. He makes beautifully aged prosciutto, 15 months, compared with the 2 months in the US ...

... which was just a free croissant from the restaurant next door. Then I relaxed in my room for a while until it was time to pack up and leave. And then I did another lap around the town.<br><br>I was very happy to finally get on the bus and be headed to Civita. It was actually a really nice bus ride. It was great to see the countryside a little closer, and there were some amazing views of Orvieto and Civita from a distance.<br><br>The bus actually dropped me off in Bagnoregio, the town ...

Well one month from today I will be returning from Europe (I get back on Sep 30th). It's hard to believe I&#8217;ve only been here for two weeks. What with all of the heat and getting sick, it feels like I&#8217;ve been here for ages.<br><br>Today I took a train in the morning to Orvieto, a hill town 2.5 hours south of Florence by train. That&#8217;s exactly what it sounds like &#8211; the city is on top of a hill. When I arrived, I had to take a funicular up to the top of the hill ...

It starts out smoothly with a pleasant ride to the airport we are on the plane and then they turn us back and say the plane is broken and off the road. We all make a mad dash for the ticket desk. Traveling light saved us as we could make all of our connections because we didn't check our bags. We made two unplanned stops Dallas and Heathrow but do end up Rome on the same day as we planned.<br><br>We arrive in amazingly good shape ...

the francescan monks must have been part mountain goat.this palce is unbelievably hilly.also it poured with rain and thundered and we got drenched.we slept in an 1800 year old nunnery in single beds of course<br>we went to the church of saint claira and saw her tomb

... as you can see from the photos, there has been a tremendous amount of effort to restore the city. It is a truly beautiful little town and feel luck to walk around this historical and spiritual place.<br><br>We also had a quick stop over in Oriveto to see it's famed cathedral. It's known for it's vivid colored mosaics. <br><br><br>

... one of the most beautiful Italian cities that we have been to. We arrived last night and wound up in a beautiful hotel that even normal people would stay at. The city is surrounded by a magnificent gorge and a medieval wall. We stayed in the Old City. We walked around for awhile trying to find something open to eat and finally met some locals who showed us the one open restaurant. The food was ...