Hotel San Francesco Assisi

... are teeming with families, young people and older folks just walking enjoying the cool weather, hot coffee and all sorts of chocolate products. I even caught a wedding happening on Sunday. We have another two days here and will return to Rome on Wednesday afternoon….just in time for dinner and a full day of touring before heading back hone on Friday morning.

Best to all back home,

Jorge

... our south-facing window on the fourth floor, we are just meters from the top of the dome of Chiesa Nuova! From our west-facing window, we have the perfect view of Rocca Maggiore, all lit up at night!).

After dropping off our bags, we walked through our new neighborhood – the very heart of Assisi, just off the Piazza del Comune. We found a very cute little ristorante for dinner, and had another brilliant meal (have we had bad food in Italy? Frankly, no.). I ...

Back to the land of pay toilets. Don.t know why that bothers me so much but it does. It just doesn.t seem right. Anyway, we are now in Assisi. We got off the boat and it was raining, and then we had to take a detour to Assisi. the road was very narrow and hilly, It was a little tense for awhile. Saw St Francis ...

... absenthe.

Next we decided to explore the surrounding village before entering the crowds above. Perugia is a beautiful midieval village and very well preserved. Incorporated into this ancient setting are some very modern things like an underground moving walkway, taking you through the mazez below the pallazo. On this day, there were special booths set up for children and chocolate vendors.

Perugia, Umbria, Italy davefremland

... pizzeria where I had delicious lasagna. After lunch we browsed through the many stands. Sample after sample led to some major purchases. It was hard to pass up the various chocolate products when the smell just filled the air. There was everything from chocolate beer to chocolate “pills” to chocolate pasta!!

Heaven.

I’ll update you soon,

Siara

... b/c instead of marrying rich like her family wanted she ran away and saught refuge with St. Francis where she did good works and later led a group of women called "The Poor Clare's". In front of St. Clare's church there was a woman dressed up like an angel taking euros to write down people's prayers. Haha. All in all though, the town was probably the least gimicky I've seen so far. It's like a bigger, more historically charged version of Montepulciano. Fun day!

... quite a lot to see in that area so we did quite a bit of sight-seeing from there. One day we went to Ancient Corinth and climbed the 4km up to see the hill top ruins only to discover it was closed for the day (funeral of arch-bishop - big state funeral - everything closed!). It was a lovely day though. The walk was fun and it was worth it for the view from the top. We went to Nafpilo for lunch one day which is a very pretty town. Thought about climbing the 1000 steps to the hill ...