Assisi

I leave for Assisi tomorrow morning (Monday) at 0900.  I doubt that there will be WiFi in the village and I am not taking the laptop.  I get back on Friday, leave for home on Sunday.  This could very well be my last blog post.  For those of you who have followed along and enjoyed some of the posts: God bless you!

Some pictures from Assisi, but without comment for now... just so that I have a place to store the memories of such a memorable visit.

It's bubble-gum.  Everyone wants to leave behind some evidence that they had been there at the top of the mountain.

Yes, that's me and the haricut Franco gave me in Rome the week before...

The Bishop of Assisi's reception room, where Francis stripped off his clothes and walked away from his father and his fabric business

The Basilica in Assisi, where Francis is now entombed in the crypt below.  There are three levels to this church.

Taken from the Church in the above photo, same courtyard with the curved arches, but with a landscape view from this side

See the fortress in the background?  That's the top of another mountain.  Gives you an idea of the climb we were doing on foot.

A break in the foot-climb up the mountain to St. Francis' Hermitage.  Friends: Frs James, Patrick and Rob (taking the pic)

Gated entrance to the Hermitage... maybe I don't want out?

You can't see it because of Fr Bill, but we are looking at an old warrior's helmet that has been turned upsided down and made into a flower pot.

St Francis was here... so was I, about 800 years later.  He made this hermitage sacred by his prayers.

The famous cross of St. Damiano through which Christ told Francis in 1185 AD to 'build my Church which has fallen into disrepair'.

Close up

The ancient 'hospital' at the foot of Assisi where the first Franciscans stopped with a dying Francis.

Guess most of you can't read this (Italian).  Francis got to the bottom of this steep hill from below Assisi on his way to die in Porziuncula, and asked them to stop and lift him up so that he could have a last look at the town of Assisi, and bless it.  The blessing is included on this plaque.

I made the long walk from Assisi in to the valley where Francis is buried in Poziuncula, then we climbed back up as well.
This is the view that Francis would have had, looking back up.  I stayed in a place of Franciscan hospitality off to the right, and the darker, blue mountain on the right is where we climbed up to the hermitage.

The little chapel call the Porziuncola chapel is still perfectly intact within this larger Church.  St Mary of the Angels is beautiful in its own right, but famously it holds the Porziuncola Chapel where Francis worked and prayed and gathered the early Franciscan friars.

St. Mary of the Angels in Porziuncula

The family of doves that were present at his death have never left in 800 years.  They nest in that basket.  

Same roses growing year after year for 800 years, the unique thing is that they don't have thorns.  They did... until Francis, in trying to quell his passions, threw himself on them.  Now they grow without thorns... and come up every year.

I have lots of pics of the Assisi country side... because it is so beautiful and breathtaking.

In Speleto, an neighbouring community which would like to claim Francis as their own.

Roman aqueduct from the time of Christ, build by Roman ingenuity just outside Speleto.  There is a escape path on the other side of this wall.  The water runs in a trough on top...  of course I had to take the escape path to the other side and climb up that tower too.

Same Roman aqueduct, used to keep the castle supplied while under siege, and on the backside an escape route. See the little portico / half-moon opening in the middle upper section?  There a nice pic coming up of 4 priests posing there...

That's Fr James and I discussing the relative merits of a photo, while Frs Patrick and Ed look on.

Away we go... only two brave souls: Fr James and myself going along the escape route.  

Halfway along the aqueduct and viaduct we stopped at the aforementioned portico for a picture: myself, Ed, Patrick, James, and Paul

Gawking around inside the Church of St. Mary of the Angels with my head on a swivel with my jaw hanging open - as usual, that's how I spent most of my time in both Rome and Assisi.