Broam K's Italian Saga: Day VI

Hotel Universo

I woke up via my cell phone alarm at 5:50am.

The housekeeping service in Venice threw away my loofa because I left it in the shower (awesome), and because the Hotel Universo does not stock f***ing washcloths (why would they), I've had to resort to washing my body with nothing more than body wash and my own hand.

Like a savage.

Hotel Patio

Having packed up my suitcase, I hauled all my crap downstairs to the lobby and briefly used the Internet to check my email and set up my phone.  I was able to leave Kris a voicemail message, but that alone nearly sucked up a solid portion of my minutes (I'll have to buy more).

Don't recommend it, folks.

Preparing to load up the bus. . .

See the bush-heavy 'room' off to the left?  That's actually a restaurant/party store (where I bought a Peroni the night before) right in front of our hotel, and the sidewalk actually cuts directly through it.  There's seating areas for fine dining on either side of the sidewalk, and as we hauled our suitcases towards the bus, we had to pass right through it. . . and its patrons, who were, up to that point, enjoying a quiet breakfast.

One last sunrise in Montecatini.

Breakfast was the same as the day before, though today we were significantly more rushed. . . we had 20 minutes to eat and board the bus, so there was absolutely no time for bathroom breaks.  Fortunately, I snagged 'my seat' on the bus (the right-hand window seat, directly in front of the rear stairwell, so that I'd have nothing between my camera and the view from the window, and no one sitting directly behind me) and spent the next few hours writing, taking pictures and/or video, and otherwise staring out the window.  With no one sitting beside me, I even got to stretch out some.

Booya.

Pervert.

We continued on through Umbria for hours, and later in the morning drove by a college town called Perugia.  That's where that Amanda Knox chick and her Italian boyfriend murdered that British chick in some freaky, bizarro, orgy session.  

You know, that ol' yarn.  We've all been there.

Big in the UK.  I guess.

After an hour or so, we pulled into a rest stop where I was really close to buying a Peppa Pig coloring/activity/sticker book for Alayna and Abby.  In the end, I decided against it; for starters, the book cost six euros - about $10 - a bit pricey for a stupid kids' book.  Plus, with Alayna learning how to read and all, I didn't want to throw a bunch of weird Italian words at her and cause a bunch of confusion.

Italians can't spell for shit.

A dire warning to patrons of Italian rest stop bathrooms - beware of flying urinals with the capability of mind control. . .

Umbria

Back on the bus, we continued our long drive through Umbria.  Most of the high school kids - and their chaperones - were asleep (at one point in time I looked around and saw only two other people on the entire bus awake.)  The sun was beginning to break through the clouds overhead as we passed Lake Trasimeno (site of the great battle where Hannibal's Carthaginian forces massacred several, unsuspecting Roman legions during the Second Punic War), and later - looming on the horizon - sat the hilltop town of Assisi. 

Umbria

Lake Trasimeno

Our bus had to snake its way around the lake and surrounding hills before finally reaching our destination - a small, ceramic workshop at the base of the hill.

Now, I have a few years of Art class under my belt.  Believe it or not.  It was one of my four minors in college (thank you very much), and for two years in high school I had art twice a day.  I remember full well how to create ceramic pottery, and I'm pretty sure most of those in our group know how to as well.  Nevertheless, the spokeswoman at the ceramic workshop proceeded to instruct us on how when you put clay into an oven, it gets hard.

A truly riveting speech.  Fortunately, it was short.

Afterwards, we once again - surprise, surprise - ended up in a gift shop, where besides ceramics, there was plenty of the usual souvenirs as well as a variety of chocolates, olive oils, and liqueurs.  They were even giving out free samples of truffle-flavored liqueurs (which were gross), as well as many different chocolates - so there  ended up being a silver lining to our otherwise bizarre, boring pitstop.

I was standing towards the back of our tour group, so I didn't hear any word of the presentation.  I doubt I missed much.

Plates. . .?

See all this ceramic crap?  Way over-priced.

Exiting through the Gift Shop

Free chocolate samples.  These were, for the most part, flavored chocolates, and not the kind we have in the States.  There was red pepper chocolate (kinda like the Aztec used to consume), bitter coffee chocolate, etc. 

Back on the bus, we continued curving our way up the hill towards the sunbaked town of Assisi.  After getting off the bus, it was a long trek up the last stretch of hill before reaching the top (accommodating fat, lazy tourists, the good folks in Assisi were nice enough to leave an escalator for part of the way up).

Not sure who lives in this house, but if I were its owner, I'd probably get pretty sick of tour buses unloading on my front lawn. . .

ESCALATOR!!!

Our tour group continued on through the city gates and down the cobblestone stets into the center of town.  The streets of Assisi were very similar to those of Florence, if only on a much smaller scale.  Stone houses, wooden doors and shutters braced with iron, and vines, flowers, and herbs covering every house.

Check it out:

Through Assisi's City Gates. . .

The wall on the right is the original city wall that has protected the city for centuries

As we walked through Assisi, you could periodically look over the sidewalk down into the valley of Umbria below.

Valley of Umbria

A Bell Tower of Assisi (not entirely sure if this is part of the main Basilica of St. Francis)

Further into Assisi 

A piazza in front of another church (there were quite a few churches in Assisi)

Through another city gate (obviously the more gates you had, the more defendable your city was under siege)

Hey, look - another frickin' church.

One of Assisi's main piazzas

Our tour group receives instructions from Rebecca, who is dismissing us for a couple hours so that we may grab lunch and shop around for souvenirs, etc.

Strolling through back alleys, looking for a decent spot to eat. . .

Hungry?

Rebecca disbanded our group for lunch, and the Orlando Nine found their way to a small, stone ristorante, where I picked up a two-euro glass of Chardonnay and ate my usual protein bar.  Once we had finished lunch, we ducked in a few different shops in order to scrounge up some souvenirs. . .

This apparently is 100% acceptable in Italy.  I don't expect to see this in Publix anytime soon. 

An underground ristorante we stumbled across.  Decent prices, the usual menu options.

Just looking at this will make you gain weight.

You'd order here and then take your food down the ramp to the lower dining area below.  Like every other shop and ristorante in Assisi, this is a renovated Medieval building - you can tell by the gothic stone arches in the ceiling.

Some hippie

Surprisingly enough, I still haven't seen this movie.  Hopefully I'll catch it on the flight back from Switzerland.

A little too chilly for outdoor dining, but so far this has been our best weather yet - partly sunny, low 50s.  After the cold and rain of Venice and Florence, this has been an awesome change of fortune. . .

Window displays.  I generally avoided shops like these - I didn't want to risk knocking over anything with my pack.  Plus everything here looks incredibly stupid.

A Tau Cross

I ended up buying a rosary, a bracelet, and two necklace pendants - each featuring the Tau Cross (the cross of St. Francis), made of Olive Wood grown in the region.  I also bought a Christmas tree ornament - a medieval crucifix.

Cheery, I know.  That ought to be a blast explaining that one to the kids come Christmas time.

Soon enough, we reconvened with Rebecca and the St. Louis crew and strolled through the streets to the very heart of Assisi - the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.  

More hatchbacks.  I guess sedans aren't 'cool' over here.

Continuing on through Assisi

Herbs for sale

This is a really, really ugly baby.

The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

No, I don't know who this was.  Some fellow stupid tourist.

Franciscan monks love McDonald's.  Who knew.

Waiting around to enter the Lower Church of the Basilica.

Everything past this iron gate was off-limits.  That, I guess, is for VIP monks.

I don't know how I feel about Catholic monks touching kids.  I think there's been some reports of that getting out of hand at one point or another.

Our tour guide. . . who doesn't really look Italian.

As we waited for the start of the tour, we got to spy on several of the monks ( see above) and nuns that live/work in Assisi.  

Eventually, one of them introduced himself as our tour guide, and we started off into the Basilica.

We entered into the Lower Church of the Basilica.  Like the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice and the Orsenmichele in Florence, there were no cameras or videotaping allowed in St. Francis' Basilica.  Disappointing, but expected (I included some images from Google for your viewing pleasure):  

The Lower Church - smaller in scale, kinda like the Orsanmichele in Florence.

Entrance to the underground crypts.

Anyway, this church, too, was covered floor-to-vaulted ceiling with frescoes, wall murals, statuary and sculptures. 

. . .and also, in several places, human skulls.

Seriously.

Eventually we were led into the underground crypt of the church, and were able to come face to face with the resting place of St. Francis himself - still entombed in a pillar of stone and un-exhumed by archaeologists -  surrounded by an iron gate.  

The tomb of St. Francis of Assisi.  They discovered his body a couple hundred years ago, or something like that, and chose not to disturb his remains.  Instead they dug around them, creating a stone pillar in the middle of the room, which they then lined with iron in order to prevent pilgrims from chipping away at the stone.

Our tour basically had us slowly walk around this stone pillar.  This image must be taken from one of the many security cameras that was in place.  I guess the monks are pretty protective of Frankie's corpse.

Checking out the Sacro Covento.

Afterwards, we made our way back up to the ground level, then up another stairwell to the Sacro Convento - an open air veranda over-looking an inner-courtyard of stone.  This is the friary, which I guess houses a huge library and tons of treasure and artifacts brought by pilgrims visiting the holy site over the last, oh, eight hundred years or so.

We didn't get to see any of it.  Moving on.

The friary and its courtyard.

Ascending to the larger Upper Church

Finally, it was time to enter the Upper Church, grander than the first with a domed, giant ceiling hundreds of feet tall, and heavy gothic influences.  There were some damaged areas interspersed among the frescoes - testimony to a devastating 1997 earthquake that caused a partial roof collapse and killed a bunch of people.  Fortunately since then, the majority of the Basilica's grand dome ceiling has been faithfully restored.

Not quite as impressive as the Duomo in terms of size (though still pretty huge), this Upper Church had a lot more art along its walls - similar to St. Mark's in Venice.

BAM!

The 1997 Earthquake

On the way out of the sanctuary, I dipped my Tau rosary, bracelet, and necklaces in the Holy Water. . . I mean, how many people can say they had something blessed by the Holy Water of Assisi, right?

After exiting the Basilica, we had a spectacular view of the underlying valley of Umbria and Assisi and the mountains off in the distance.  Then, as always, it was time to head back to the bus. . .

Exiting the Upper Church, onto the veranda/upper courtyard of the Basilica

Looking back up towards Assisi

Tourists

Looking down at the entrance to the Lower Church

Yours Truly with students (who have been cropped out, since I'm not sure that's legal to post pics of them on a personal blog)

Nuns (one of which was from Detroit, as evident by their affection for the Honolulu Blue)

Leaving the Basilica of St. Francis. . .

En route back to the bus

We took a different way back, and passed through a different set of city gates to reach the parking lot below.

More great views from hilltop Assisi

Waiting for the high schoolers to finish browsing through souvenir shops in the parking lot before boarding the bus

A shopkeeper hustles some unsuspecting tourist.  Best of luck, fella.

Pulling away from Assisi - so far my favorite place we've visited.

'All roads lead to Rome.'

We had another two and a half hours until we reached the outskirts of Rome.  The view was the same as always - far-off mountains, rolling green fields and sprawling vineyards, with small villages of identical style and color.

We passed the hilltop town of Narni - C.S. Lewis' inspiration for the Chronicles of Narnia - before our bus crossed the infamous Tiber River, along whose banks the early Latin tribes settled upon seven hills, sometime around the 7th or 8th century B.C.  Eventually those seven tribes banded together and started being referred to as 'Romans.'

Not sure if you folks have ever heard of those guys or not.

Julius Caesar.  Somewhat of a badass.

Anyway, I was a little bummed that our bus wouldn't be crossing the Rubicon River. . . not that my crossing would be nearly as memorable.

Arriving at L'Ottava Hotel on the outskirts of Rome. . . and, as usual, we're unloading our luggage onto the street.

Evil lies behind that gate.

After nearly three hours on the road, we arrived at our hotel, the L'Ottava.  We unloaded the bus (which by the way, to me, always smells like Brut cologne - mucho).  The view is incredible - much of Rome can be seen in the valley below, despite the fact we're about an hour drive away from the city's heart.  I tried walking up some guy's driveway to score some better pictures of the valley below, but was quickly scared off by what sounded like a 20 ft. Cerberus behind a barred, wooden gate.

The hotel is probably the best one we've stayed in.  Excellent Wi-Fi (relatively speaking, of course), good rooms and bathrooms, and cheap booze.  

Huzzah.

L'Ottava Hotel

Lobby Bar

Our new room

Usual bathroom set-up. . .

. . . right down to the bizarro bidet.

View from our hotel room window

Fun times. . .

It was still an hour and half until dinner, so I decided to trying my hand at something I haven't done since Africa - hand-washing my own own clothes.  I had only packed five undershirts, shirts, boxers, and socks (I prefer to travel light), so it was high time I take care of business.  Kris had bought me some travel-sized Tide packets, and while I had the room to myself, I decided to fill up the sink and get it out of the way.

Old school.

F.Y.I. - Just as much fun as I remember.

After rinsing them out, I threw up a clothesline from my headboard to my dresser - about 8 feet in length.  Unfortunately, this cut across my be at a 45 degree angle, but I didn't have much of a choice.

This was pretty ghetto, I'm not going to lie, but I kicked the shit out of it.

With that out of the way, I went downstairs and found the lobby packed with our group.  All the adults - and several of the high schoolers - were drinking, so I didn't want to be left out.  I ordered a large Peroni at the cost of three euros - the cheapest I've seen yet.  

The Lobby

Just as I finished ordering, the doors to the ristorante opened up for dinner.  Bruschetta (the toast was rock-hard) and lasagna.  There was dessert, too, but I didn't stick around for it (in Italy, they bring out one course at a time, usually spaced out fifteen minutes or so. . . so dinner generally takes an hour.)  I guess the folks at my table ate mine.

Maxpedition Jumbo Versipack

Tomorrow is Rome.  FINALLY.  I wanted to repack my bag, seeing how we weren't allowed to bring backpacks into Vatican City, so I began transferring all my stuff into my Maxpedition shoulder pack.  Then, too exhausted to stay up later - and knowing our busiest day of the tour was there to meet us in the morning - I decided to go to bed.

. . . under a bunch of wet laundry.

Rome awaits

- Brian