Italians aren't much for breakfast. Apparently if they do eat anything it's small shot of coffee and a roll but the Hotel in Florence had an excellent spread for Breakfast each morning. The pastry's were yummy especially a cream filled one but this fresh Honey Comb was worth taking a picture of.
After breakfast we loaded up on the bus again and headed to Rome via a short detour to Assisi.
I now know why movies like "Under the Tuscan Sun" and "Letters to Juliet" are so captivating. It's the Tuscan landscape. The Tuscan landscape was majestic. Instead of taking a bunch of blurry photos from a moving bus I searched for a photo of Tuscany in March and found this one that looked like what I saw out the bus window.
The Villas nestled in the hills were stunning against the soft green fields. In Tuscany you can only paint your house a few select earth tone colors like light brown, yellow and a reddish color.
Assisi is an old hill town in Central Italy. Many misconceptions is that they build this town on a hill in order to spot incoming attacks but our guide said that back long ago the valley below was a lake so it was the only place to build. It wasn't until the Roman's conquered the place and drained the lake that it became inhabitable.
The center of Assisi is the oldest part of the town and as it grew it expanded outwards. Thus you walked through a few openings that were once the outer gates. The tour guide would comment as we were walked toward the center what century the houses were built. He also pointed out a Roman road because all Roman roads are straight whereas a lot of the other streets are windy. Made me wonder if Brother Brigham was a Roman.
In the center of town the tour guide shared a lot about medieval times. He said that the upper class, working class and poor lived in distinct spots. He also said that you were taxed by how many windows you had so many people lived without windows to avoid taxes. He talked about the unhealthy conditions the people lived in and without proper ventilation many people died of horrid diseases. He also talked a little about all the attacks on the village and it made me wonder how anyone survived through all of it. Really brings survival of the fittest to life.
We discovered ancestor's to Bella the hog (our infamous neighborhood gag gift). So funny and just as gross and weird as Bella.
In the middle of our tour of the town. The Fiat Car Club zoomed by in the annual parade. It was fun to see the cars. Our tour guide on the bus mentioned Fiat stands for Fix it again Tony. Maybe this was the fixed up lemon car parade. Bart took a liking to this vespa from the 60's and it was fitting that a VW bug went by after hearing Paulines stories of her European vacation in the bug on $5 a day.
I was nicely surprised to learn that this was the birthplace of Saint Francis. I knew about this Saint due to a story in binder my mom had complied of Christmas Stories. St. Francis was born between 1181-1182. He was born to a wealthy merchant and French noblewomen. His parents indulged him with anything he needed and lived a carefree life until he joined the military and was captured and spent some time in prison. While in prison he has some sort of a vision and upon returning to Assisi he changed his ways and gave up all of his worldly possessions and lived among beggars gradually gained many followers and led the church in Assisi. Before he died he asked to be buried on a hill outside of town where they killed and buried the criminals stating he wants to be amongst them. After his death they built a beautiful 2 story chapel in his honor. He was also known as the first person to bring to life the nativity. John mentioned St. Francis is a very popular Saint in Italy. If I were Catholic I'd put a shrine in my house in honor of him to.
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