Early Evening
No, I couldn't resist the urge to revisit Santa Maria degli Angeli, but I had lots to do before I did that.
I'm rapidly coming to like this hotel. The concierge, who was quite fearsome yesterday, has decided that I'm OK. This probably came about because she has an aging spaniel named Snoopy who has fallen in love with me. I spent a good deal of time last night playing with her and did a little more this morning after breakfast.
This breakfast was served outdoors on a very quaint patio overlooking the Hotel Frate Sole and its Sorella Luna Ristorante. The translation of this is a reference that all in Assisi know: Brother Sun, Sister Moon. These are the names given by Francis and Chiara to each other. Theirs was an all-consuming but (we assume) chaste love. Certainly the fact of its existence is not hidden around here. Among other things, there is a statue of the two of them holding hands outside the Chiesa Nuova.
After playing with Snoopy I went back toward Santa Maria to catch the bus back to the ancient city. Like yesterday, the neighborhood was covered with monks and nuns, all on their way to the church. There was also a very large contingent of uniformed Catholic school children and their teachers, all wanting to board the same bus. Fortunately, the bus was one of the rare full-sized ones and it was empty when it go to us. Just as fortunately, these screaming, laughing, squawking kids got off long before the bus reached Piazza Matteoti.
My first desire was to go to Rocca Maggiore, the fortress that overlooks the valley. I knew that I would have to do this early because the walk up was very steep. I did not want to do this in the midday sun. Even with the precaution, the crawl to the top was fairly intense. My timing, though, couldn't have been better. I fell through the front gate just as the fortress was opening for the day. Except for an American couple and a German family of four, I had the place pretty much to myself.
Rocca Maggiore, which translates as "more rock," is well-named. With the exception of some wood beaming, it is constructed entirely of stone. As such, one can see why it was an effective defense. On the other hand, I would think that the insanely steep hill was the best defense and that the defending army could have done the same trick with grass huts.
At the center of the fortress is a tall round tower. Once on this platform it is easy to see the long and looping fortress wall that surrounds the entire city. There are six porta (gates) that allow entry, each of which is sufficiently narrow to have quickly bottlenecked any army trying to get in. All of this sounds great until you start to learn about why the fortress was necessary. The leaders who built it and controlled it for years were a bloodthirsty lot. The fortress was used for imprisonment, torture and execution, all at the whim of whomever happened to be in charge at the moment.
And did I mention that some of them went on to become popes?
Throughout my stay at the fortress I was constantly stumbling onto two things: Angry pigeons who did not want their aerie disturbed, and the German family. This father, mother and two teenaged sons were always two steps behind me. The American couple left as soon as they saw the steps they would have to climb, so it was pretty much me and my German shadows for the hour or so I was checking out the place. Every time I went to a window, they came to see what I was looking at. Every time I found a new staircase to climb, they were right behind me.
As I was leaving, I went to sit under a shade tree. There next to me was a golden tabby, a cat as affectionate as Snoopy. Within seconds he was crawling all over me and I was letting him do it. I thought that this was a lucky cat. After all, he was in Assisi, the home of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and children. I mean, if you were a cat and you wanted to live where the karma is right, you couldn't do much better than this town.
As I was leaving the fortress, I noticed a man huffing his way up an incline that appeared to split off toward the city. I figured that this would be faster and prettier than the circuitous route that I had taken earlier so I headed in the direction he had just come from.
It is a sign of how steep this city is that many roads have staircases built into them. This was a street that was maybe seven feet across with a two-foot staircase running down the center. I found it easier to walk on the road portion. About halfway down, I found a secluded gelateria with an arbored terrace overlooking San Rufino. I stopped in for a large mint granita, my liquid air conditioner of choice.
I didn't really have a plan for the day except to just keep looking for things to see. As I was approaching the bottom of the stairs/street, I was thinking about what direction I should turn. Just then, a young Chinese woman came running around the corner. She saw me then looked around with darting eyes. She noticed a bench next to a doorway. Both were surrounded by pots of flowers. She whipped her head around to me and held out her hand. In it was a small digital camera.
"Take picture," she said. "Please!"
I smiled, said I would, then took the camera. She started pointed to a button.
"Click. Yes. Picture. Point. Click. Yes."
I'm glad I knew how to operate the camera before she handed it to me. I'm not sure those directions would have done the trick if I hadn't.
She rushed to the bench then sat down. Just as suddenly, she froze into an uncomfortable stance with a plastered-on smile.
"Now!!!"
I took the picture.
"Take another!" she shouted, still frozen in the same uncomfortable position.
I took a second shot. It wasn't one iota different from the first.
She leapt up, grabbed the camera and looked at the picture. She smiled broadly then bowed her thanks and ran up the stairs.
I made the decision to turn to the right. Within a minute or two I was in the Piazza di Comune. Taking it as a sign, I went back to the Temple of Minerva, sat on the steps and started to shoot tourists. I wound up doing this for about an hour. Pretty soon, I was getting hungry. I went next door to get some lunch.
Just before I went to bed last night I got a text from Bridget. She was in OHare and had just had a caprese sandwich and a bottle of Pellegrino. She wanted me to know this because she was clearly in denial about being back in the states. I texted back that I would have a hamburger today because I was in denial that I wasn't there with her. So that's what I had for lunch.
Afterward I went to the Chiesa Nuova, a quaint (at least by Italian standards) church. Nuova, of course, is a relative term. This church was built after the death of Francis in the 13th Century and, like Santa Maria degli Angeli, was built over an important place in his life. In this case, it incorporates the small cell where his father locked him up when he was a young man. The cell currently has a statue of Francis praying to God that his father will stop beating him. This faces the altar. I'm sure there is some symbolism in this, but I wasn't really willing to divine it.
I followed the long downward slope to Basilica di San Francesco. The grounds for this are massive, taking up approximately a quarter of the city. Much of it is a functioning monastery and so off limits to visitors. The Basilica, though, is open and free (although another one where photos are not allowed). The Basilica itself is impressive for its size but not for its decor. There are only two ancillary chapels, each flanking the altar. The long walls leading up to these are filled with religious frescoes, but the ceiling, all blue and gold, upstages these literally and figuratively.
To the left of the altar is the entrance to the chapel and tomb of St. Francis. You go down about twenty steps before you can see into the underground chapel. Unlike its counterpart upstairs, this chapel is ornate. Fusing red and gold in the palette, it manages to be both intimate and grand at the same moment. Just past the chapel is another flight of steps that go down to the crypt. Rather than a sarcophagus, the remains are in a covering that is then made to appear organic to the altar on with they lay. This altar is surrounded by intricate wrought iron that is open in the front so that it can be used for a mass. Kneelers surround the crypt and these were filled with worshippers.
The one consistent architectural design between these three areas is the profusion of signs that read, "Silenzio." They are everywhere. You can't even turn a corner without finding one to greet you as though the sudden turn of your body in a new direction might have erased your memory of this command. As if the signs weren't enough, occasionally an electronically amped voice reverberates through the sanctuaries: "Silenzio! Shhh!"
I was nearly blinded by the sun when I came out of the tomb. The exit empties out in to a long, wide piazza whose brickwork surface creates a dizzying array of angles in black, white and gray. I found a place in the shade and sat for a while in the shadow of the Basilica.
When I finally got up to leave, I started to walk down the long piazza toward the gate. Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice.
"Hey! Take my picture!"
I turned to see the young Chinese woman. She was shoving her camera in my face. It was quite obvious that she did not recognize me from earlier.
"Here. Click. Picture."
At least she had honed down her instructions. I took the camera.
She ran back about thirty feet then looked up at the campanile of the Basilica to make sure that she was lined up the way she wanted. She then turned back into her uncomfortable smile and stiff demeanor.
"Now!!!"
I took the picture.
"Take another!!!"
I took another one.
She ran back to me, looked at the camera, smiled and bowed her thanks. I watched her run away. Within thirty seconds she found another tourist and had that person take a picture of her with the colonnade behind her.
The bus stop at Piazza Giovanni Paolo II was just outside the gate and I was getting tired. My bus was there so I headed for it. Just as I was getting to it, it took off. I checked the schedule and saw that the next one wasn't for another half hour. With time to kill, I went to Chiesa di San Pietro, a church just outside San Francesco and a few steps from the bus stop. This one is gray slate and sparse. It is also very cool, so it was the perfect place to wait out the bus. While I was in there, a woman came in and sat in a pew across from me. She sat still and silently for the whole time I was there. She only got up to leave when an Australian couple came in and started to comment loudly on what they were seeing. Where's the "Silenzio" sign when you need one?
I took the bus back down. Seated facing me and two seats up was the young Chinese woman. She looked completely exhausted. I couldn't help but wonder if she actually got to see anything while she was here. She got off at the train station, presumably to find another town in which to have her picture taken.
When I got back to the hotel I decided to rest for a while. Eventually, I wanted to get a snack so headed out to a terrific and inexpensive pasticceria across from Santa Maria degli Angeli. As I left the shop, I decided that I needed another fix of the Cathedral. Like yesterday, it was quiet in a way that put out a nice sense of peace. I walked around the inside and went into the Porziuncola for a few minutes.
Honestly, this is rapidly becoming my favorite church anywhere.
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