Assisi

The past week hasn't been very eventful. I guess we needed a "down-week" after going on our South Trip to Almafi. However, on friday we made the short one-hour trip up to Assisi (also in the same region as Orvieto, Umbria). Its a town that's very similar to Orvieto: hill-top, very small and quaint. And there's plenty of tourists, but they all only come for one thing: San Francesco d'Assisi. (Similar to Orvieto, they all come from one thing: the duomo). So, we spent most of our time at this particular church. The church actually has 3 parts: The cript, the lower church and the upper church. And as you have probably already guessed: The church was built to house the relics of St. Francis. Which was truly awesome, because we actually got to see his tomb which was located in the cript. This was one of those church that was considered to be a major pilgramage destination.

Assisi was also hit with a bad earthquake in 1997 which completely destroyed the nave of the lower church (the ceiling collasped completely and unfortunately killed several people). Since then, the church as been restored as best as possible and its still quite beautiful. And did I mention that Assisi is Marco's hometown? Yes, so as you can image, we got quite the earfull. And he took us on a tour and showed us where he was born and where he grew up and other things. He also seemed to know everyone in town. (which shouldn't be hard, he said there was only 800 people who lived in Assisi).

We came back to Orvieto after about 1/2 a day in Assisi and it has been a fairly quiet weekend here. It's also been extremely nice weather and I've been able to go running for several days on the trail. The trail wraps around the outer edge of Orvieto on the side of the hill and its quite the roller coaster. Up down Up down Up down.... etc. But its an extremely nice trail with benches and maps and such. Its extremely nice to walk the trail around 5-6 in the evening because the sun is starting to set and it is, of course, just like the rest of Italy... Bellisimo!

This week should be fairly quiet too, we are working on an "urban facade" project which is due on friday and then we have a free weekend (some people are going sky-diving, but definately NOT me) and then on Monday we head for a week in Venice! So I will be getting ready for that excursion and just trying to actually do my school work. Ha!