Il Blog Arbitrario: Assisi - The Beautiful City of St.Francis on a Mountain

The crew is ready for our first train ride! Destination: Assisi, the town of Saint Francis. As the train got more crowded, an italian woman sat next to Forrest. It made for some good conversation with the whole group on the way there.

A couple of us got up too late t get a good breakfast. And after a 2 hour train ride, we decided in order to make it through the day, we needed to nourish ourselves.

Along the road in the valley to the mountain, there were some nice modern buildings. The symmetry of this one was interesting to me. (we generally frown upon that in our studio class, unless there is a good reason.)

In this building, they made no attempt to hide the formwork when they cast those concrete slabs. It gives them quite a nice effect, almost appearing as if those slabs are actually made of wood.

And we continued to progress towards Assisi.

The setting of this town on top of the mountain was quite stunning! And it just kept getting more beautiful as we got closer. (this will be a recurring theme)

That mountain was consistently covered with a little bit of clouds.

Getting closer!

"Dude, this is a great spot for a panorama! (there would be better spots to come.)

FOOTball stadium. Those stands looked pretty nifty.

Basilica of Saint Francis.

The car road split away from us, and we followed this pedestrian path, that kept getting steeper, the more we climbed.

The view from the path is amazing. (Would get better.)

The town would disappear from view due to the trees. And the path got steeper.

We made it to the town!

Group photo everyone! (that was our band's private coach bus.)

This town had no shortage of photo-worthy stuff.

Another theme of the town was framed views. This archway was so prominent that we had to walk through. This is the view out the back side.

Going UP the hill to see the Basilica Del San Francesco.

Here is another perfectly framed view.

I stood here and looked for a minute or two before I snapped this picture. An UPhill piazza leading to the church.

The repetition on the columns and vaulting was quite effective. We felt so lucky to be here.

There were a few peep holes through the wall and this is what we saw.

Looking back at the town.

This was the entrance to the church.

Here is a detailing of the entrance... Photography was not allowed in the church. But it was actually split into three levels. This entrance led to the middle church. It was so beautiful on the inside. Everything was colored and there were richly powerful paintings everywhere. Some sections were reserved for only prayer or mass. So to see it, I went in and prayed. Halfway down the hall were stairs that led down to another small hall, and the focal point was the tomb of Saint Francis. It was all stone, and more modern lighting techniques made the vaulting in there quite beautiful. The altar of the middle church hall was located directly above Saint Francis' tomb. Above that altar was a wood painted cross from the Byzantine era. If my history is correct, Saint Francis came to Christ and fell in love with the gospel by kneeling and praying before this depiction of Jesus' sacrifice... From there we went into a courtyard behind the church. and from there we were able to access the upper hall. This one had tall gothic ceilings, beautiful stained glass windows, and paintings along the sides that showed the story of Saint Francis.

And here we are outside the church.

A panorama of the way we came in to the place.

Front facade of the church.

Detail view of the rose window

And we continued to climb UP.

We assumed this was the right way to go. But you know what happens when you assume?

You get a view like this!

It almost didn't seem real. We all wished we could fly.

This is our band's album cover.

Having some fun!

When the rooster crows, SPRINT!

As it turns out we were going the wrong way, so we had to turn around. And I noticed these things. Even on a small scale, this town was awesome.

The re-curing theme of great framed views.

Framed views and going UP.

On our path, we saw this.

And this!

Then we saw this frame. But there wasn't much of a view. and it was more UPhill than the path we were currently on. So we took it.

And we saw this.

Zoomed in.

This was the path we took to the top. We weren't sure if it was right or if we were supposed to be up there. But it was such an adventure.

When that trail ended, we were rewarded with this.

Timo began to sing and I joined in. "When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur, and heat the brook, and feel the gentle. Then sings my soul, My Savior God to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art!"

And I sat down here and did a sketch for about five minutes, because that felt right.

Aaron's face says it all.

We continued UP the hill to the imposing castle on the top.

But didn't forget to look down.

This was the entrance to the interior of the castle.

We first checked out the courtyard in front of that entrance before we went in.

Unfortunately, it cost 8 euro to go in. And we figured we would rather take an alternate album cover for our band.

Arrows come out here.

Yep, the view was amazing.

Same caption as previous photo.

Likewise.

Zoomed out a little bit. Apparently it rained in Firenze this day. All we got were these clouds. It was perfect.

Sunshine doing cool things in the distance. The train station is all the way down there in the valley. We walked all the way here.

We walked around and saw the side of town that Basilica del San Francesco was located.

That church right there.

Now this is the place to take panoramas!

This was the castle, by the way.

There appeared to be a cemetery on the backside of the mountain.

This was the context. Not too bad, eh? Perfect actually.

(But in reality the only real reason I came here was to pose and advertise for "Crochet and Pray the Way for Ray to Pay to Play". Buy a scarf from my mom so my brother can march drum corps this summer.) Thanks for the scarf, Mom!

The castle again.

We took a different way down.

But the town continued to frame some pretty awesome views.

This town was awesome. It felt more genuine than Firenze. There were alot less people there interested in only our euros.

And we found this church! Let me check the name. Umm. Cathedral of San Rufino.

That is where we came from.

This church felt much different than the first gothic one. This one was strongly ordered, with baroque elements in the aisles.

This one was my favorite. One where Christ is brightly lit and exalted in the center.

Here is a close up view. Right here we ran into two people from Minnesota, who would become ordained in May. They were very nice to talk to, and they said they would pray for us.

This was the view down the nave.

San Francesco! Saint Francis!

Then in the town's main Piazza, was this structure, clearly older than everything else. It was originally the temple of Minerva.

We decided to go in.

The inside was quite different. It was a much newer baroque interior.

This church was closed. Work was being done to the interior.

This photo shows the town quite nicely. One way steep UPhill, another steep downhill.

Very interesting lamp. Dragons?

Such a cool way to go down.

Facade of San Pietro.

The interior was about as raw as it gets. All stone.

The altar and the dome.

Look at the light from the rose window, so well projected on the vault.

Here are two examples of the few modern elements in this town. 1) the cars. 2) the sculpture.

The sculpture apparently had this split in it, which was quite cool.

Looking back at San Pietro and Assisi.

The sculpture and Assisi.

And we arrived back at the gate where we entered.

As the sun went down, and the lights turned on, everything got quite pretty.

We walked back this way, went inside again, ran into the two soon-to-be priests from Minnesota, who were preparing for mass there. We were invited to join, but the mass was in Italian we wanted to grab food before we had to catch our train home.