Venice to Urbino to Assisi

We drove from Venice to Assisi today, with a stop in Urbino along the way. I’d say today was one of my favorite days, simply because we visited towns with minimal tourists, so they were really peaceful and quiet.

Urbino was a little medieval town on two hills, and the town square was in the middle of the valley, so we had to walk up this gigantic hill. Whooooo…people in this town must be in shape! My calves were burning; even though we’ve been doing a lot of walking around in Italy, it’s mostly flat, nothing like that hill.

Chris and I decided to buy a castle, and they were even kind enough to carve our initials on the front. You like?

Had lunch in Urbino, and afterwards we went to this great gelateria called Gelateria Romana. Chris and I stood there for like, 5 minutes trying to decide what to get, as the girl looked at us like, wtf hurry up. Haha it was sooooo good though. That was the best (and cheapest!) gelato we’ve had here in Italy so far. =) We walked around before going back to the bus, and since it was Sunday, there were vendors (the cool kind, not the annoying ones with the fake purses and Eminem posters) along the streets. We ended up finding a table that sold old money, and Chris bought an Iraqi bill (cool factor was Sadaam Hussein’s picture on it), while I bought a 5-peso bill from the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. Hella random, but cool nonetheless.

Went back on the bus, finally on our way to Assisi. Franco told us that every time he comes to this town, he always felt a sense of peace, and he wasn’t kidding. On the tour, our guide let us into St. Francis’ basilica, where we passed by mass on our way downstairs to view St. Francis’ tomb. Franco wasn’t kidding about feeling a sense of peace; my hair stood on end as we passed through the church. I was bummed that I don’t know Italian, because it would’ve been pretty cool to sit through mass.

After our tour, we were given free time to walk around, so Chris and I went to St. Clare’s basilica. It was sad to see that the inside of the church wasn’t maintained as well as St. Francis’. The frescoes were faded, and barely any were left. Her tomb was actually pretty nice though, since it was restored in 2000 with new marble and everything. I wish we could have taken pictures in these places; they were so amazing! But yanno…gotta keep the sanctity (right word??) of the church.

Random: Things in Assisi were hella cheap. Postcards were 15cents (other places, they were like 80cents or even 1 Euro), and we got necklaces with St. Francis’ tau cross for 80 cents. Yay for countryside prices!

Assisi is one of my favorite cities; in addition to being small and quiet, it’s also on top of a hill…and you all know what that means…GREAT VIEWS!!! =) There were a few clouds in the sky, so at sunset the view was suuuuper nice.

Our hotel was about 5 minutes away from the center of the town, so we drove down the road and got checked in and stuff. Had a pretty good home-cooked dinner, since the hotel is family run. All the Asians sat at the same table! =P

After dinner, Chris and I had espressos with Ate Data and Kuya Ben, and then finally headed off to our respective rooms to chill and get ready for our trip to Sorrento tomorrow…

P.S. If you can tell me what's wrong with this picture, I'll give you a high five. =)