After breakfast (around 11 am), the four of us set out to explore Umbria. Sybill and I put together an itinerary and the first stop was Assisi. It’s quite an amazing place, not the town, which is a perfectly nice hill town, but the monumental basilica, which consists of two big churches – the upper basilica and the lower basilica. The walls of the upper church are covered with 24 frescoes attributed to Giotti, which depict the life of St. Francis. Supposedly, in high season there are so many tourists there that you can’t even see them. When we were there, only a few people were inside with us. Below the lower church is the tomb of St. Francis. We spent some time walking around the basilica and the surrounding area and then set out to the next point on the itinerary – the town of Spello. Umbria seems to have an endless supply of picturesque medieval hill towns, and Spello is certainly a great one. It has hanging baskets of flowers and potted plants everywhere, which add to its charm. We had lunch there is a gourmet restaurant with fabulous food and then saw the view from the top by the monastery of St. Silverstre. It was getting a bit late, but we decided to drive on to one more little town called Bevagna. According to Sybill’s German guide, it is the most authentic. We were very glad we did because the town was absolutely lovely. While we were driving back to Sigillo, the rain started.
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