MAJESTIC ITALY Part 4

Assisi is a mountainside medieval town.  A town that is still surrounded by walls and gates.  As it is built on a mountainside, there are almost no flat areas in the whole town.  The town featured quaint buildings and narrow winding roads with several hairpin turns.  The roads are just large enough for an automobile and perhaps a single file line of people.  It should be noted that most cars in Italy are compact in nature, this is quite understandable when you hear that gas is about $3.75/gallon over there.  Actually gas is about 1975 lire/liter over there, but I did the math for you.   The roads are so narrow and steep, that our bus had to stop at a parking lot located just outside of town.  From there our luggage was loaded onto tiny trucks, and cab service was offered to those who wanted it (5,000 lire per person) ($2.50) to our hotel. I chose to walk while Mom chose, quite wisely, to ride.  The first part of the walk involved a long ramp along a road up to the city gates.  Once through the city gates, we would have to walk uphill several blocks to our hotel.  There are no new buildings in Assisi, as they keep reusing the old ones.  There is reconstruction but no new construction going on.  Assisi, as you might know was the victim to a bad 1997 earthquake, and as such rebuilding is still underway.   Ah, here we are up at the Hotel Fontebella.  This hotel was sort of strange for mom, as she had stayed there on a prior choir tour in 1986.  After resting a while in the lobby, we were given our key and headed upstairs to our room.  We rode up to our room on the 6^th floor in an old elevator, complete with manually operated doors.  Progress was brought to a halt if a person forgot to close all the doors when leaving the elevator.   Now is as good a time as any to mention that Italy is not very wheelchair friendly.  Although no one in our group had a wheelchair, it's one of the things I have come to notice when I visit places.  The majority of the elevators we encountered on the trip were tiny, and even if they could hold a person in a wheelchair, the doorways would be too narrow, or in the case of this hotel the inside door of the elevator opened into the car.  Making it a trick to close even when you are able to walk.  If you have claustrophobia stay out of Italian elevators.  Other items were the lack of elevators in some places, or the elevator does not serve all the floors in a building, or steep stairs, or public restrooms either in a basement or upper level of a building with no wheelchair access.  Okay now we are in our hotel room, on the top floor.  Due to the unusual placement of the window, a small winding staircase with banister was built in our room to reach the window.   Odd to have a window that high up on the top floor of a building.  At this hotel we saw an unusual tactic of conserving electricity.  When you enter the room, you have to place your key into a slot on the wall.  Once the key is fully inserted the electricity for the room will turn on.  Once that card is removed from the wall, you have a limited number of minutes before the power goes out.   Did I mention that the climate control device also turns off?  As this hotel used mechanical locks in the doors, a specially shaped key ring fob was inserted into the wall.  After coming from the Hotel Sirio this place is a definite step up in luxury.  Heated bath towel racks, let's hear it for drying off after a shower with a heated bath towel.  We had some time to rest up, before we headed down to our restaurant.  The restaurant, while associated with the hotel, is not actually in the hotel.  Despite the panel on the elevator that said to press "1" for the restaurant.  We boarded the lift pressed "1" (the bottom floor on the floor selection panel), and once we arrived at the bottom, discovered that it would be another fight of stairs down to the hotel's other lobby, then across the street to the restaurant.   

Dinner was the included meal today, and consisted of Cream of Asparagus soup.  Again Mr. I-Hate-Vegetables made quick work of finishing his soup. Mmmmm Good.  The soup had pasta in it so I guess counted for our pasta dish. It was quickly followed by meat that was never really identified, a salad and some peas.  Dinner was real good, as all our meals have been.  After dinner it was time for the choirs first major concert of the trip. Realizing that the church was back down at the bottom of the hill, I spied an empty seat in a cab of choir members, and quickly parted with 5,000 lire to ride down to the church with them. The taxi ride is very note worthy as it surpasses any motion-simulator experience.  What can compare with tiny streets, dodging pedestrians, hairpins turns without even slowing down.  Tiny clearances, low margin for error, etc.   A taxi ride that turned into a real thrill ride. The taxi deposited us at the upper level of St. Francis Church.  The church of St. Francis in Assisi is quite noteworthy in that it is actually two churches, one placed above the other.  Tonight's concert would take place in the upper church. The upper church was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1997, and the walls still show signs of damage.  What is even more amazing is the amount of restoration that has gone on.  Several years ago, our local church had booked a speaker for the lecture series from Assisi to talk about the town and the restoration project that was ahead of them.  The slide show she gave back then showed the wall mosaics on the floor in pieces, and skilled art students working at benches trying to recreate them as if working on giant jigsaw puzzles.  My friends, it is truly amazing how much restoration has occurred.  Through a team of very patient individuals the majority of the artwork has been restored.  And tonight we would be able to gaze at the art under the full power of the electric light.  Oh, and I discovered that the person sitting next to me in the audience was that same lecturer from a long time ago. 

Tonight's concert was an international group effort, our choir, and a choir from Assisi joined together for tonight's program.  Each choir performed its own separate concert, and then joined together for the closing number (Mozart's Ave Verum).  The music was of course classical and church music.  I must say both choirs put on an excellent performance that was well received by the large crowd in attendance.  An especially emotional moment took place when our choir performed "America The Beautiful":  When I saw that on the program, I wasn't sure how that would go over in a foreign land.  I report that it was well received and served to point out that there were other American groups in the audience that night.  Namely a group on retreat from Lexington.  After a particularly fine concert and some photo opportunities, I decided again to join a group in a taxi back UP the steep hillside to our hotel.

Once back at the hotel, I joined a good-sized group at the hotel bar, where I had a fine Italian beer, Peroni.  Peroni is served in rather large bottles so I only needed one bottle.  The mingling and laughter in the hotel bar was lively and could be heard all the way up on the 6^th floor landing of the stairs.  After some drinks, and friendship, I returned to my room for a shower. A shower that first required a pole vault into the rather high bathtub.  No shower curtain, just a Plexiglas shield that didn't seem large enough, but was strategically placed to catch the shower water.  Did I mention the nice heated bath towels? And so to sleep.

Day 5 - Friday, November 16, 2001

Today, we awake, get dressed, you know all the usual stuff, then headed down to the bottom level of the hotel for breakfast.  Fortunately, breakfast is held inside the main hotel building in a room that looks a definitely medieval.  Battle axes on the walls, tournament banners on the arched ceilings, and all. The breakfast menu was quite similar to that served at the Hotel Sirio in Venice. After breakfast, we were told to meet back at the tour bus, which if you recall is parked WAY down at the bottom of the town in Parking Lot A.   Morning rush hour in Assisi, Narrow roads, cars zooming by, medieval buildings, oh and some concert announcements.  Wait! That’s a poster for our group’s concert from last night.  Too bad they used some really good glue to apply the posters to the walls.  This was our first walk through town in bright daylight, and Assisi is just a magic mountainside town.  So small, so quaint, so relaxing.  Eventually we make our way outside the city gates, down the hill and onto the bus.

At the bus, we meet our local guide. While on the bus we hear about the town of Assisi, we pass a road down to the old monastery, we keep driving.  We notice the city wall, and eventually wind up in parking lot B, which is at the top of the city.  Smart tactic.  Use motorized transportation to get to the farthest, hardest to reach point and walk back.  At the upper parking lot, we take a series of two escalators to the highest point in Assisi, and therefore start our walk back down.  We first stop at a fantastic overlook where we can see the city and mountainside below us.  We then head to St. Claire's.  The historical significance of St. Claire's Church is that it holds the famous crucifix, which is believed to have spoken to St. Francis of Assisi.  A brief tour of the church, and the chapel, which holds the famous crucifix, took place, followed by a brief prayer.  Another oddity of that particular crucifix is that is shows Christ alive.

From St. Claire's we were a bit surprised to learn that we would have to walk uphill to the Assisi town square of sorts.  This is where the government offices are located, and a rather famous temple.  It was pointed out that the stairs leading up to the temple seemed to be stunted.  As we learned in Ravenna, the older buildings are actually sinking, and that there would have been a further 12 stairs back in the days of the Roman Empire.  We spent some time in the town square, before heading back downhill with an ultimate destination of St. Francis Basilica.  Along the way down we stopped at a famous house of some sort, though because I was lagging behind the group I did not hear what was important about it.

At the base of the hill our guide told us about St. Francis, the two churches in one building.  How the lower church contains the tomb of St. Francis.   In fact both churches of the Basilica were built some time after St. Francis death.  As you may recall, yesterday we had the concert in the upper basilica, today we would have the Mass in the lower basilica.

There is a world of difference between these two churches.  The lower basilica almost had a cave like atmosphere, with minimal windows mounted high up in the walls.  Our Mass was in the chapel nearest the main entrance.  Our choir sang for the mass of course, and even our tour director got into the act by doing the readings.  Of note was a portable organ that was wheeled in that is said to have been over 600 years old.  Its keys aren't painted white like modern instruments; instead a bare wood finish is left.  Unlike Venice, the mass was said in a fashion that is more like we are used to in the States.  In fact Venice is the only place where the priest faced away from the people.

After mass we had some time to explore the Lower Basilica on our own.  This included a trip to the crypt of St. Francis, a very simple affair, reflecting the saint’s values.  Another member of our group discovered a high tech spin on an old tradition. Coin-operated votive candles. Instead of trusting people with matches, the person merely inserts a coin and a candle is automatically lighted for them.   After touring the rather dark surrounds of the Lower basilica, we exited out into the square for further instructions.

 

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