Firenze 2006-2007: Florence and Assisi

Monday, December 04, 2006

Florence and Assisi

This was another weekend to stay here around Florence as we have finals coming up here this week. I slept in on Friday and got up to go to Café Liberta right before it was closing to us. From there I came back to the house got a shower then decided to go back to bed for a while. I then got up and went to the Christmas market in piazza Santa Croce for lunch. West, Conner, and I all got bratwursts with fries, then apple strudels with vanilla sauce for desert. After that, we walked back through Florence and back to the villa. I spent most of the afternoon playing ping pong or studying. For dinner, we went to Spera’s and had pizza. It was a fairly early night, and then on Saturday once again, I slept in.
When I got up on Saturday, I went to Café Liberta once again, then came back to the villa and studied for a bit. Then it was back to the Christmas market once again for lunch. We had to hurry back this time as we were going to play soccer with Leonardo, the Humanities and Italian professor. We met him at the Parco Casicne at 3, warmed up a bit and then played 11 on 11 soccer until the sun went down. Leonardo was pretty good, but the game was played without any real organization, so the five of us Americans there who didn’t really speak soccer lingo Italian were kinda confused. We all had fun and got a great workout as we had to run a good 2 ½ miles to get there, then play and then run back. When we got back, we got cleaned up and had a guys night out. Ten of us guys tried to go to Spera’s again, but it would have been an hour wait or so, so we went to the Red Door and got pizza and pasta there. We then went to Finnegan’s, and Irish bar, watched some college football and then came back to the house.
I got up early today and went to Café Liberta before heading to the train station to get a train to Assisi, with the dual purpose of giving myself a good 5 hours to study alone on the trains, and getting to see Assisi. I made it there a bit after 10 and immediately took a bus up to the center of town and wandered around until I found the basilica. I went into the museum/crypt first, looked around at the various works they had there, including a Caravaggio and a Martini work. After that, it was into the basilica. Mass had just ended, so I was lucky to get in at all. I saw the frescoes and the elaborate tombs there, as well as a lot of animal statues dedicated to the animal lover St. Francis. From the basilica, I went up to a fort above the city for some amazing views of the city and the surrounding... clouds. Assisi is on a hill, and about midway through the city there was a thick layer of fog across the valley below stretching as far as I could see. It was so thick that it just looked like snow. After looking around the fort and at the views from there, I headed down through the fog that was so thick that I could not see the church of St. Francesco until I was within 50 feet of it. I saw the church and went in. This church is actually one church built on top of another, so I went into the top one first. The whole thing was frescoed with stories from St. Francis’ life as well as stories of the new testament. It was one of the most impressive series of frescoes that I’ve even seen. After walking around the upper church, I walked downstairs into the lower church. I looked at the church and then headed down into the crypt where relics and the body of St. Francis lie. For some reason, St. Francis’ tomb was more of a spiritual place for me than was the Vatican. Maybe it was the fact that the tomb and the whole town had an air about it that was peaceful, without the thousands upon thousands of people that would have surely been present in Rome. From there, I went to the church of Santa Clara, saw her remains and saw the church that had been mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1997. There were frescoes had mostly fallen, with just small remnants remaining in random places. It was neat to look at because they really stood out against the blank walls around them. After that, I walked down a little ways out of the town to a church named San Daminano, a church that St. Francis apparently rebuilt because of a vision. It was a nice walk through an olive grove covered in fog. From there, I had to head back to the station because there was a partial train strike that day, and the train that I had wanted to be on was cancelled, so I had to take an earlier one. I studied on the train once again, and made it back to Florence in perfect time for dinner. After that, it was a bit of studying, some football and then bed.
This morning was the religion final, which was pretty easy, now I’ve got over 24 hours off before my next final, Humanities tomorrow evening.