Day 6 (Day 5 with Ed) Assisi (pictures here)

(I’m trying to blast these blog entries out as fast as I can so I don’t forget details)

I really love Assisi. A cynic would call it an overglorified religious tourist trap, who’s sole export is St. Francis.

However, as someone who’s been to Lourdes, I know things could be worse. Sure, there are a lot of religious swag shops, but 1) There are some places you can get some really quality items, and 2) The churches in Assisi are amazing, and even without it, the scenery is beautiful.

After getting to Assisi, and surviving a CRAMPED bus ride (with all our luggage) to the top of the town, we find our hostel, and start poking around. We first find the Piazza de Comune (basically, the central piazza in Assisi), and take some pictures of the Temple of Minerva, which became a Catholic Church. We then headed down past Santa Chiara, and headed down to San Domiano. As we headed this way, I told Ed the story of how St. Francis had rejected all of his (and his wealthy father’s) belongings, and left naked from San Rufino, by way of Piazza Comune, and down to San Domiano (the hike we had just finished).

After San Domiano, we headed back up, stopping in a parking lot for some photo opportunities. We putzed around here for a while, then went up to a playground for some more of the same. Afterwards, we went to Santa Chiara, and I regailed Ed with the story of the San Domiano Crucifix, and how it came to Santa Chiara. After that, we just poked around some more, waiting on Sunset. For Sunset, we went down to the Piazza Santa Chiara. This was the best sunset we saw together (though the one in Cinque Terra I saw after Ed left was even better). We got several really good pictures.

Afterwards, we had dinner at this GREAT little hole in the wall place up from Piazza de Comune, and introduced Ed and I to Procicuto e Melon, which is really good.

Day 7 (Day 6 with Ed) Assisi (pictures here)

This was very much a catchup day. We discovered that main town Assisi had no where to do laundry, so we had to hoof it down to near Santa Maria Degli Angeli to get a laundromat. After sorting that out, getting breakfast, dealing with a nice poweroutage at the laundromat, and taking pictures of S. M. d. Angeli, we finally made it back to the hostel. It’s now about 2 in the afternoon, so we decide to make some phone calls, and siesta for a bit, before headding up to Rocca Maggorie to take sunset pictures.

Let’s talk lenses for a second. Ed and I have made some different choices with what to bring/buy for this trip. I’ve got my ‘work horse’ 18-70mm lens, and my new(ish) 12-24mm wide angle lens. Ed has a 28-80mm sigma (with a busted autofocus), his new 17-85mm IS lens (which gives Err99 problems), a 50mm prime lens, his 70-200mm 2.8f (which sits in the bag mostly, because of…), and his 100-400mm IS. The lenses he ends up using mostly are the 28-80, the 50mm, and the 100-400mm… which is huge, but can examine the nose hairs of people thousands of miles away. Whereas I’ve got a similar workhorse lens (18-70mm) for ‘normal’ pictures, and my wide angle. Assisi is where I fall in love with the wide angle for landscape and sunset pictures.

You can’t get this kind of picture (or this) with out it.

Though I do wish I had brought my long lens (70-300mm)… it would have let me take some other pictures.

Anyway. Enough photo geek talk… let’s hear it for some pictures.

Day 8 (Day 7 with Ed) Assisi (pictures here)

Ed and I sleep in a bit this morning, and then we head to the far end of Assisi (15 minute walk) to San Franchesco (Basilica of St. Francis). Ed and I both need a little quiet, alone time with the Man Upstairs, so this seems like a barely acceptable place to do it… ( ).

After we break free from that, it’s well after lunch, so we start scouting places for tomorrow morning’s sunrise.  Unfortunatly, Assisi’s long axis is pretty much due east/west, so it’s hard to find a good place… but we take the stuff over to Rocca Minorie (small fortress) to see what we can get (I’m much less loaded down because my camera is taking this picture).  Unfortunatly, Rocca Minorie is closed to the public at this time… because it would have been great.  So we decide that we’d head up to Rocca Maggorie for the third time the following morning.  We grab dinner, realize there’s some great light left, clime ONCE MORE to the top of Assisi.

Day 9 (Day 8 with Ed) Assisi (pictures here)

Day nine started with sunRISE pictures, then I grabbed mass at San Ruffino (because it was Sunday), and then checking out of the hotel, and heading over to Rome.

Which is where I’ll end this post.