We woke up to the alarm at 7A (Aviva didn’t sleep through the night but I made it most of the way). We ate, showered, checked out of the hotel and grabbed a cab to the rental agency. And we had another crazy ride right across Rome! We got to the car rental place and rented a Mercedes C180 – very nice ride for a cruise around Umbria and Tuscany. We drove out to Assisi, only missing one exit. Aviva would have made our taxi drivers proud as she tooled out of Rome. The drive was quite nice – the road twisted through hill towns like Trevi and Spolento; we pulled off a couple of times to take pictures and stretch. We also stopped at a McDonalds outside Spolento to get a pop. Things were fine until we got outside Assisi and realized that we lacked a good map and that the exits from SS75 were not marked with the street names, which were what the directions from Mappy had.

A view from the highway of Spoleto on the way to Assisi

We managed to get to Assisi, but we didn’t know how to find the hotel, and Assisi is like a section of the computer game Adventure – “you are in the middle of several twisty passages that all look alike.” We ran out of road at one point and had to back down a very narrow road for a ways (we came within 3 feet of a 100 foot cliff). We finally found the hotel, the Hotel Priori, and checked in – the view from the room is wonderful!

The view from our window in Assisi

We went to three churches; the first was San Chiaro, the church commemorating Saint Claire. The body of Saint Claire is inside the church.

The facade of San Chiaro

Saint Claire resting within San Chiara

During our walk, we saw a number of niches of religious art.

A religious niche along our walk

A religious niche along our walk

Then we stopped into San Rufino, the church for Saint Rufino, of course. He was the first bishop of Assisi.

The facade of San Rufino (Aviva is taking a picture in the foreground)

We then went to the Temple of Minerva, one of the best preserved Roman temples in the world. It was converted to a church, and the inside is busting out with baroque decor – yech!

The facade of the Temple of Minerva

We ate at Trattoria Pallotta; we sat next to two other Americans from Washington, D. C., here to vacation after a ceramics trade show in Bologna. Aviva liked her food – I thought it was okay but not the best I’ve had.

Entry to Trattoria Pallotta

The room is cold, since they don’t turn the heat on til November. But we’re here and there’s lots to see and do. We fell asleep watching the fourth episode of “Homicide: Life on the Streets” on DVD on my laptop; Aviva had a hard time hearing the audio.

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