We managed to get up, showered and to breakfast so we could be moving out at 9:30A (this is quite a trick for Aviva, she’s not a morning person). We stopped in Chiesa Nuova first – its right by our hotel room.

The facade of Chiesa Nuova	Aviva with a statue outside the church
The alter at Chiesa Nuova	St. Francis in Chiesa Nuova

Then we went shopping. While walking through the Piazza de Comune in the center of town, we stopped at the old entrance to the fish market and photographed the grotesques on the ceiling.

Grotesque from the ceiling of the old fish market entrance

Grotesque from the ceiling of the old fish market entrance

We stopped for lunch at a pizzaria, nothing special but it kept us going. Then, we hiked and shopped our way to the Basilica di San Francesco. We intended to take a tour but they stop running regular tours August 30.

The facade of the upper church at Basilica di San Francesco

The basilica is a two level structure – the old church is below the new one. Its situated at the end of the hill the town sits atop, so the view beyond the church is wonderful. Inside are frescoes by Simone Martine, Cimabue and Giotto, among others. We spent three to four hours walking through the two basilicas.

We went downhill to the Chiesa di San Pietro; the church is very, very plain (its just been renovated), and it has an art gallery in the basement.

The facade of Chiesa di San Pietro

Of course, we saw other interesting things to view along the way – its important to pay attend when walking because there are small shrines along the way.

The end of a block was turned into a shrine	A small shrine on a wall
A ceramic store sign (featuring St. Francis of course!)	Another shrine on a wall

We ate dinner at Medioevo, which was just down (and I mean down) the hill from our hotel. The food was excellent and the service was also.

We returned to the room, crashed and burned for the night, after watching again most of the fourth episode of “Homicide: Life on the Streets” on DVD (we brought three and play them on my laptop at night if there’s no english language TV in the bedroom) – I fixed the audio problem by moving the laptop closer thanks to Aviva’s extension cord and then by turning up the DVD Player’s volume in addition to the laptop’s.

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