Despite confirming that they welcomed dogs La Chiacchiera seemed surprised when Melek and Mable walked into their restaurant. The Maitre D soon recovered her poise and seated us at a table which in retrospect could have led to disaster. As we looked at our surroundings, immediately adjacent to our table was a “tower of chairs”. Some interior designer had balanced about 10 chairs on top of one another and then at various levels had placed wine bottles and glasses. It would have only taken a passing dog to upset Mable and the whole lot could have come crashing down.
One of the reasons for choosing La Chiacchiera was that the online reviews were excellent, including Italians saying it served the best pizza they had ever tasted. One of the secrets, apparently, was to leave their dough to prove for 48 hours. Both of us agreed that our pizzas were among the best we’ve tasted and all of those have been Italy. As we were leaving the restaurant at 9.15pm they were telling new customers that they were not serving any more pizzas that evening and that they would have to chose something else from the menu a sure sign that their dough is specially made and limited.
This morning Basil rattled and crashed towards Assisi. I have to say that the rural and even some of the main roads in Umbria are some of the worst we have come across anywhere. The road surface is actually more uneven than the unmetalled roads we used in Finland. To make matters worse SatNav obviously blew a diode overnight because just as we were approaching Assisi he suddenly started leading us miles in the opposite direction until he eventually told us to go down a street which said no entry. I decided to take some pressure off the poor chap by turning round and just following my nose. Assisi is not difficult to miss, a large town made of pink stone sitting on the side of a mountain.
We were unable to find any Basil sized spaces in Assisi itself and so we had to settle for parking at the foot of the hill, which since Assisi sits at 450 metres (1,500 feet) meant we had a long steep climb before our site seeing could begin. Sarah and I only really realised how steep the climb was on our way down later!
The Rough Guide had warned us that Assisi had been spoilt by over commercialisation. In the summer I am sure this is true, but on a Monday in early April we were lucky to find it pretty quiet.
The highlight of any visit is St. Frances’ Basilica. It turns out that it is one of those buildings which lives up to its reputation. The exterior is impressive but it is inside the church, which is built on two levels, which really takes your breath away. Built only shortly after St. Frances’ death in the early 13thCentury both the lower and upper church are stunningly decorated. Most famously the entire walls of the upper church are covered with frescoes of the life of St. Frances by the pre-eminent artist of his day, Giotto. Apparently at its busiest the upper church can be horrendous with crowds constantly having to be told to be quiet. Today there were few people visiting and it was quiet enough that I could hear the calming singing of Franciscan monks which is played in the upper church. In short the highlight of this trip so far.
For the rest of our time in Assisi we wandered around the lovely pink stoned streets and other than getting ripped off at €9 each for a sandwich (a very good sandwich I have to add) it was a very pleasant place to visit. The inevitable Palazzo dei Consoli was impressive and adjacent to it was the still standing fascia of a Roman Temple of Minerva.
Franciscan monks, of course, wander everywhere around the town in their rough brown habits. Modernity is intruding a little into their lives. We saw monks with long hair (they don’s seem to be tonsured any more) and I smiled as a watched a young monk cross a piazza whose sandals were clearly Birkenstock! But neither of us saw a monk with a mobile phone, which is not what we experienced with Buddhist monks in Cambodia last year!
Back at our favourite aire in Bevagna someone had taken what we think of as “our spot”, but there are so many areas of grass around that we have found somewhere almost as nice.
