This past weekend, I took a day retreat to Assisi with a few friends to get out of the crazy city life of Rome, and enjoy nature and relax from my past hectic week. However, much to our surprise Assisi had more tourists in it than Rome does during this time of year, and it was very crowded. The reason I desired to go to Assisi was to reflect upon my faith, and hopefully get to see the beautiful scenery that is offered there. Although due to some minor setbacks at the beginning of the day with our trains, we arrived in Assisi with 6 hours to explore. Within that time we saw the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Basilica of Santa Clara, and the Basilica of San Francesco, all of which are majorly significant churches to Roman Catholics. We began the day wandering Assisi without a map, having no plan, and relying on the locals for directions in Italian.
The first site we went to was the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which is known as the “church inside a church”. The significance of this basilica is that it contains the chapel that St. Francis of Assisi built with his own hands after having his vision of God telling him to “build his church”. St. Francis took this literally and began to build a church by hand, and today it still remains intact but housed by a bigger basilica which was built later on. Additionally, this was the spot in which St. Francis died, and it is home to the Rossetto Garden, which another important miracle in Assisi occurred. During St. Francis’ life he fell into a rose garden and instead of getting pierced by all of the thorns from the roses, the roses miraculously lost all their thorns. Therefore, even to this day, the roses in the Rossetto Garden do not have thorns.
After seeing this beautiful basilica and reflecting there for a while, we moved onto the next site which was the Basilica of Santa Clara (St. Clare). This Basilica houses many of the relics of Assisi that drive people from around the world to visit this tiny town. Here there is the hair of St. Clare, the shoe of St. Francis, and many more, but the most important is the body of St. Clare herself. It was amazing to see the respectfulness people had when they were in the same room as St. Clare. People were dead silent, no one was taking tourist pictures, and everyone was praying before her. Her body was beautifully preserved in the lower floor of this basilica, and in a glass box for all to see and pray to. Below is a picture I got from online because I did not want to be disrespectful to others and take a picture during my time there:
Then finally we made it up the mountain of Assisi to see the grand event of where St. Francis is buried in the Basilica of San Francesco. However, due to important renovations being able to see where St. Francis was not accessible to the public. Although that was a disappointment, the basilica compensated for it with all of the beautiful artwork inside of it. It was incredible, I have a picture below to show how grand and magnificent that church was.
At the end of the day looking back on our day in Assisi on our train home back to Rome, it was incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the founders and martyrs of Catholicism, and I recommend going there. The best part was that it was only four hours from Rome, and was a 12 euro round trip. Assisi is a beautiful town and has so much to offer for just a day trip.
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