We leave Portonovo feeling thoroughly chilled out, so much so that we consider skipping our next planned stop. We are en route to Tuscany but have planned to go via Assisi. We debate whether to miss out on touring round the town wondering if it will be tacky or just more of the same on a less impressive scale to Venice or Verona, but in the end decide to stick to the plan. How glad we are that we did!
Assisi is beautiful, tranquil, immaculate and well worth the stop. Everywhere we look there’s a picture just waiting to be taken. We spend a couple of hours just wandering the streets, soaking up the atmosphere. It’s also obviously set up to deal with vast numbers of tourists with five massive two storey car parks ringing the outer city walls and outdoor elevators to lift the masses from the parking lots to the city gates. It’s been well planned but we are thankful that the car park is practically empty – I’m sure the place would feel totally different with that number of people!
The walk up to the castle is strenuous but well worth it for the expansive views of the Umbrian landscape around us. The huge walls of the town are easily visible from up here, it was clearly an important fortification, not just a place of pilgrimage – although it’s clearly that too, given the number of churches.
It’s somewhere that we could happily return to but for now, we are on the move again to Lucignano in the heart of Tuscany where we will lay down roots for a week or so, visiting Florence, Siena, Arezzo and Orvieto.