We have come to Assisi as it is the starting point for a walk. The problem is there was this bloke Francis (Francisco if you are Italian or Spanish) and he followed a cult, the christian catholic cult. This could be interesting!
We actually start the day in Foligno, which is only a few kilometres south of Assisi. Our plan is; leave Dora here, take the train up to Assisi and walk back. It all goes well. The train is local, no high speed for us, it is on time and the journey is only about fifteen minutes up the line. It also costs only a couple of Euros each. Perfect, but for some reason I still do not look happy. Trust me, I was born like that, blame my mother!
Many trains in Italy do not take you to the centre of the town, so we arrived in the outskirts of Assisi. We could have taken the bus, but we have legs, so we use them.
We find this red brick road, leading up to the centre of the town.
And on many of the bricks are engraved names, and where the person was from. What is this all about, we would have to wait for the blog and a bit of research to find the answer because unfortunately the town had not given an explanation, or one that we found anyway.
And there was a reason for that, later trawls of the web showed this was a bit of a scam, where some business has fleeced many unsuspecting people who thought they were helping the rebuilding of Assisi after an earthquake in 1997. Only €200,000 of the €2.5m ever actually got to the project.
No wonder they don’t want to advertise it!
It is a nice walk, and a beautiful day, as it always is in Italia.
And this is what all the fuss is about. Francisco’s pad. Now it is ironic that Francisco is famed because he gave up his middle class life to live the life of a pauper, and they ended up building this grandiose structure for him.
But anyway the village is rather cute.
Lots of tiny streets, clustered on a hill.
You can tell we were preparing for a walk, we didn’t take on the appearance of the rest of the tourists, what with all the kit.
And straight away all the tourist crap. And this little village is full of it.
The basilica (not sure what the difference is between basilica, church, chapel and cathedral) now I know that I could find out but quite frankly, have more interesting things to look into.
The building is as you would expect, a bit like a church really. Obviously, unlike the other tourists we respect the owners wishes not to take photos of the interior and therefore don’t. Anything brilliant about it? Well it had some of his artefacts; chalice, gown etc., which I am sure have all been authenticated and are not complete fakes like the Turin shroud! You have to keep an eye on these churches, they tend to do unscrupulous things, in the name of faith of course.
There is also a beautiful bit of ceiling painted like sky, simple, and with stars.
Nice garden outside, which could be appropriate because Francisco was a bit of a liker of the outdoors, and he liked the birds and the bees, to the extent that JP2 made him the patron saint of ecology in 1979. Which is all very lovely until you start to dig a little; ‘He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God’. Now I have never seen animals praying in church, except maybe at some christmas nativity, nor am I sure how you would get bacteria, insects, birds, mammals and reptiles all to attend, it might start to fill up the emptying pews I suppose.
But a belief in the beauty of nature is no bad thing. Better than the belief in ‘the rapture’, where you are positively looking forwards to the destruction of the planet.
And who wouldn’t see beauty in nature, look at that landscape.
But there is still a problem. ‘It is said that, one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds.” The birds surrounded him, intrigued by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away.’ Why create this crazy fairy tale. What is wrong with him liking birds and liking their song. Is that not beautiful enough?
You see he loves his birds!
And another load of bollocks surrounds a tall tale about a wolf who was harassing some village ‘When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis.’
And people actually believe this rubbish, and travel miles to see it, pay homage to this lunatic. There must be a clinical condition where someone believes they can reason with animals.
Cute storey…..yes for children. Want some more.
“Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil,” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” Then Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had done evil out of hunger, the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly. In return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. In this manner the village was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again. Finally, to show the townspeople that they would not be harmed, Francis blessed the wolf”.
Nice village though, no wolves here.
Francisco was also the first to experience stigmata. ‘Brother Leo, who had been with Francis at the time, left a clear and simple account of the event, the first definite account of the phenomenon of stigmata. “Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ.” Suffering from these stigmata and from trachoma, Francis received care in several cities (Siena, Cortona, Nocera) to no avail. In the end, he was brought back to a hut next to the Porziuncola.’’
It is ironic that with all that pauper lifestyle he was still able to receive treatment in three different cities, each of these treatments failed to deliver and so did his faith. He died of his alleged stigmata. Probably should have used a sterilised implement to make the wounds in the first place!
We walked up through the village trying to find the start of the walk.
Everything in the village related to this deluded character who obviously needed help and treatment.
We find the main square and are able to ask directions.
Luckily, catholics are a little more tolerant than other religions when people so blatantly take the piss out of them.
Is this offensive to a believer? Is this shear mockery? Perhaps it is mockery they deserve.
We find our turn off.
And the main church, we pop in, just another church.
Beautiful little corners. We have left the throngs of tourists back at the shops.
This is the advantage of having the walk as an objective, you get to see parts you otherwise wouldn’t.
We never did find out what that structure was.
And here is our gate out of Assisi and the start of the walk, so over to Susu.
Sources; Wikipedia of course.
GDR
Incrédulo………..
Tampoco soy partidaria de comprar esos recuerdo , que luego estorban en todas partes, pero reconozco que si todos opinaran igual no venderían nada, es una manera de ganarse la vida.
El pueblo ( Asís) maravilloso uno de los más bonitos.
Incrédulo? Si es lo que piensas no te has coscado de la entrada