A Duck Walks Into a Pub: Day 18: Assisi and Florence

After a relaxing night in Rome, we loaded onto our bus for another long day of driving. Our final destination was Florence, but the tour called for a long stop in Assisi. The small city is known as a religious center in Italy, most notably because of Francesco di Assisi who founded a monastery there. In fact, a few minutes after exiting the bus we began to see monks walking around the city. We had a few hours to explore, so we loaded up with cheap pizza and started walking.

At the top of Assisi is a castle the city rulers built to protect themselves from attacks. When they say the top of the city, they weren't kidding. The trip up included hundreds of steps, steep hills and winding paths until we arrived at the base of the castle. After wandering around some back rooms and old quarters, we trekked up a spiral staircase to the top of the main tower and the view was breathtaking. On the back side were rolling mountains and on the front was hundreds of miles of Italian towns and countryside. We snapped tons of photos before descending back to the bus to continue on to Florence.

As is usual, our hotel in Florence was a bit out of the way from the city center. Nonetheless we grabbed a quick shower and headed into town for a walking tour. We looked around the open market, particularly among the leather vendors (Florence is famous for it's leather). We also got to see some impressive statues and sculptures, since florence is the birthplace of Leonardo di Vinci, Michelangelo and the famous Medici family. Our group and the folks from Connecticut grabbed a nice meal and wandered back through the main square to find an orchestra performing a free concert. We danced around like loud American tourists for a bit before catching the bus back home. Tomorrow, we will see the Duomo and hopefully Michelangelo's David. But for now, it is time for sleep.

Ciao,

Russell