Italia, Days 4-5: Assisi - Pisa

In the morning, I felt a million times better. The mountains of the night before had disappeared and I saw only rolling hills ahead. I ate the free breakfast and chatted with some travelers from Scandinavia, then headed up to see the Basilica of St. Francis. Again, I arrived at the church quite early, so it was still very empty, and I had some quiet time just to sit, meditate and contemplate where I was and what I was doing. Assisi was an important destination for me - it is a very spiritual place, and the St. Francis prayer is my favorite prayer, so I really took my time here. The basilica is famous for its frescoes by many of the big names of the early Italian Renaissance, including Cimabue and Giotto. Pictures are not allowed inside the basilica, but I found one good picture of the interior online that I will include here. It shows the upper basilica, where the ceilings are painted a bright blue with golden stars.

Assisi is my favorite place that I visited on my trip to Italy. While it is totally quaint and beautiful, with all the Medieval buildings of the ancient city preserved, it lacks the throngs of tourists I found everywhere else. Instead, there are many monks and nuns who come here to visit the city and the tombs of St. Francis and St. Chiara. Although I am not religious and know very little about Catholicism, it still feels very comforting and peaceful to be surrounded by so many people of faith. I had such a quiet and relaxing day here. In addition to the Basilica of St. Francis, I also visited Santa Chiara, the church and burial place of one of St. Francis' followers, as well as San Damiano, the monastery restored and used by St. Francis.

So many beautiful views

Sculpture of St. Francis outside San Damiano

One of many shops with religious souvenirs for sale

Late in the afternoon, feeling rejuvenated after a tranquil day, I returned to my hostel to collect my backpack, and headed back to the train station to catch a train to Pisa. I decided to go to Pisa not so much to see the Leaning Tower, but because it is only a 20 minute bus ride from Pisa to the beach, and I really wanted to see the ocean - I believe I hadn't been to the beach since I was in Hawaii ten years ago! I arrived in Pisa around 10 pm and went straight to my hostel, where I got ready for bed. My roommates were really nice - one girl from Austria and the other from somewhere in the U.S., good friends. The girl from the U.S. had studied opera in Vienna, which was where the two had met. They were very friendly and gave me some good advice, especially to wear plenty of sunscreen - one of the girls had a bad sunburn from their day at the beach.

In the morning, I again woke up early and walked through the city to the Leaning Tower. Unfortunately I was too early to enter the church, but the buildings were very beautiful from the outside, and I took some nice pictures. After that, I bought some groceries and headed to the bus station to catch the bus to the sea. I was a little confused about where I wanted to go (I wanted to take a bus in the direction of Lavorno but not actually go to Lavorno (which I did). I had to turn around there and go back in the direction I had come for 30 minutes until I finally reached the beach at Tirrenia around noon. The beach was very crowded and full of men who walked around trying to sell things, which was irritating. Still, it was wonderful to be able to jump in the ocean. Typical of me, I failed to adequately heed the advice of my friendly hostel-mate of the night before, and while I did put on sunscreen, I only used SPF 20 and not the SPF 50 I had available. I also hopped in and out of the water, neglecting to re-apply. Then, I proceeded to doze for long periods of time on both back and front, resulting in a nasty lobster-colored sunburn that lasted several days.

 Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa

Despite the sunburn, it had been another relaxing day. It was nice to just lie around after several days of marathon sight-seeing. When I got back to Pisa, I found a nice little restaurant, where I had a delicious pizza and gelato before going back to the hostel. That night, I had another very nice roommate, a girl from Germany who was heading to Siena ( I was also headed to Siena the next day). She was going to study Italian language for one month before beginning her Erasmus year in Italy. Erasmus is a program for European university students, in which they spend one year studying in another country. I would meet many of these Erasmus students through my host in Siena, who had been the president of the program for four years. But that's for tomorrow...