Assisi and Civita di Bagnoregio: Day 5

On day 5, we ventured to the cities of Assisi and Civita di Bagnoregio.

Since I'm not Catholic, I didn't know much about Assisi before we went. I learned that Assisi is the birthplace of St. Francis, and a popular place for pilgrims to visit. We had a tour guide for our visit who taught us more about St. Francis and his life.

The entrance to St. Francis's birth place. It's said that he was born in a stable like the Savior. Apparently when he was born it wasn't uncommon for women to choose to give birth in stables to emulate Mary. Personally I will stick to a hospital!

We visited many churches in his honor, and we even got to visit his burial site. Since these sites are sacred in the Catholic faith, we were asked not to take pictures while we were there.

I didn't know anything about St. Francis beyond there being a hospital named after him in my hometown. It was interesting to learn more about him and the stories around his life. For the rest of the trip, I noticed he was featured in a lot of the artwork we saw--in particular, in image of him receiving the stigmata--identical wounds to Christ.

Later that day we ventured to Civita di Bagnoregio, which might be my favorite place we visited. Here's a distant shot of the city:

It's another hilltop town, but the hill is very steep, and the only way to reach it is to hike up the bridge:

At 6 months pregnant... this was a feat. I was dragging by the end, but I did make it up there! The city really is like something out of a fairy tale, or at least out of history. These days, only 10 or so people are permanent residents. But over a million tourists visit each year, so there were other people around. There's still restaurants and shops operating inside. Mostly we just wandered around marveling, but we also made time to stop for gelato (of course.) I think I had gelato everyday I was in Italy except the day we toured the Vatican.

Civita is incredibly photogenic. Here's some of the pictures we got while we were there: