Umbria to Tuscany, mmmm - different!

I thought I'd posted a section of our time in Assis but can't seem to find evidence of that so let me cast my thoughts back 3 days. As I said the drive to Assisi was glorious,and driving into the tow itself was hair raising, with steep narrow streets just about as wide as our tiny Lancia five door. Our accommodation inassisi was with Annelise and her family in two lovely old fashioned decorated rooms, both with a gorgeous view onto red roofs and with a gap in two buildings that gave us a wonderful view of the patch work Umbrian countryside far below. Every now and then the strangely different but beautiful singing of birds was joined by bells of differing pitch from various churches around the town. The streets were so clean, the town was just perfect. A picturesque little piazza in the centre had a big fountain with cool, cool water, and it was here that we sat for ages late into the evening, along with everyone else. Brothers in brown cassocks were everywhere and so friendly, I chatted to one from Bosnia. The Basillica of San Francesco is actually three churches on top of each other which was quite extraordinary. At the bottom was the tomb of St Francis, quite an inspiring and dedicated follower of Christs etching. There were relics of his just next door to the lower chapel above the tomb. His coat, sandals, scratchy head dress etc were al on view and quite amazing to see how things that old had been so well preserved. Again the murals that adorn the lower and upper basillica were breathtaking, depicting the life of Jesus and St. Francis, and then there was the Judgement day painting which Caitlin was particularly interested in. We attended evening prayers with the brothers and with the beautiful singing made it a memorable and moving experience. The upper basillica is of Gothic design and this prompted an interest in architectural designs from Gus. Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Gothic and all that, a great lesson for him and has established some sort of bench mark I think for him for the rest of the trip. We all agreed we should have had at least two nights in Assisi and were very sad to leave.
Travelling comes with ups and downs and a language missunderstanding led to us being slapped with a R390 parking fine which made us feel horrible. Caitlin gets affected by this sort of thing, our big -soft hearted little angel. Umbria is quite built up in comparison to Tuscany which we drove to from Assisi. We drove through the forested hills to get to Siena and found the campsite outside the city with ease. Thanks again Kerry and Rhoda.

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Location:Viale Michelangelo,,Italy