Gubbio - Not destined for this trip

When we left Assisi (you can read about it here) sun was still shining and it was pretty warm. After a few kilometers on the road dark clouds started gathering above us. It was not long till it started raining. As the road gradually climbed higher into hills, weather got worse. At one time it was even snowing!
Even though snowflakes melted the moment they hit the ground, we were still surprised. We were definitely not expecting to see snow in central Italy in May.

When we got to Gubbio, it was cold and wet. We started a tour around the town despite the rain. We were hoping for the sun to break through those dark clouds. Unfortunately we had no such luck. After a half an hour of walking the streets of this otherwise charming old town, we were pretty wet and cold. Strong wind wasn't helping the atmosphere either.

After a quick debate we decided to give weather the last chance before moving on and headed for a drink into a local winery. The atmosphere was nice and we took it slow. The wine selection here was really awesome - unfortunately most of the bottles were way over our budget.
Another half an hour and a couple of glasses of moderately priced, but still good local wine later we were sick of waiting and decided to move on.

I suspect we would have liked this old town - perhaps even above others we visited on this trip. Sadly we didn't have enough time to wait for the weather to clear. We had a long way ahead of us and also had to find a place where we could spend the night.
Since I tried to look at the whole situation from a positive perspective, I could see this as a relatively good thing. An afternoon of bad weather drove us to a conclusion that we will definitely have to return to Gubbio when the first chance arises. Hopefully next time we will not be in such a hurry and the weather will treat us at least a bit better.

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Wordless Wednesday: A view of Assisi

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Assisi - the Town of Saints

Assisi is an old hill town just 19 km (i.e. 12 miles) east of Perugia. It is best known as the birthplace of St. Francis of Assisi - founder of the Franciscan order of monks in 1208. St. Assisi is also the patron saint of Italy.
Another famous saint is connected to this area - St. Clare, upon learning of St. Francis, left her affluent home and entered into monastic life. She established an order of nuns still in existence today -they are the Order of the Poor Clares.

The town itself is perched on a 400 meters high hill and looks charming even from the distance. When you enter through one of the gates built into an impressive wall, you can see a huge cathedral, impressive basilicas and there is even a convent. Basilica di San Francesco is filled with spectacular frescoes by Giotto and well worth a visit.

The thing I disliked about this town the most was how crowded it was. This is no wonder since 4-5 million visitors come hear every year. For many of them Assisi is a pilgrimage destination. Since the town is not very large (it only has around 3.000 inhabitants) it is definitely quite a challenge to make them all feel welcome.
I guess it is no surprise, the whole town looked like a one big souvenir shop to me.

Don't get me wrong - it is well worth a visit and one can definitely find some less frequented streets but I simply didn't feel it. The lack of time (only half of a day) could also be one of the reasons for not getting overwhelmed by this old town.

We would have probably liked the several less frequented sites outside of the city walls, but we never got to them (I guess that is why they are less frequented). We had the afternoon of the day reserved for another old town in the neighborhood - Gubbio. More about that in one of my next posts...

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