Italy - A Trip to Assisi - Jack and JR's version 2025-05-02

Asissi seemed like the town to spend more than just a day or a couple of days to visit. Early in our planning, we discovered Calendimaggio, a four day festival of pageantry, re-enactments, and musical traditions. Asissi was also of interest to our friend Jack, so we decided we would all meet in Asissi for the festival. We were unable to purchase tickets online, so when we met up with our friends in Arezzo the prior weekend, our plan was for Jack and I to take the train up to fron Arezzo and buy tickets.

Worth noting here that train tickets were only about ten Euros each way and something less than an hour ride, so not as big of a deal as one might expect. Buying tickets, however, turned out to be more complicated. The old city as a bit of a trek from the train station and about one hundred fifty meters uphill, so we opted for a taxi. We were quoted twenty euros to Piazza di Comune, but with others also waiting for cabs, he offered us $5 apiece for a shared ride, quoted 15 euros each for the first couple and another 15 for the second couple. When we took a taxi back, the total was only 13 Euros! Buyer beware.

Piazza di Comune was about as crowded as any place I have seen since we have been here. We checked the information office for tickets, were directed to another place in the piazza, then another, then another. Frustrated we returned to the infomation office where they contacted someone to get tickets cor two Americans. Sold out. I'm not sure that was all deliberate on their part or just the way it was. If  the crowd a week before was any indication the last thing they needed was more tourists crashing their own little event that they have been doing for almost one hundred years. 

I think we forget at times that these are communities where people have lived together for hundreds of years before we came to visit. We were reminded of that on the way up to the Cathedral of San Ruffino, where St Francis was baptized.

As it turned out the visit was worth the trip. On the way up to Asissi, we met a woman on the train from Germany who was going to be walking the camino from Spoleto to Rome. Caminos are walking paths/trails, not unlike the Appalachian Trail, that take one through the countryside, that can be religiously or historically themed.

At the end of the day, we  cancelled our VRBO and adjusted our plans to spend that weekend back in Firenze with Jack and Ahliana.