Assisi

Assisi is a small mountainside town best known for St. Francis. The town is filled with churches, one of them dedicated to St Francis. We stayed in a home that was owned by a couple who owned a restaurant in town.  They treated us to dinner in their restaurant that was built on an ancient site.  They were able to show us how they had incorporated the columns that were thousands of years old. 
The home we stayed in was a part of a castle structure and it said it was built in the 1200s.

We arrived late but decided to trek out around

the city.  The streets are curvy and steep so it is very difficult to see where you're headed.  We decided just to follow the lights and actually wound up at the beautiful St Francis Cathedral at about 10:00 pm.  We were surprised to find that the building was open and wandered in to have a look around.  As we were taking in the beauty of the church, we saw a procession of people headed to the basement--so we decided to follow them. 

Tomb of St. Francis of Assisi

Turns out that the tomb of St. Francis is under the church, or the church was built over his tomb and there was a mass that was about to be held there.  We had mistakenly wandered into a mass at his tomb!  The mass was attended by about
50 people and was read from a bulletin.  As soon as it was over, the worshippers all moved forward to lay hands on his tomb and pray.  That's kind of odd to us, but we later discovered that that has been common for thousands of years. 

Assisi was so beautiful that you forget that most of the structures are medieval.  We have so many areas in the states that are decorated to look like Tuscan villas.  Assisi was the real deal. I kept looking up close to see how they painted it to look so old.  It really was old, but beautiful.   You can see why it would imitated.