Pace e bene - Assisi

After leaving Cecilia’s farm outside Greve-in-Chianti, we spent a night outside the Tuscan village of Castellina and then headed south towards one of my favourite places on earth – the home of St Francesco, or St Francis, Assisi. This oasis of inclusive spirituality truly lives up to its name as the ‘city of peace’. Assisi attracts people of all religions, ethnicities and creeds and brings them together in this UNESCO World Heritage Site on the ancient hill of mystical Mount Subito.

The image of this town which always comes to mind for me is turning down a cobbled stone pathway, pink bougainvillea tumbling out of the apartment windows above, and walking into the billowing robes of a group of sandaled-Franciscan monks hurrying to one of the historic churches. The haunting echo of church bells and the sound of chanting fill the heavens here, and a respect for the holiness of this area an d each other seems to really have an effect on visitors to the town.

With only GPS coordinates to guide us and getting completely lost on the way there, we thought we found our accommodation when we staggered across an old and eccentric abandoned manor house. Thankfully, the broken windows and doors hanging off their hinges was not destined to be our accommodation. We stayed in a truly special agritrourismo, which consisted of a group of ancient buildings on the sole hillock of the flat plain which extends between Assisi and Perugia, two historically powerful and competing towns. This hillock, located as it is by the foot of Mount Subito, was used by the Assisi army as a defensive base for many of their conflicts with the Perugi and the agritourismo is made up of the look-out tower and storage house from the 1100s, and with barracks from 1200s converted into the main house. Gary and I stayed in the historic barn (yes yes, very apt I know). It was fantastic to have such a remarkable base from which to explore this area for three nights, and we really made ourselves feel at home. From spending time in the still and sun-speckled forests and mountain sanctuary on Mount Subito where St Francis and his Franciscan monks meditated on nature and G-d to just picking a dusty country road and following it into the hills (which happened to be a pilgrimage route that St Francis took from Assisi to Gubbio), we savoured and rejoiced in every second.

As I’ve mentioned before, a big part of the agritourismo experience is partaking in the local produce from the farm itself or the surrounding community, and with a vineyard and wine shop right down the road form where we were staying, we had to take a look. SAIO has vineyards across the plains and right up to the foothills of Assisi, and we were lucky enough to have a private olive oil tasting there with one of the sisters running the estate and shop.

We really soaked up the days here, basking in a warm calm that the rich and spiritual air seemed to permeate everything with. The history, the transcendent air and the delicious delicacies all worked their magic on us and it was very very hard to drive away … but Lazio beckoned.