Touring in Assisi

We took a morning train from Florence to Assisi which is the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in the town in 1208.  We hired a taxi driver to take us around to see the major sites of the area.

The Rocca Maggiore dominated for more than eight hundred years, the citadel of Assisi and the valley of Tescio, constituting the most viable fortification for their defense. The first documented date for the  fortress is 1173. You can only view the outside of the fortress.

 One of the churches that we visited was Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was not allowed to take pictures on the inside of the churches in Assisi.

In the caves on the slope of Monte Subasio just outside the walls of Assisi, St. Francis  (1181-1226) and his followers established their first home at the Eremo delle Carceri (Carceri Hermitage). He often returned here during his life to pray and contemplate. The word Carceri is from the Latin carceres and means "isolated places". St. Francis first began coming to this beautiful place in the forest in 1205. At the time, the only building here was a tiny 12th-century oratory. Francis lived alone in a cave, where he prayed fervently and did penance. Soon other men followed him to the mountain, finding their own isolated caves nearby in which to pray. - Nancy