Assisi Questions
 

Can one get around Assisi easily without a car? We hope to spend a few days there.
Would we be better off taking a planned tour from Rome and does anyone have experience doing this?

Everything in Assisi is best seen without a car: since for tourists, the historic centre of the city is car-free, having a car is actually a nuisance.

Some sites associated with St Francis (of great spiritual, but limited artistic, interest), in the hills above the city require walks which some might find a stretch - more coming back down again than getting up. The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, after which the city of Los Angeles is named, below Assisi is easily accessible by bus from the city. I THINK there are buses to the uphill sites.

I really can't see the point of "a planned tour". Just get on a train with a decent guide book, get off at Assisi station, get the bus up to the main city and walk around

. I THINK there are buses to the uphill sites.>

Yes i have taken a bus to where St Francis talked to birds - some place a few miles outside Assisi.

Note that the Assisi train station is some distance from the historic center. You will have to take a bus or a taxi.

We did this as a daytrip from Rome - we used Rick Steves as our guide. We took the train, then a public bus to the top of the hill and walked down, ending at the cathedral. I'm not sure we saw every sight - yes, I think there is another church a bit outside of town that may have been accessible by town bus, but what we did see made for a full day.

I think there are tours run from Rome, might not be a bad idea but a bit pricey. Assisi is really worth more than a day trip - I hope to return one of these days and spend more time but if you are pushed for time, better to at least make a day trip to see the cathedral than to not get there at all.

Thanks for all this help. We are hoping to spend a few days there so all of this advice will prove useful.

Yes, you do not need a car. Buses or taxis can take you to the sites that are further away but most of the sights are within walking distance.

Tt

"walked down, ending at the cathedral."

Within the area bounded by the city walls, the cathedral is at the top (the city slopes downhill for about a kilometre), and, though a beautiful, modest-sized and restrained Romanesque building, is a pretty secondary tourist sight for most people. However, it is where Francis, St Clare and the Emperor Frederick II were baptised (their font's still there), and where Clare first heard Francis preach - so by the standards of almost any other church on earth it's of colossal historic importance.


The church you walk down to (still a few hundred feet over the plain where the station and Santa Maria degli Angeli are)is the Basilica of St Francis: a colossal building, Italy's most visited pilgrimage site (if you remember that technically, St Peter's isn't in Italy), the burial site of St Francis and the repository of a huge proportion of all the great works of art created in the early Renaissance. There an argument that the building of the Basilica actually stimulated the artistic Renaissance of the 13th century, which at first was almost entirely about painting this Basilica's walls.

The contrast between the scale and opulence of the Basilica and the teaching of St Francis and millions of subsequent Franciscans (and the characteristic Italian Catholic bigotry against dogs which Italian Church bureaucrats ban from the building that houses Francis' tomb without even being aware of the irony) is the perfect metaphor for the Church's perpetual internal contradictions.

jryan,

I spent 1 nt in Assisi (unplanned) and 2 half days sightseeing. I really liked the town and churches, but the Basilica was where my eyes crossed and I hit church over load. I was happy to have a second chance at it the next day!

I could see spending a couple days in Assisi, but not more than that without a car. Do you plan to visit any of the other towns in the area? I loved Spello (stayed 2 nts), Montefalco, Gubbio....but I had a car. Driving around was delightful!