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Tuesday 12th. June 2012 - (Venice - Gubbio)
We left the hotel in Venice at 6:30am to catch the 6:50am train to
Bologne. We arrived in Bologne at about 9:00am, had some breakfast at
the railway station and caught the 10:00am train that was headed for
Lecce but we disembarked at Ancona at about 11:30am. We then caught the
train to Fossato, arriving at about 3:00pm. We had to wait about an hour
before the bus to take us to Gubbio arrived. We finally arrived in
Gubbio just after 4:00pm.
During the trip we had passed through all kinds of weather including
heavy rain. However we were greeted with bright sunshine as we arrived
in Gubbio.
We dragged our luggage uphill for about 5 minutes to the hotel, Grotta
d'ellAngelo. Our room
is on the first floor (no lift) and is bright and airy (No air
conditioner). The bathroom and bedroom are quite large, but not huge.
We then did an orientation tour of the town and dropped into the Jolly
Caffe where the owner gave us long explanations, in Italian, about the beer he had
served us which no one except Marco understood. He cut up all
the rolls and pasta that hadn't been sold during the day and offered
them to us as "nibbles" while we drank. We consumed two different
bottles of San Biagio beer at
€15.00
each and then moved to a restaurant for dinner. Here Terry, Briar, Marco
(our guide) and myself consumed another half litre of house wine and
consumed a couple of the local dishes. The main specialty of this area
are truffles. The town is dominated by the sound of bells. Some of which
seem to ring on the hour and others on the half hour and others which
seem to ring for no particular reason at all.
Wednesday 13th. June 2012 - Gubbio
It was sunny when we woke up and Marco suggested we go to a local
coffee shop for breakfast at about 9:00am. After a quick breakfast we
went to the local supermarket and bought provisions for our lunch. We
then caught the cable car (Birdcage) up to the summit of Monte Ingino, the large hill
that dominates Gubbio. At the top we looked around the Basilica of
Sant'Ubaldo. We watched a short documentary on the annual Race of the "Ceri"
which is held in
the city on May 15 each year. Three teams of about 1,000 people have, what amounts to,
a relay race from the town of Gubbio up the mountain to the Basilica
each team carrying a "ram" which is a large wooden thing weighing about 500 -
600kgs and carried by about 15 members of the team at one time before handing it
over to the next group in the team. The teams are not allowed to pass
another team along the way, but the first team tries to get far enough
ahead the second team that it can enter the walls of the Basilica and close the doors
behind them hence locking the other two teams out. The locals are
passionate about this annual race and we saw three young lads running up
the hill in training. When they reached the Basilica, where the "rams"
are kept during the year, they kissed all three "rams" and headed off
down the mountain again. Apparently this year when the event was held in
May, there were over 50,000 people in the town to witness it and to
cheer their team on!!
We then had lunch at a park bench overlooking the picturesque valley
below. After lunch we caught the "Birdcage" down the mountain into
Gubbio. We wandered the streets looking at the various buildings and
shops as well as the Roman theatre.
Thursday 14th. June 2012 -
(Gubbio - Assisi)
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We checked out of the hotel at 7:20am and had breakfast at the cafe
down the road. We caught the 8:00am bus to Perugia. We arrived in
Perugia just before 9:30am and caught the next bus to Assisi (Santa
Maria Degli Angeli), arriving
at about 10:30am. Soon after we had checked into the Trattoria Hotel da
Elide, we caught a bus to the old town of Assisi.
The main street, Via san Francesco, is lined with shops selling trinkets
and souvenirs but it also passes a number of basilicas that were
significant in the life of St. Francis. As we walked up the hill we
entered the old Roman church in the Piazza del Comune with a very ornate
ceiling (Photo below: bottom left). We then continued
up the hill to the Duomo Di San Rufino which is where St Francis and his
bride to be, San Chiara (Claire) were christened. |
After a quick lunch we had a special guide, Michael from Pennsylvania,
who showed us around the Basilica Di San Francesco.
Francis lived in the hilltop town of Assisi and initially lived the high
life. He came from a wealthy textile family. He then rejected his family and
wealth (As depicted in one of the paintings in the upper Basilica) and
began his quest to live the rest of his life in the manner and style
that Jesus had lived.
"In 1208, Francesco received a gift from the Benedictines: a chapel
called the Porziuncola which is now housed in the Basilica of Santa
Maria degli Angeli, and he also founded his order of the Grey Friars.
After his encounter with Chiara di Favarone di Offreduccio (Clare),
daughter of a noble Assisi family in 1212 he founded for her a second
order, the Clarisse's. Finally in 1221 he founded the Cannara the Third
Order."
St Francis lived between
1182 and 1226 and died of malnutrition and tuberculosis. Construction of the Basilica began about three years
after his death. The lower Basilica was built first and it is quite low
with domed and arched ceilings. It could almost be described as
depressing. Immediately after it
was finished, construction of the upper Basilica was started. This is
light and airy compared with the basilica below, it is tall and is in
the neo gothic style. It has ornate stained glass windows which include
images of St Francis as well as the twelve apostles. When these
were finished the Crypt containing the sarcophagus containing the body of St Francis was begun
directly below the alters of the two Basilicas above.
We had a quiet dinner in the restaurant next door which was part of our
hotel.
Friday 15th. June 2012 -
(Assisi - Spello)
It was a fine warm to hot day. We had breakfast at about 9:00am and
then set off to Spello by train at 10:30am. We met up with Cas from
Sydney at the Spello station and he joined us. Marco showed us the
highlights of Spello and we took numerous photos along the way. We came
across a scruffy marmalade coloured cat who was walking down the hill
with all the tourists as if he had somewhere important to go.
We visited the Basilica Santa Maria degli Maggiore. (photo: Row 3 on
left hand side). Just after midday we settled at the Enoteca Properzio wine bar and began
our wine tasting, the cost of which was included in the tour. We tried a white wine followed by two red wines and
finally a red dessert wine. During each wine we were served simple but
tasty local dishes. It was all very enjoyable, just sitting and relaxing
and watching the world go by as we leisurely ate and drank. There was a
sudden rush to catch the 3:09pm train for the 10 minute trip back to Assisi. We then relaxed
again until we visited the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli. This is a huge
building built to encase and protect a much smaller Porziuncola in which St. Francis
used to
pray.
Meanwhile, back in Assisi, we
visited the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli. The photo at the bottom
right of the Porziuncola is taken from a postcard.
Saturday 16th. June 2012 -
(Assisi - Rome)
We caught the 7:00am train from Assisi to Rome. It was a 2 hour trip
and we arrived at the Rome termini just after 9:ooam. The hotel had
packed us a picnic breakfast consisting of two bottles of water, two
dried pieces of mini toast, four biscuits and an apple.
We dragged our luggage from the station to the Hotel Bolognese and
climbed the two flights of stairs to reception. As the rooms weren't
ready we left our luggage, bought an all day pass for the trains and
buses (€6.00
each) and headed off to see the Catacombs.
Our instructions weren't the best and we took the train to the end of
the Red line only to find there were no bus number 218 to catch. A very
helpful, English speaking conductor at the terminus told us to go back 5
stops on the underground and catch a No. 660 bus. As we waited for the
bus to arrive our numbers swelled and we were joined by Caitlin from
California and another couple from Malta. The bus eventually arrived and
we had about a one kilometre walk to the catacomb and the grave of Saint
Sebastian. For 8.00 we had a guided tour of the catacombs which lasted
nearly 45 minutes. During which time we walked through the dark damp
tunnels and saw some of the ledges that the 100,000 people buried there
were laid on. There are apparently about 7 miles of tunnels in this
area. The tour ended in the Basilica of San Sebastian which is directly
above his grave site in the catacombs.
After the tour had finished we caught the underground again and had
lunch in a restaurant just off the Piazza d'el Popolo. We then walked the
length of the via del Corso, past the Emanuelle ll memorial and down to
the Coloseum. We then caught the underground back to the Termini and
walked to the hotel.
We dragged our luggage up two more flights of stairs to our allocated
bedroom, only to find it wasn't air conditioned. We had the room changed
to one just by the front door and at ground level. So we had to drag all
the luggage back down, but it was worth it for the air conditioned room.
Sunday 17th. June 2012 -
Monday 18th. June 2012
Marco suggested that we could be driven to the Airport, as he had a
contact who could take us there for
€15.00 each, which was only €1.00
more than taking the train. We were picked up at exactly 7:00am from the
hotel, as arranged, and were at Fiumicino Airport by 7:25am. There were
only 12 - 15 people in the queue ahead of us at the Alitalia
international check in counter. This didn't seem a problem as we had
arrived an hour and 20 minutes before our flight was due to leave.
However, it took the two check in personnel 45 minutes to process those
in front of us and by this time the queue behind us had grown to about
50 people, and some people were becoming quite agitated. When our
turn came to check in, I mentioned that they seemed a little short
staffed and the assistant's reply was:- "It's OK, Sir, it is always like
this on Sunday ... Your flight is boarding now through gate C10. I can
only assume, as our flight was less than a quarter full, that many of
the passengers on our flight were still left standing in queue waiting
to check. We rushed through the security check, which thankfully proved
to be uneventful. I think we were the last to board the bus that took us
out to our plane. The whole event at the airport had been so
lackadaisical that I felt so uneasy I checked with the cabin crew, as we
boarded, that we were actually going to Athens.
On arrival at Athens we collected our luggage, pleasantly surprised that
it had arrived with us. We then checked in at Etihad. There was no wait,
no scowling faces nor casual indifference, only smiles as our luggage was was
directed towards Melbourne and Adelaide, and our boarding passes issued
for Abu Dhabi and Melbourne.
All was going well until we got onto our connecting Etihad flight in Abu
Dhabi. We were greeted on the plane and then we sat on the tarmac in the
plane for two hours. The reason for the first delay was that the air
space to the east of Abu Dhabi was too crowded. Then we waited another
hour while a plane in distress landed. Finally we took off. The pilot
made up one of the lost hours two hours but we still missed our
connecting Virgin Australia flight. Etihad provided accommodation for
about 30 people who missed connecting flights at the Holiday Inn at
Tullamarine. We were given dinner and breakfast at the hotel, but we
would rather have been at home. Our Virgin Australia flight to Adelaide
is now at 7:10am on Tuesday.
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