THE Q80 MIX

A Kuwaiti Blog For News, Tips and Reviews (and other interesting stuff!)

Back in September when I was in Italy I decided to take a day trip to the town of Assisi, in the region of Umbria. Here are a few snaps that I took along with a brief run down on this beautiful historical town which is a UN World Heritage Site.

Getting There

You really need a car. I rented one from Rome and it took me a couple of hours to get there. Its motorway most of the way and the road signs and directions are reasonably well marked up. Let’s put it this way, I got there without using a map (yeah I know, impressive :) ).

The Sites

The center piece of the town is the beautiful 13th Century Church of St. Francis (Basilica di San Francesco) which you can see in the first photo and from the front in the photo below.  The church is famous for the wall frescos by the painter Giotto. It was severly damaged by an earthquake in 1997 but they have managed to restore most of the damaged areas inside.

Down in the centre of the town, you come across the Main Square (Piazza Comune) which is dominated by an Ancient Roman style church:

When you go to Assisi you get struck by all the wonderful narrow side streets and cobbled buildings where people live and where you find the odd shop or cafe :

 The other thing I noticed were all the traditional flags on the narrow streets leading to the Main Square. And yes, that does look very much like the Bahraini flag on the left!!!:

 The Food

Couldn’t leave without trying some of the local food. As you would expect, the food is really good. But what really grabbed my eye were the fantastic pastries which are a speciality of the town. I have never seen these pastries before. They are filled with delicious dried candied fruit. I had the one on the left which is a mixture of red berries. It tasted every bit as good as it looks…

The Music

Towards the end of the day I came across something pretty amazing. Actually, it was the last thing I would have expected in Assisi. A local street brass band call Fantomatik starting playing a mixture of blues and jazz. And they were so good people started dancing in the street !!

I did actually take a video clip but have given up trying to upload it on this site, so here is a clip of them in action in another town  playing one of the pieces I heard in Assisi - Hit The Road Jack !

Overall

Assisi is a very pretty town which is full of character and is a great place to go for a day trip. The journey there is nice too as you drive through the beautiful Umbrian country side. The city of Perugia (famous for its chocolate) is very close, and that is also highly recommeneded. Both are only a couple of hours from Rome and are well worth the visit if you have time.