Prayers at Assisi

If you’re going to start the day with a prayer, then I guess praying at the tomb of St Francis of Assis must rate amongst the top geezers to pray to… not that I do a lot of praying you understand, but when I found myself confronted with the tomb the emotions of the week sort of took over I guess. The is second anniversary of the death of my son rapidly approaching; that together with all the emotional goodbyes this week had left me feeling a little lost so perhaps prayers might help on both counts! So there I was in a most unfamiliar pose, head bowed in front of the tomb of the man himself ! I reserve judgement on the effectiveness of such sillyness…

Anyway, up with the lark, I arrived in Assisi at 8am well before most of the tour groups had even breakfasted and believe me it was well worth it! I practically had the place to myself, yes, even the Basilica…and the tomb !  It wasn’t until about 9.30 that the main throng started to manifest itself. Another big plus point for Assisi is that all the Basilicas are completely free of admission charge. The only exception to this was the castle for which I was charged a modest 5 Euro… Barcelona please note. A couple of hours just flew by especially once I got chatting to a couple of young American girls at the castle about the Scoots Project… I’m not sure how the conversation got there, but it tured out that they were both doctors and one of them was just desperate for a charity placement in Africa… I might also have even persuaded her to learn to ride a motorbike!!! All in all Assisi is a place I would heartily recommend, especially to any photographers, it really is picture postcard beautiful ( well before the hoards of tourists arrive anyway!)

Once on the road I headed south east, but without the help of my trusty GPS as I’d managed to muck up the mapping last night, so it was back to good old paper maps.. not too bad when it’s dry and not too windy.

leaving Assisi I headed off North east(ish) heading in the rough direction of Bari, camp site weren’t just scarce, they were non existent.. So I did what I love best about travelling; I found a beautiful spot at the edge of a cornfield to set up camp, far enough from the road that I couldn’t be seen and watched the sky explode in a magnificent sunset as I sipped a glass odd the red Vino…