Assisi

Assisi is the furthest out of Lucca that we traveled. It is a small hill town in Umbria (also one of the few times we left Tuscany this trip!) It is the birthplace of Francesco Bernardone who later became Saint Francis. Francis founded the men’s Order of Friars Minor and the women’s Order of Saint Clare. Pope Gregory IX canonized Francis in 1228. Along with Saint Catherine of Siena, he was designated patron saint of Italy. He later became associated with patronage of animals and the natural environment.

As you walk through Francesco’s home town, you find loving tributes (and tacky tourist traps) to his life everywhere…where he was baptized, a shirt he wore, a hill he prayed on, a church where a vision changed his life. You can see it all.

Not going to lie, the glow-in-the-dark rosaries and bobble-head friars made me giggle. But even more so, I loved walking through the lanes that offered little pockets of serenity (even with a 6 year old & 2 year old in tow!). I can understand how Francis developed his message of slowing down and enjoying life from seeing the city he lived in (even if he may not have had a gelato shop on every corner in his day).

We started in the cobbled lanes of the town.

Then walked to the old Roman Amphitheater.

Then back into the streets of town. Where someone tried to invite herself in to every house she saw by climbing on their steps and pointing at their doors.

We then stopped at the Cathedral of San Rufino where both Saints Francis and Clare were baptized in 1181 and 1194, respectively. Francis also became a teacher in the church where at one point he taught classes attended by Clare.

There is glass in the floor of the nave of the church showing the foundations preserved from the ninth-century church that once stood here. After an earthquake in 1997, they checked the structural integrity of the building by looking under the paving stones. It was then that they discovered graves previously undetected in the last century and under that level Roman foundations and animal bones which suggests there may have been a Roman temple here which had animal sacrifices.

We continued through town, stopping for pizza lunch (of course, could we eat anything other than pizza on this trip?)

you’ll have to take my word for it that there was pizza on this plate at one point

We finally made it to the Basilica of St. Francis

In the lower basilica is the tomb of Saint Francis.

His remains were buried secretly while the basilica was under construction, and over the next 500ish years people forgot exactly where they’d hidden them. In 1818 they decided to open the tomb to the public, but it then took them over a month to actually find his remains in the tomb.

From the lower basilica you can climb up two sets of winding stairs to the upper basilica. The two are almost completely separate buildings both in structure and style. This section started construction in 1228 and is considered the first Gothic church in Italy. A series of frescoes line the walls of the nave and act almost as wallpaper with scenes of Francis’ life.

A walk back to our car through the outer road led us through the views of the countryside.

And eventually off to dreamland

Siena

Italian hilltop towns are some of our favorite things! So for this installment of Our European Adventure 2.0 we share our time in Siena.

Like so many other Tuscan areas, Sienna was first settled by the Etruscans between 900-400 BC and was inhabited by a tribe know as the Saina. Then during Roman times a town called Saena Julia was founded on the same site as the current city. However there is also a local legend that claims the city was established by two sons of Remus, Senius and Aschius, who fled Rome when their uncle Romulus (fabled founder of Rome) murdered Remus. In this version of the Siena origin story the two brothers were responsible for the adoption of the Capitoline Wolf as the symbol of Siena after liberating the statue from Rome on their escape and also for the cities black and white coat of arms that reflect the color of horse each owned (one black, the other white). But whichever story you prefer Siena is very old!

Our journey to Siena was one of the last places we all visited together before Amanda had to go for her remote working week. So we abandoned the walking tours and Museums and just went "freestyle".

We arrived to Sienna, as we normally arrive in most places, around lunchtime so the first stop of the day involved more pizza. This marks the 14th day in a row the girls have had pizza for at least one of their meals. Definitely going for parents of the year status!

After lunch we let the kids run through the square while we walked around the Piazza del Campo admiring the architecture of the Palazzo Pubblico, the Fonte Gaia and the flags from one of the Contrada's all while wondering what it must be like to join in the festivities of the Palio di Siena. Our visit was just a scant 11 days before the second running of the medieval horse race and after seeing the size of the track in comparison to the square I'm rather amazed they can get 50,000+ spectators into the area.

Not my pic. Found it online ... 11 days later

From the Piazza del Campo we meandered our way through the winding, hilly streets in search of the Duomo.

I love a decorative medieval door

The Capitoline Wolf

We made it to the Duomo and I had forgotten how stunning it is, particularly considering that it was never "finished". The black and white exterior is representative of the city crest and there are a total of 35 statues that adorn the outside of the Duomo including works from Pisano, Donatello and Bernini.

Not exaggerating, I took 68 pictures of this shot. This is LITERALLY
the only one with everyone looking at the camera.

On our way back to the car it was time for ice cream. Unfortunately one of us didn't get to participate.

She'll never take another nap again if she finds out Amanda ate her ice cream.

Bonus pictures of the drive back. The sky was absolutely stunning!

Home of the Renaissance

From our villa in Lucca, Florence is around an hour away by train. Close enough that a few full days in the city made sense but far enough that we didn't feel the pull to go in every day. And while Amanda and I had been before, it was nearly two decades ago and our memories were fond, but perhaps a little fuzzy.

We ultimately decided to go into Florence twice during our stay with one day focused on visiting the Accademia Gallery and the areas north of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore while the second day we explored the rose gardens south of the river and then crossed over the Ponte Vecchio on our way to visit the Uffizi Gallery.

Top-tier museums are not something I had access to as a kid, Dallas isn't exactly a center for the arts, but while we were living in the UK and traveling around Europe a decade ago I discovered an interest in art that I didn't know I had. So getting our girls engaged with culture and the arts has been a focus of our current stay in Europe.

We began day one with a train ride and some pizza. I'll let you guess which girl was more excited about each of these based on the pictures

Then it was on to the Accademia Gallery. The last time we visited it was a quick in and out to see David so this time with a full day to spend in the city we took our time in each of the other galleries within the Museum. Several of the religious paintings were very interesting and there are a number of other sculptures and casts that we got to teach Charlotte about.

I'd be lying if didn't admit to spending most of our time with the throngs of other tourists who came to see Michelangelo's depiction of David. Charlotte is an exceptionally inquisitive girl and always asks dozens of questions when we take her somewhere new. And while that can be challenging at times it's also amazing to watch her engage with new ideas and experience the world as it grows around her. And thankfully, her Mother had to answer today's series of tough questions.

Olivia meanwhile was simply enjoying having her own space in the stroller away from everyone else.

Except when it got really loud...

Our last stop in the museum was the gallery of musical instruments. This was less impressive to me but they did have a couple of the best named instruments every made.

The rest of our first day we spent in search of wine windows, playing at a local park and enjoying the gelato

we found the cathedral instead of wine windows

But we checked off the playground with no problems

And the gelato with even less difficulty

Our second trip into Florence started at the Piazzale Michelangelo where we enjoyed an amazing panoramic view of the city across the river.

We continued our hunt for wine windows as we made our way to and across the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

If you knock on enough of them, eventually one will have wine

Charlotte REALLY liked the jewelry

We realized when checking the photo after that a certain 2-year-old had taken off her shoes
and socks mid-bridge. Thankfully, she'd stored them behind her & we didn't lose any shoes!

Then we made our way to the Uffizi. This is one of my favorite galleries with long main hallways, decorative ceilings and paintings from the greatest painters of their day.

Charlotte was less interested in the Uffizi. I think she likes sculpture more than paintings or it could have just been culture overload so we ended our time at the museum and went in search of wine windows and gelato.

Mom look what I found!

Great job Charlotte!

We closed out our time in Florence with a stroll past the Cathedral on our way back to the train station.

Can't wait to come back again some day!