EATING DANTE

I arrived at Assisi at around 10 am. This town is tourist central, and it was mobbed already. I couldn’t find a place to park closer than a mile away, and it cost me five Euros. Then I had to take a bus to the base of he hill atop of which lies the town.

I had done a tremendous amount of walking on this trip and my knees, particularly my left one, had been aching, so much so that at times I found it difficult to sleep. So, when I got to the base of the hill, I knew I was not going to walk up to the top. As no cars were allowed up there, it was walk, or take a cab. There was no shortage of those, so I flagged one and rode to the top of Assisi.

The city is of course the spiritual and temporal home of the Franciscan order, both sisters and priests. St. Francis of Assisi was one of the more peculiar Roman Catholic saints. He lived around the 12th Century, the privileged son of a wealthy father. At some point in his early 20s, he decided to chuck all that and become a mendicant priest, one who wandered the countryside, preaching and living off handouts. He preached the virtues of poverty, trying to convince other priests and the church hierarchy that the Church was too wealthy and worldly, and should renounce earthly possessions and power.

Needless to say, that was something of a hard sell, and while Francis won the hearts of the poor, his church superiors were less than receptive to his message of hair shirts and short meals. He nevertheless founded an order of priests, brothers and sisters who were sent into the world for centuries following. The popular image of St. Francis, promoted by countless Mass cards and other religious images, is a saintly sort of person who wandered off into the woods and talked to the birds. I recall clearly from childhood an image of St. Francis in a forest glade, holding forth to animals that surrounded him and appeared to be listening with rapt attention. Even to my child’s mind, that sounded odd, since I thought only crazy people talked to animals.

The taxi dropped me off at the top of the hill and I stated exploring. Franciscan sister and priests were everywhere. I stopped into the Basilica of St. Francis hoping to get pictures of the magnificent art above its multiple altars. At the moment, though, a priest was celebrating mass and I feared that taking pictures right then might have gotten me arrested. Further into the town, the Church of St. Francis – yes, everything in the town is named after the saint – was open and empty. On the outside, the church appeared huge,
people. The church’s altar art was nevertheless magnificent, and the three altars looked magnificent. The main altar had an incredible stained glass window behind it, showing religious themes in mosaic. The colors were brilliant.

Assisi is headquarters for the Franciscan order, and there were priests, brothers and sisters everywhere on the streets. The majority wore the traditional Franciscan habit, the brown hooded overrode belted around the middle with a white, knotted cord. In a few cases, I spotted less traditional garb such as the cuffs of blue jeans peaking out from the bottom of the habit and cross trainers on feet.

At the bottom of the hill were lines of tourists buying religious trinkets from sellers’ portable shops. It was kind of jarring, seeing that commercialism exploiting the religious faith of people but it was everywhere in Italy, even at St. Peter’s in Rome.

At the far end of the line of trinket sellers was a snack stand. I wandered over there thinking to get a bottle of water. There was no one behind the counter, so I sat down and looked over the menu, which included hot dogs. I was intrigued. What would an Italian hot dog taste like? When the counter guy came back, I ordered one. It was quite a bit larger than the typical American dog, fatter and longer. The hot dog tasted a lot like bologna, the cold cut named after the city of the same name. I asked the counter man about it. He spoke pretty fluent English and explained that hot dogs in Italy weren’t made from scraps such as pork snouts, lips and cheeks like they are in the States, “that’s why they tasted so much better than American hotdogs.” And they’re better for you, he added.

I couldn‘t dispute that last part, but I didn’t agree that it tasted better. As I said, it tasted a lot like bologna, not a particularly good taste when served hot.

I caught a bus back to my car and drove back to Trevi. I got to bed early. The next day I was set to head to the Adriatic, to a small seacoast city called Pesaro.