2 Days in Assisi: A Catholic Pilgrimage Itinerary

1. 1

   First thing, when the doors open

   Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

   Plan on about 1½ hours to 2 h 10 min

   Begin at the end. The Basilica of Saint Francis holds his tomb in the rock of the lower crypt, and the first hour of the morning is the quietest this church gets. The building itself is the great Franciscan contradiction, a vast frescoed monument raised over a man who owned nothing; it reads best as the terminus of his life rather than its introduction, which is exactly how this itinerary uses it.

   Give your time to the tomb in the crypt first, while it is still quiet, then the lower church; leave the upper church and its fresco cycle for the way out.

   Silence is asked for and enforced inside. Mass times and open hours are on the basilica's site, linked from the place page.

   If the day runs short: The crypt and lower church are the pilgrimage. The upper church can be returned to at evening, when the nave is often open late.

   Hours, history and sources→

2. Walk up Via San Francesco into the town, about fifteen minutes, gently uphill the whole way.

3. Pause · Late morning

   Piazza del Comune

   The town's Roman forum, still its living room. The temple front of Minerva, now a church, has watched this square for two thousand years. Coffee here is part of the itinerary, not a break from it.

4. Climb the stepped lanes from the piazza toward the cathedral, five steep minutes.

5. 2

   Midday

   Cathedral of San Rufino

   Plan on about 30 minutes to 45 minutes

   The cathedral keeps the font where both Francis and Clare were baptized, a generation apart. Everything the morning showed you ended; this stone is where it started. The Romanesque facade above the piazza is among the finest in Umbria, and the church behind it is plainer than you expect, which is its own lesson.

   Give your time to the baptismal font, right of the entrance, and the quiet of the crypt below.

   Hours, history and sources→
6. +

   Optional · A short detour

   Santuario della Spogliazione

   Plan on about 35 minutes to 45 minutes

   The church where, the tradition records, Francis stripped himself of his clothes and his inheritance before the bishop. It now also holds the tomb of Saint Carlo Acutis, and the two devotions, eight centuries apart, share one room. A brief visit, and a moving one for many pilgrims.

   Between San Rufino and Santa Chiara, a few minutes off the direct lane.

   Hours, history and sources→ Save this place
7. +

   Optional · A short detour

   Chiesa Nuova

   Plan on about 30 minutes to 40 minutes

   Built, by long-standing tradition, over the house of Francis's family. The cell where his father is said to have locked him is small enough to make the whole story suddenly domestic. Worth twenty minutes if the afternoon is unhurried.

   Hours, history and sources→ Save this place

8. Walk back along the town's southern terrace, ten minutes, the valley opening on your left.

9. 3

   Mid afternoon

   Basilica of Saint Clare

   Plan on about 40 minutes to 1 hour

   Clare's basilica holds her tomb in the crypt and, in a side chapel, the San Damiano crucifix itself, the painted cross before which Francis prayed. Clare's answer to Francis was enclosure rather than the road, and her church, pink and white above the valley, keeps that stillness. The relics of her clothing and hair are kept near the tomb.

   Give your time to the crucifix chapel first, then the crypt; the two together frame the walk that follows.

   Hours, history and sources→

10. Leave by Porta Nuova and follow the lane down through the olives, fifteen minutes descending; the climb back is steeper than the way down.

11. 4

    Late afternoon

    San Damiano

    Plan on about 45 minutes to 1 h 5 min

    The road down to San Damiano leaves the town quickly, through olive terraces, and the noise falls away behind you. This small, low complex is where the crucifix spoke to Francis, where he brought Clare and her sisters, and where she lived, wrote, and died. Arriving on foot, tired, at the end of the day, is the right way to arrive; the place is the argument of the whole itinerary in miniature.

    Give your time to the little church itself, then the dormitory upstairs where Clare died.

    If the day runs short: If the descent is too much at day's end, San Damiano can open Day 2 instead, before the valley.

    Hours, history and sources→

Climb back to the town for the evening. Toward sunset the rose stone of the facades changes color, the day visitors are gone, and the lanes between the two basilicas belong to the people who stayed.

1. Take the bus or a taxi down from the town to Santa Maria degli Angeli, about fifteen minutes; the walk down takes closer to an hour.

2. 1

   Morning

   Porziuncola at Santa Maria degli Angeli

   Plan on about 50 minutes to 1 h 15 min

   On the plain below the town, a great domed basilica encloses a stone chapel the size of a room. The Porziuncola is where Francis gathered the first brothers, where the order was given its charge, and where he died, in the Transito chapel a few steps away. The dissonance between the tiny church and its enormous shell is not a flaw; it is the clearest statement in Assisi of what happened here and how the Church received it.

   Give your time to the Porziuncola itself, then the Transito chapel where Francis died; the rose garden and its tradition can follow.

   Hours, history and sources→
3. +

   Optional · A flat half hour by the fields

   Santuario di Rivotorto

   Plan on about 45 minutes to 1 hour

   A short ride along the plain, the sanctuary at Rivotorto preserves, by long-standing tradition, the site of the first rough shelter of the brotherhood, a hovel kept now inside a nineteenth century church. It is plain, agricultural, and usually nearly empty, which is precisely its value.

   Easiest by taxi or one stop on the local bus; confirm return times before you commit the hour.

   Hours, history and sources→ Save this place

4. Return toward the town, then up: by taxi from the valley, or on foot from Porta Cappuccini for the strong-legged.

5. 2

   Afternoon

   Eremo delle Carceri

   Plan on about 1½ hours to 2 hours

   The hermitage hangs in the oak woods high on Monte Subasio, above the town. The road up climbs hard for four kilometers; the air cools, the valley noise disappears, and what remains at the top is a small stone cleft where Francis and the brothers went to pray alone. Nothing in Assisi asks more effort to reach, and nothing repays it more exactly. Go up in the afternoon, when the morning groups have come down, and let it be slow.

   Give your time to the grotto of Francis and the woods themselves; the point of the place is unbuilt.

   On foot from Porta Cappuccini it is a steady uphill hour and a half. Carry water; there is little shade on the road's open stretches.

   If the day runs short: If the climb is beyond the day, a taxi can take you most of the way up, or give the afternoon to the upper church frescoes and the Rocca instead; the mountain will still be here on another pilgrimage.

   Hours, history and sources→

Come down with the light. From the road below the hermitage the whole plain of Umbria opens westward, and the town you began in yesterday looks, from above, exactly as small as Francis insisted it was.