Umbria: land of quiet spaces and silence

What would Umbria be without the yellow of its wheat, without the green of its forests, or without its fields of sunflowers? And yet in winter this little Italian heartland is as if transfigured by fogs, snow and above all silence. The most daring tours, far from the voices of summer, become adventures for whole people again, and move down from the eyes to the heart. This may be why we want to begin our excursions by visiting the places that most speak to us of the great son of this land, Saint Francis of Assisi.

Assisi, then. Or maybe not. It's better to begin from the end: from Santa Maria degli Angeli, where a disproportionately large basilica for the village and for everything else in Umbria encloses in it the Porziuncola, the chapel Saint Francis chose as his home and where he founded his order. And he died here. Anyone who prays at the Porziuncola will be heard, it is said. We will not leave without saying a prayer.

We can now move on to Assisi.
While we are still in the plain, we will be caught between two fires: the cupola of Santa Maria degli Angeli to our rear and the basilica of Saint Francis above us at the edge of the hill on which the town has settled. Before we pass its walls, a brief detour will take us to the monastery of the Saint Damian, where the cloisters preserve the memory of the crucifix that spoke to Saint Francis in 1205.
And we are not surprised to learn that the saint dictated the Song of the Creatures among these olive trees.

Find your farmhouse in Umbria!