Assisi is One of the Best Places in Italy to Visit
When you look up from the valley floor to the hill town of Assisi, perched on Mt Subasio, the first impressions are lasting and impressive. The towering walls at the north end of town, the Rocca Maggiore, The spires of the basilicas all stand above the valley harkening back to the thirteenth century. Assisi is one of the Best Places in Italy to Visit.
Assisi is one of the most beautiful of the hill towns in Umbria, and sacred ground for tens to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Famous for figures like St Francis and St Clare as well as painters and poets Assisi has a history going way back into antiquity. Settled in the iron age and influenced by the Etruscans Assisi became a Roman Municipium in 69 A.D., was conquered by the Goths (c. 545A.D.) and finally falling under the influence of the Lombard Dukes of Spoleto. Assisi formed an independent (Ghibelline) commune early in the 12th century and fought with Perugia as well as the Hohenstaufen Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa. At the end of the 12th century St Francis was born (c.1198 A.D.) and from the 13th century Assisi fell under Papal protection. Much of the look and feel of Assisi comes from this period of Church rule and you can easily visualize life here in the high medieval and renaissance periods.
Today, Assisi maintains its vast boundary walls, the powerful castles of Rocca Maggiore and Minore, as well as the beautiful Basilica Di San Francesco, the …
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