Saints and Spa days {A Weekend in Assisi}

Here are my instructions for how to spend a perfect 36 hours in and near Assisi.

Escape from Rome before 4pm on Friday afternoon. Stop at the truck stop in Orte for gas and a Neopolitan pastry.

Crowd source dinner suggestions from some of your most knowledgeable friends.

Find a hotel (or better yet plan ahead and book a stay in the nearby countryside)

Have a fireside dinner of pastas that are topped with duck and blueberries and local wine and olives and porcini mushrooms, at Trattoria Pallotta, tucked away in a frescoed alley off the main piazza.

Wake up early and have breakfast at the thrice recommended Bar Sensi

Visit the crypt of Santa Chiara - known in English as Saint Claire - Who was made the Patron Saint of Televsion in 1958 by Pope Pius XII. 

Visit the simple San Damiano, passing an olive grove full of grazing sheep.

Spend the morning at the elegant and luxurious Nun Spa Museum. Laze in steamy rooms and massaging pools and drink herbal tea.

Have lunch in the spare, light dining room of the Nun Restaurant. Order local craft beer and modern interpretations of ribollita and fried bacala and the (never found in Rome) plates of scallops with guianciale and cauliflower cream.

Walk off lunch and spa lounging by taking the long way to Basilica San Francesco with the added bonus of unexpectedly running into friends from Rome.

Go back around, at least three times, to visit the Giotto Fresco cycle.

Catch the sunset casting it's fiery pink glow on the stripy Santa Chiara.

Take a Sunday morning drive to the hills above Assisi to the slopes of Monte Subasio and see children sledding and snowcapped mountains and the first of the spring crocuses.

Wind your way back down and up again to the pretty town of Spello

Buy some olive oil and grappa from the master salesman in the main Piazza.

Walk the via Guila that circles town - start by going right and not straight off the piazza if you want a more downhill than uphill climb.

For lunch head to Trevi and make a beeline to Piazza Mazzini for lunch at La Vecchia Posta. Order plates of fresh ricotta and tomatoes and spicy, clove scented pasta with wild boar and a perfectly grilled slices of rare tagliata.

Head back to Rome, collect the tired teenager from the airport and head home for a Sunday evening at home catching up on the Daily Show and Nashville. In honor of Santa Chaira, of course.

Trattoria Pallotta
Vicolo della Volta Pinta, 3
075 812 649

Nun Spa Museum
Via Eremo delle Carceri, 1
+39 075 815 5150

Osteria La Vecchia Posta
Piazza Mazzini 14
0742-381690