Assisi is reached by driving north of Rome, passing Umbria's beautiful medieval hill towns like Orte, Deruta, Todi and Perugia.

To enter Assisi is to turn back the clock. This beautiful rural area is blanketed with hardwood forests, Mediterranean vegetation and olive groves. Treat yourselves to some breathtaking views of the Italian countryside and the stunning displays of sunrays breaking through the storm clouds. The walled city of Assisi ispretty much intact with stone buildings and several churches filling the inner sanctum. Walk along narrow city streets that allow the visitor's mind to wander and wonder how it must have felt to be Francis back in his day. The streets are lined with restaurants, shops, and inns.

Frescoes of the greatest painters of the 13th and 14th centuries have decorated every nook and cranny of this magnificent churchbuilt under the direction of Bro. Elias in 1228. The Basilica is made up of two churches; the Upper section is adorned by frescoes illustrating the life of St. Francis and the tomb of St. Francis that we were able to visit as well, is located in the lower part. The stark walls and simple furniture was in keeping with the simplistic ways of Francis and his followers.

The heart of Orvieto is Piazza del Duomo, onto which look the town’s most important public buildings and the façade of the Duomo, a masterpiece of gothic architecture with its polychrome marble inlays and dazzling mosaics. The interior of the cathedral contains, among other important works of art, Luca Signorelli’s fresco cycles depicting the Antichrist, Armageddon, the Resurrection of the Flesh, the Chosen and the Reprobates, along with a spectacular Last Judgement in the San Brizio Chapel. Another great artist, Beato Angelico, completed the angels in the vaults of the ceiling. Started in 1290, the Duomo took several centuries before completion.

At the corner of Via del Duomo there still survives the mechanical clock tower that chimed the moments of work and rest for the workmen in the building site over the centuries.

A number of Etruscan remains testify to the importance of the city even before Roman rule. They are the Necropoli del Crocifisso del Tufo burial ground at the base of the plateau on which the city stands – (Loc. San Martino – Orvieto Scalo), and the underground passages beneath the city.

This network of passages was enlarged during the Middle Ages for a number of reasons that ranged from the need to make additional water cisterns to spaces for breeding pigeons. Today these underground passages form almost another city beneath Orvieto. The passages are open to the public with the Orvieto Underground itinerary that also includes the Pozzo di San Patrizio well, a remarkable architectural feat designed for Pope Clement VII in the 16th century by Antonio da Sangallo.
The city’s public art collections are also well worth a visit, and are divided between the Museo Claudio Faina, the Museo Archeologico and the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.