We were impressed by the croissants that were served for breakfast. They were large, flaky, and memorable.

I am not sure when we began saying the Rosary together while we were on the bus, but once we began, we said it together on the bus  each morning that followed. Stefano drove our bus  north along the east coast of Italy to Lanciano, the site of the first recorded Eucharistic miracle. The following is from our tour flier: ” According to tradition, a monk who had doubts about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist found that when he said the words of consecration at mass, the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood.” Father Kumar was able to celebrate  a very meaningful mass  just for us in the room where the  miracle happened. Donna and Theresa were the readers.

Then we were back on the bus. At our lunch stop, Nick chose a salad of tuna, olives, cherry tomatoes, and mozzarella balls. When our children were young, our family vacationed in Rehoboth, Delaware, for a week in the summer. Our favorite  restaurant  there was called Nicola Pizza. One of its specialties was a Nic-o-boli, which was their word for a calzone, basically a  hand held, folded,  completely closed  slice of pizza  that is filled with meats, cheeses and sauce. I haven’t had a calzone since then. My calzone in Italy  did not measure up to the ones I had eaten in Rehoboth.

The payment system at the rest stops is very strange. Sometimes you get your food and pay for it, as we do here, but at other times you order the food, pay for it, and then get it. We had figured it all out by the time we had to leave. After Lanciano, our next stop was Assisi,  a hill town in central Italy’s Umbria region, and the home town of St. Francis of Assisi.

After a life of privilege, Francis had a conversion experience and dedicated himself to God,  renouncing his wealth. He is the patron saint of animals, merchants, and ecology. He founded the Franciscan Order, whose members  are committed to a life of poverty, service to the poor, and living in community. Guided by values of peace, justice, and compassion, their work focuses on serving the vulnerable and marginalized through various ministries like assisting the homeless, and they emphasize an “incarnational worldview” that sees God in all of creation.

One of Francis’ early followers was Clare,  a noblewoman who renounced her wealth to follow the teachings of Francis, and  who founded a new order for women that was focused on poverty, in the Franciscan tradition. Both Francis and Clare are extremely renowned saints. We visited the Basilica of Saint Clare, in which the crypt of Saint Clare is kept. Photos were not allowed inside.

Then we went to the Basilica of Saint Francis, which consists of an upper  and a  lower church. The upper church is known for its frescoes by Giotto and Lorenzetti, while the lower church contains the crypt of St. Francis.

For dinner that  night, our first course was  lasagna,  followed by a tossed salad,  and then well done roast beef. Dessert was profiteroles, or as we would say, cream puffs. There was a bar in our hotel that also featured desserts. We shared a cannoli that looked beautiful. The filling, however, was not like any that  I had ever tasted before, either in the USA or in Sicily.

Some members of our group were enchanted by Assisi and wished we could stay there longer.

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