Peace: Perugia to Assisi

Late Saturday afternoon SYA cancels its participation for the Sunday Peace Walk because of the rain.  Daniel, the kids, and I -- in Perugia since Friday night -- balk at their backing out and buy provisions for the 24 kilometer walk on Sunday.

At 4:30am, Daniel tells me, "I can't do the walk.  I have too much work to do.  I'm going to find a cafe to do my work."  He's got law work for a client back in Boston and his sixth grade English class here at St. Thomas'.

I expect that the kids will be devastated, want to back out without Daniel, want to stay out of the rain.

But when we wake them two hours later, they are anything but deterred:

"SYA cancelled, but we're not gonna be slackers!"
"Let's go!"
"I can't wait to tell them that we did it.  We are so going to do the whole thing!"

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The boys get ahead fairly early on, and Mary, Hannah, and I take our time.  We stop to eat almonds, cheese, raspberries.  The boys call us a couple times an hour to see how far behind we are; to find out if we also got the free Perugina chocolate at one stop (yes, we did!  turns out we could get it free right here without a tour at the factory); to ask where the closest bathroom is (I have no idea).

We walk up and down a country road, through a town, along a road parallel to the highway.  The scenery changes, but somehow, always we can find some green.  We are surrounded no matter where we are on this walk.

Daniel calls to check on us.  He walked two kilometers with us, then returned to the car, stopped for some folks needing a ride, and then drove them back to the walk.  He's not even begun his work.

At 2:30pm (we started at 10am), Sebastian calls and says, "There's a church here!  Everyone is stopping here, and there's music.  It's awesome!  We made it!"

I tell him, "You must be at that dome we can see in the distance: you're at the St. Francis Basilica!  We'll be there soon!"

Many chocolate and water breaks later, the girls and I reach the church.  It's immense.  Inside is a line of people waiting to go into the small chapel in the middle of the church, apparently the original chapel of St. Francis around which this church was built  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portiuncula. A friend told me that there were paintings of the life of St. Francis on the walls; I can't find them, but that's okay.  It's nice to sit, look around, rest our feet.

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We sit outside in the piazza, shoes and socks off, depleted, waiting for Daniel, who has gotten an entire hour of work in today, to pick us up.  We wait some more.  Finally, we catch each other on the phone: he tells me, "I think you're at the wrong church.  Are you at Santa Maria del Angeli?"

He's not kidding and he's right: we haven't actually finished the walk or spent the last hour at St. Francis' Basilica. We are in the comune di Assisi, but we are not at the top of the town, that structure that we could see high up from a distance during the walk, a structure that looked like a fancy fortress from afar.  We're in Assisi, but we're not in the old town of Assisi (I suppose this would have been like if we have made it to Bagnoregio but not over the bridge to Bagnoregio Civita, the old city -- there's no comparison.).

It's the journey.  It's the journey, I remind myself.  Sebastian tells me, "We were  happy before we found out that we were at the wrong church, before when we thought we had completed the walk.  Let's get some gelato."

I tell myself, Get over it.  But gracious, my mood has shifted.  The kids are physically exhausted.  I'm grouchy.

I nudge and nag the kids who have no interest in getting their feet back into sneakers.  We trudge a mile to the train station to meet Daniel, who thinks he can get the Fiat close enough to pick us up.  When we finally see him, the kids collapse into the car.  

Except Mary.  Mary wants to finish the walk.  She wants to get to St. Francis Basilica today.  She said she was doing the walk, and we came all this way to do it, and she wants to finish it.

The Fiat takes off with everyone except Mary and me.  Mary and I, fortified by way too many potato chips and determination, walk fast and hopefully and happily.  We are completing the walk!  Yes!  The final 4K is uphill, and we are just fine.  Happy, even.  Daniel and the kids cheer out the window as they pass us, and we cheer, too (picture above).

The top -- o the top!  This is what I could see from afar on the walk, and I wondered what it was.  The basilica is on the corner of the town; it looks like the top of the cliff.  It takes over the entire corner.  It's immense and majestic.  But when we go in, the ceilings are low and painted, and it almost feels cozy.  A priest is saying a mass.  The final song almost makes me cry and I don't even know what it is, whether it's Latin or Italian.  But it feels familiar, like home.

These guys walked most of the walk on their stilts.  Our goal was not to be behind these guys.

Connor's feet at the end of his walk