Bettona and Forgiano hills.
Towards Assisi and the Umbrian valley
Although the whole Umbria is pervaded by the Franciscan
message, it is clearly that around Assisi is possible to
find the strongest traces of his earthly path, as well as
the memory and the current feature of his message. Francesco
d’Assisi was born in a propitious context to what
would have been his human and spiritual adventure, but his
voice is characterized by an extremely original clarity.
His message is revolutionary, it talks about renounce, self-spoliation
as a conscious choice of living away from the socially accepted
rules, freeing from the possession logic, poverty as perfect
imitation of Christ. The poverty of Francesco is not only
an historic condition, but above all a mystic one, and so
total and absolute. 
The renounce of Francesco, as will say Albert Camus, is
a renounce to world for something bigger in which is included
the nature, its elements, its hardened forces, plants, animals.
Francesco opposes a society characterized by exclusion in
order to affirm the divine presence in all creatures. We
can imagine this simple man, while going through Assisi
or going up the Prison Hermitage between Assisi and the
top of Subasio Mountain, place-name that derives from the
“prison” sensation that the loneliness and the
silence of that place stimulate in him, while going to the
Porziuncola, around which will arise S. Maria degli Angeli,
while going to Gubbio by walk, through that marvellous Peace
Route that, passing through Valfabbrica takes to Gubbio,
totally reopened on the occasion of the Giubileo of 2000.
We
can ideally walk with him, through this luminous lands,
among this hills which still today are full of meditation
communities, men and women who are looking for. Here is
the sense of life, without sense if it isn’t a common
path. Chiara is Francesco’s sister in the sanctity:
she, too, following the Franciscan precept, in her life
passed in the silence of enclosure, try to reach the spiritual
perfection through the poverty practice. For a peaceful
and regenerating stay, you can stop at
GIRASOLE, cottage of XVIII century, surrounded by hearty
sunflowers fields.
)