We didn’t know we were preserving a culture—we were just living it
Some days of pilgrimage are guided by carefully planned itineraries. Others begin with breakfast, a pair of comfortable shoes, and the decision to follow whatever catches your attention.
By Friday morning, I think Italy and I were finally beginning to get acquainted.
Not completely. My body still wasn’t entirely sure what time zone it was in, and after everything it had taken just to get to Italy, followed by our first very full day in Assisi, I was still tired. But this was our free day, which meant there was no bus waiting to whisk us off somewhere, no guide moving us from one sacred site to the next, and no carefully timed itinerary to follow.
We got up, had breakfast together, and headed back into Assisi with nowhere in particular we had to be.
That alone felt luxurious.
Assisi is the kind of place that makes you want to wander. The streets are narrow and steep, the buildings seem to rise straight out of the stone beneath your feet, and everywhere you look there is some little doorway, church, archway, balcony, or view that makes you stop. History isn’t tucked away behind museum glass there. People are living in it. They park their cars beside buildings older than our country. They hang laundry from windows overlooking streets people have walked for centuries. You turn a corner and suddenly find yourself standing in front of something ancient.
That is more or less how we found ourselves inside the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
From the piazza, the building still looks very much like what it once was: a Roman temple. The Temple of Minerva dates to the first century B.C., and its classical façade has survived remarkably well. Walk through those ancient columns, though, and you enter an ornate Catholic church.
I loved that.
Maybe it’s the history buff in me, but I kept thinking about everything those stones had witnessed. The Roman Empire came and went. Religious practices changed. Governments changed. Generations were born, lived their lives and disappeared, and yet this structure remained.
Italy kept confronting me with that idea. History doesn’t always vanish when one period ends and another begins. Sometimes the next generation builds right into it. They reuse it, reinterpret it and add another layer.
Standing there, I could see those layers.
Ancient Rome on the outside. Baroque Catholicism within. Modern people like us wandering through both.
There was something deeply fascinating about being able to walk through centuries simply by crossing a threshold.
Nearby stood the Torre del Popolo, the old civic tower beside the piazza, and Mr. John and I decided to climb it.
Now, keep in mind that we were still recovering from the journey that nearly prevented us from getting to Italy at all. Apparently our response to finally getting a little rest was, “You know what sounds good? Stairs.”
Up we went.
The higher we climbed, the more Assisi opened beneath us. From street level, you experience the city one little passage at a time. From above, suddenly you can see how it all fits together: the terracotta rooftops, church towers, stone buildings stacked along the hillside and, beyond them, that gorgeous green Umbrian countryside stretching out into the distance.
And then we saw it.
Way up there.
A fortress.
I don’t remember who said, “We should go up there,” but apparently no one in our party possessed the good sense to say, “No, we absolutely should not.”
So naturally, that became the next adventure.
Aunt Lynn joined Mr. John and me, and we started walking toward the Rocca Maggiore, the medieval fortress perched above Assisi.
Now, I need to explain something for anyone who did not grow up in Louisiana.
We don’t really do hills.
Much of Louisiana is so flat that an interstate overpass can qualify as a change in elevation. So when someone in Italy tells you something is “up the hill,” please understand that the Louisiana translation may be closer to, “Prepare yourself, because we’re about to climb a small mountain.”
The streets just kept going up.
And up.
And around.
And then up some more.
But this was also where I began to see a different Assisi.
We wandered away from the busiest tourist areas and into streets where people actually lived. There were beautiful old homes tucked into the hillside, tiny entrances opening onto stone streets, flowers, balconies and cars squeezed into spaces where I would have sworn a vehicle could not possibly fit.
I was busy taking all of this in.
So was Mr. John.
Except Mr. John apparently decided that looking wasn’t enough.
We passed a man carrying water into his home, and Mr. John struck up a conversation with him.
“Do you live here?”
Yes, the man lived there.
Okay. Perfectly reasonable question.
Then Mr. John asked him how big his house was.
Sir. We are in a foreign country. This man is minding his business, carrying water into his home, and you have now begun what appears to be an unscheduled real estate appraisal.
The man, to his credit, answered him. The house was around 3,000 square feet.
Now I started paying closer attention.
Because the man wasn’t bad looking. He drove a BMW. And apparently he owned a 3,000-square-foot house perched on a hillside in Assisi overlooking the Italian countryside.
As we walked away, I looked at Mr. John.
“Wait a minute. You asked that man where he lives. You asked him how big his house is. You saw the BMW. You asked ALL those questions, and it never occurred to you to ask if he was single?”
Really, Mr. John?
I thought you were looking out for me.
To this day, somewhere in Assisi there may be an eligible Italian man wondering why three Americans stopped him on the street, gathered preliminary information about his assets, and then wandered away.
Opportunity missed.
By the time we finally reached Rocca Maggiore, I had developed a whole new appreciation for medieval people.
The fortress sits high above Assisi, and once you get there, you understand why. It was built for defense and surveillance. From that position, you can see across the city and far out over the Umbrian Valley. Anyone approaching Assisi would have been visible long before reaching its walls.
The wind was blowing hard when we got to the top, and the view was spectacular.
Assisi spread out below us in a way I hadn’t been able to fully appreciate from inside the city. From up there, you could make out the shape of the old settlement and understand how the walls once enclosed and protected the community. Beyond it were fields and roads, patches of green, distant villages and rolling hills fading into the horizon.
I stood there trying to imagine what it would have been like centuries earlier to look out from that same place.
We were looking for beautiful photographs.
The people stationed there once would have been looking for danger.
Same valley. Completely different world.
Inside the fortress, we found a long, narrow passage that led toward one of the watchtowers. It was dim and enclosed, and at some point I began to question why I had voluntarily followed everyone into it, but we kept going.
Then we emerged into the tower.
That view.
It was one of those moments when you stop talking.
The valley seemed to open in every direction. The wind was whipping around us, Assisi was below us, and for a few minutes I forgot about how tired my legs were and how far we were going to have to walk back down.
It was absolutely worth the climb.
Although what happened next certainly helped.
The fortress had a bar.
Yes.
We climbed a medieval fortress in Assisi and were rewarded with wine.
I don’t know who made that planning decision, but I would like to thank them personally.
We sat down, rested our legs, had a glass of wine and enjoyed the ridiculous wonderfulness of where we were.
There I was with Aunt Lynn and Mr. John, three people from Louisiana sitting in a medieval Italian fortress, sipping wine above Assisi after having just interviewed a stranger about his house and failed to determine whether he was marriage material.
This trip really was earning its name: Creole Chaos and Grace.
Eventually we had to go back down.
Going uphill had been exhausting. Going downhill on steep stone streets introduced an entirely different concern: gravity.
It took us another twenty minutes or so to make our way back toward the city center, where we found Mama and Uncle Dan.
They had spent their afternoon enjoying antipasti and wine.
Let me make sure you understand the contrast.
We had climbed a medieval tower, hiked what I maintain was a small mountain, toured a fortress, crawled through a tunnel, fought the wind and made it back down without requiring Italian emergency services.
Mama and Uncle Dan had eaten cheese and drunk wine.
I am not prepared to say who used their free day more wisely.
We joined them, laughed about our afternoon, wandered some more and eventually found gelato and other Italian sweets because obviously we needed to replace all those calories we’d burned climbing the “hill.”
By then, I was beginning to feel less like someone rushing through a pilgrimage itinerary and more like someone actually spending a day in Italy.
There is a difference.
I had time to notice things.
I had time to laugh.
I had time to look at a view simply because it was beautiful instead of because someone told me it was historically significant.
And I had time to be with my family without needing the moment to be anything more than what it was.
We eventually caught a taxi back to the hotel for dinner, and that evening another part of the trip began to take shape.
We started getting to know our tour group.
Remember, I had not exactly been Miss Congeniality up to this point. Mama, Mr. John, Aunt Lynn and Uncle Dan had already met some of the group while I was hiding in the airport lounge with my Cuba Libres. Then, when we finally reached Italy, I was so exhausted that I slept through much of the bus ride and skipped the first group dinner entirely.
By Friday evening, however, I was beginning to return to the land of the living.
That was when we really started visiting with June and Nick, Dave and Chris, and Yvonne, who would eventually become my soul sister.
Those five became some of my favorite people on the trip, although I didn’t know that yet.
That’s one of the things I came to love about traveling with a group like this. People who begin as complete strangers slowly work their way into the story. At first you’re learning names. A few days later you’re saving seats for one another, teasing each other, sharing food, checking to make sure everyone made it back to the bus and learning the little things that make people who they are.
There will be much more about them later.
That night, though, I visited for a while before admitting that the kid was tired.
It had been a full day, and I was ready for bed.
Back in my room, I opened the window because the air conditioner wasn’t working.
Not exactly the romantic Italian moment you see in travel advertisements, but there I was.
The evening air came into the room, and somewhere in it I caught the faintest scent of perfume.
It was familiar.
I couldn’t place exactly where it came from, but it stopped me.
My mind went immediately to Aunt Felecia.
She had passed away over a year before, but grief has this way of sneaking up on you when you’re doing perfectly ordinary things. Sometimes it comes through a song. Sometimes through a place. Sometimes through something as small as a fragrance on the air.
I stood there thinking about how much she would have enjoyed all of this.
I imagined her laughing about Mr. John and the Italian homeowner. I imagined making that ridiculous climb with her and enjoying the wine waiting at the top. I imagined her seeing those views and those churches and enjoying the whole adventure right along with us.
Do I know where that perfume came from? No.
Maybe someone outside was wearing it. Maybe it drifted in from somewhere nearby. Maybe memory simply took something unfamiliar and made it familiar because that was what my heart needed.
I don’t need to explain it.
For those few moments, I felt close to her.
And after a day spent walking through a city where centuries sit right on top of one another, where the past isn’t really gone but remains woven into the life happening around it, maybe it made perfect sense that my own past would find its way into the room too.
I had spent the day looking at things that endured.
A Roman temple that survived an empire.
A medieval tower still standing over the piazza.
A fortress still watching over a city that no longer needed its protection.
Faith carried through generations.
Friendships beginning around dinner tables.
And then, in the quiet of my room, love that still knew how to find me even after someone I loved was gone.
That may be what I remember most about that day.
Not any one monument.
The feeling of being alive in the middle of so much history, with people I loved beside me, new people beginning to find their way into my life, and people I had lost somehow still traveling with me.
I closed my eyes that night exhausted, grateful and very full.
Not a stomach full from the gelato, although there had certainly been enough of that, but a heart full from the love surrounding me. Love of family, love of friends and love of God in this truly holy place.
🏛️ Roman temples unexpectedly housing Catholic churches: One
🕰️ Medieval towers climbed despite ongoing exhaustion: One
⛰️ “Hills” that Louisiana people would classify as mountains: One too many
🏠 Strangers questioned about their home’s square footage: One
💍 Potential Italian husbands insufficiently investigated: One regrettable missed opportunity
🍷 Fortress bars discovered: Blessedly, one
🍨 Gelato consumed for cultural research: Necessary
🤍 New friends met: Five very important ones
🌸 Familiar fragrances carried through open windows: One
🙏 Grace received: In laughter, friendship, memory and the feeling that love had followed me across the ocean
I thought pilgrimage would be defined mostly by the sacred places: the churches, saints, relics, Masses and moments of prayer. Those things mattered tremendously, but Assisi was beginning to teach me that pilgrimage also happens in between them.
It happens while walking uphill with people you love. It happens when somebody says something ridiculous and you laugh until your legs don’t hurt quite as much. It happens over antipasti, wine and gelato. It happens when strangers become friends without you realizing it’s happening.
And sometimes it happens late at night, when you open a window because the air conditioner is broken and a familiar fragrance makes someone you miss feel very close again.
Those moments matter too.
Maybe especially those moments.
If you’ve ever caught a familiar fragrance, heard a certain laugh, tasted a particular food or stood somewhere beautiful and immediately thought, Oh, they would have loved this, then you know exactly what I mean.
Grief doesn’t only remind us that someone is gone. Sometimes it reminds us how thoroughly they became part of us.
We carry our people into rooms they never entered and countries they never visited. They show up in our humor, our habits, our stories and the things we instinctively want to share with them.
So take the trip. Climb the hill. Eat the gelato. Laugh at your people. Talk to strangers, although perhaps exercise slightly more restraint than Mr. John. 😂
And when something beautiful makes you think of someone you love, let yourself have that moment.
Maybe that’s one of the ways we continue traveling, together.
Until next time, cousin, take care of yourself, take care of your people, and keep living the Bella Creole Life.
With love and intention,
Cici
✈️ Coming Next
Creole Chaos & Grace — Part Five:
Across the Apennines: Loreto, McDonald’s & Learning to Say Yes
