Maybe You Don’t Need Therapy. Maybe You Need Three Days Walking Around Assisi

Three days without checking emails or notifications before breakfast. Without cramming the weekend with plans. Without that nagging feeling that you should always be doing something productive before you’re allowed to enjoy your day. And the car? We can do without that, too.

The mission: avoid deadlines like the plague. The starter kit: a backpack, a decent pair of walking shoes and Assisi as a base. The plan: wander the lanes of one of Italy’s most iconic medieval towns, follow trails connected to St Francis, raise a glass with strangers, and let the Umbrian countryside do the rest.

This isn’t a pilgrimage, and it’s certainly not an endurance trek. Think of it as a three-day reset that doesn’t require a spiritual awakening or hiking poles. There’s enough walking to clear your head and get your body moving, but enough comfort along the way to actually enjoy it.

The first bit of good news is that we won’t need to get behind the wheel for this trip. We’ll arrive in Assisi by train: the station is about a 10-minute bus ride from the historic centre.

For the next three days, we'll stay at Ostello Bello Assisi Old Town, inside the walls of the centro storico. From there, we’ll set off on foot to explore the best of the city, then head further afield on the following days and follow trails out into the Umbrian countryside.

We’re in no rush: there’s no race to tick off every monument and museum, and no hardcore hiking itinerary designed for people who think a rest day is a sign of weakness.

We’ll see the city’s most beautiful and iconic sights, walk between town and countryside, duck into whatever osterie and cafés catch our eye, then head back to the hostel in the evening tired and happy, ready for a bite to eat, a drink and a few stories from fellow travellers.

The timing is pretty much perfect: in 2026, Assisi is marking the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis.

Travel companions are welcome but entirely optional: chances are, we’ll make a few new friends along the way.

Our 3-Day Assisi Itinerary:

- Day 1: Assisi’s historic centre, its piazzas, medieval lanes and UNESCO-listed sights: the Basilica of St Francis, the Assisi Municipal Picture Gallery, Piazza del Comune, the Basilica of St Clare and the Cathedral of San Rufino, followed by the Porta Perlici area, the Roman amphitheatre, and Rocca Maggiore.

- Day 2: We'll walk in St Francis’s footsteps, reaching the evocative Eremo delle Carceri, the surrounding Umbria landscapes, and the San Damiano Sanctuary.

- Day 3: Spello, Foligno and Bevagna, three of Umbria’s most beautiful towns, and an easy way to spend a day beyond Assisi.

We’re giving the whole first day to Assisi. A UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000 and forever intertwined with the story of St Francis, this hilltop town draws a steady stream of visitors from all over the world.

We’ll join them, but only after breakfast on the hostel terrace, with Assisi’s rooftops spread out behind us.

After a roughly 10-minute walk, we reach our first stop: the Basilica of St Francis. Give yourself at least an hour to explore the Upper and Lower Basilicas, visit the saint’s tomb, and take in masterpieces by Giotto, Cimabue, Simone Martini, and Pietro Lorenzetti.

Then comes the first decision of the day: do we head into the green scenario of the Bosco di San Francesco, at the foot of the basilica, or make our way back towards the historic centre? If we choose the latter, we take Via San Francesco and start climbing towards the heart of Assisi.

Along the way, we can stop at the Assisi Municipal Picture Gallery, housed in Palazzo Vallemani, to see works by Giotto and Perugino before heading to Piazza del Comune. This is where some of Assisi’s most important buildings flourish: the Temple of Minerva, Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori and the Torre del Popolo.

By now, with tourists, pilgrims, and locals weaving through the square, it’s probably time to call it lunch officially. What’s on the menu? We go for torta al testo, strangozzi with truffle and a few other Umbrian specialities like baci di Assisi, delicate almond biscuits traditionally made with chocolate and nuts. Then it’s time to get back to walking.

In the afternoon, we step inside the Basilica of St Clare, a must for anyone drawn to Assisi’s art and history, before reaching the Cathedral of San Rufino, one of Umbria’s finest examples of Romanesque architecture. From there, the route takes us towards Porta Perlici, one of Assisi’s historic gateways, and the Roman amphitheatre, whose elliptical shape is still visible amid the medieval streets.

If we’ve still got some energy left, we can climb up to Rocca Maggiore, the fortress above the town, for sweeping views across Assisi and the valley. If our legs are calling it a day, we can leave it for another time. For now, it’s back to the hostel for an aperitivo, a few drinks and some good conversation with fellow travellers.

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After a first day of piazzas and monuments, it’s time to leave the historic centre behind. First stop: the Eremo delle Carceri, tucked away in the woods of Monte Subasio. From Porta Cappuccini, we can walk there along trail 350, which climbs for around 3.5 km. Alternatively, until 1 November 2026, Line E buses run from central Assisi to the Eremo and San Damiano.

This is not exactly a stroll on the flat, and the climb to the Eremo calls for a decent pair of shoes and a bit of stamina. We’ll take it slowly, though: the idea is to reach the top feeling as if we’ve earned the view, not as if we need to book a massage for tomorrow.

Set among the trees, the complex includes the Church of Santa Maria, the convent, the cloister, several chapels and the cave where St Francis is said to have slept, complete with its stone bed and the tiny cell where he would retreat to pray. A lovely woodland path through the holm oaks also leads from the Eremo to the caves once used by Francis’s companions and the Chapel of the Magdalene.

This is probably the closest we’ll get to a proper retreat on the whole trip, and you don’t have to be religious to appreciate it. Francis came here seeking silence and solitude. As for us, we can settle for a few hours without notifications.

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From the Eremo, we head back into Assisi, then set off again in the afternoon for the Sanctuary of San Damiano, just outside the city walls. As we walk there, the streets gradually thin out, the town disappears behind us, and the landscape opens into olive groves and quiet countryside. Francis returned to San Damiano many times, and there he began composing the Canticle of the Sun.

It’s worth going inside the convent, too, and exploring the rooms associated with St Clare and the first Poor Clares: the choir, oratory, dormitory, refectory and small cloister. Before leaving, take a few minutes to stop and enjoy the view.

Then we make our way back to Assisi. Shower, change of shoes, and a reward that’s considerably less Franciscan: a beer and a game of table football at Ostello Bello.

Wake-up call, continental breakfast, no emails to answer (or maybe there are, but we agreed not to check them, remember?), and it’s off to the station.

Before long, the centre of Assisi is behind us, and another stretch of Umbria comes into view. Through the train window, olive groves, fields and rolling hills slip past, a landscape not so different from the one travellers would have crossed in Saint Francis’s time.

Our first stop is Spello, one of the towns along the Way of St Francis linking Foligno to Assisi. From the station, we walk up into the historic centre and start exploring. First stop: Porta Consolare. From there, we climb towards the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where it’s worth stepping inside the Baglioni Chapel to see Pinturicchio’s frescoes. If there’s time before the next train, we can also visit the Villa dei Mosaici, home to beautifully preserved Roman mosaics.

After lunch, we’re back on the train, this time bound for Foligno. We wander around Piazza della Repubblica, stop at the Cathedral of San Feliciano and Palazzo Trinci, then slow things down with a cup of coffee, aperitivo or a slice of rocciata, the Umbria dessert with more than a passing resemblance to strudel, before catching the train back to Assisi.

Nevertheless, we may fancy extending the trip, and there’s yet another perfect place to add to the map: Bevagna, a beautiful Umbrian town where time seems to have stopped somewhere in the Middle Ages, among stone palazzi and Romanesque churches. There’s an Ostello Bello here, too, at Torre del Colle, so even this final day trip can turn into another night away, another round of drinks, and a few more new friends.

…and the world won’t have fallen apart without you. The good news is that, in the meantime, you’ll have walked around Assisi, followed in St Francis’s footsteps, eaten well, explored a little of the Umbria landscape and raised a glass with people you didn’t even know three days ago.

An existential transformation and a miraculous return to inner balance may still be a way off, but that was never the point. The goal was much simpler: to switch off for a few days and see what happens when we stop turning our free time into another to-do list.

And something is fitting about doing so in 2026, 800 years after St Francis’s death. Assisi has been associated with values of simplicity and connection for centuries. Maybe, for a few days at least, we can see what it feels like to embrace a little of it ourselves.

You don’t need to disappear for weeks to find your rhythm again. Sometimes three days, a backpack, a comfortable pair of shoes and somewhere like Assisi are enough to get you started. The Inbox can wait.