Friday - Pope Francis

10/4/13. Friday - St Francis Feast Day - A visit with Pope Francis Up at 6 AM dressed and walked down to The Basilica of San Francesco area and found massive amount of pilgrims all ready pouring into the grassy area in front of the main church... All with their special tickets that gave them access to that area. We could not see into the area where all of the chairs were set up for the scheduled 11 AM Mass. The pilgrims, and us from our special viewing point, would be able to watch everything on a huge screen. Saw lots of police and that the archway going back into town was blocked...it was starting to rain so we headed back to our room to enjoy the lovely breakfast provided by our B £ B.

By 8 AM we were back out, with our rain gear on, to find a viewing spot that we could stake out. Our first thought was an overlook that had a pretty good view. But soon we were on our way down to find a better spot. BTW we passed a portable toilet with long lines already and again we were glad our rooms were close. We ended up at the short wire fence, filled with a green hedge, located just above the back edge of the grassy area filled by the pilgrims. Our view was pretty good. We kept inching further and further down the line whenever we got the chance.... Then the guard would come and chase us back...he was trying to make us leave because we were without tickets. He really wanted us in the grassy area, where we needed tickets, or gone but we continued to plead our case that we were Americans and did not have a way to get tickets....then we just keep say we did not understand his Italian. He finally left us alone and we decided then that we would not leave.

We had good standing room with a view of the TV screen where we watched when the Pope arrived in his Popemobile driving up the side and across the front of the grassy area where is stopped and he went into the church. Soon after he finished inside the church and came out the lower level (we could watch all this on the TV screen) Mass was started so we decided to leave our spot and come back to the room for a needed break ... We had been standing for hours.... We watched the Mass on TV in our room. Before the mass had ended and many speeches were going on we made a decision to try for some food before the streets were overwhelmed with people.

Good Choice... We found some good pizza sandwiches to satisfy our tummies and made our way back down towards the church. By sidestepping thru a restaurant we found ourselves right at the far bottom end of the grassy area where very soon a large group of monks were exiting the grassy area holding bowls of hosts that they had been distributing to the pilgrims. They asked us if we would like communion as they had some still left in their bowls...did we.... You bet we did...never did we believe that we would be able to take communion at a mass said in Assisi by Pope Francis today as "we had no tickets". Guess it's called being in the right spot at the right time. After the final blessing, by the pope! we were on our way back to our room to type on our blogs. It's just now 3 PM seems like it should be much later as we have had a very full day.

Our landlady just made Martha's day. We have been complaining about our lack of internet and they just brought her a cord so she can hook her computer up direct into the modem box.....so she is on.... With a slow but working internet connection. This will not work with apple products as I do not have the connection ports that Martha has. But she has said that I can write some email later when she is done. Meanwhile , it may be Rome on Sunday before I can post my blogs.am afraid we are going to run into the same internet problems in Sorrento next week as we do not have internet in our apartment but will need to find it in town.