Perched on a hillside in the heart of Umbria, Assisi draws visitors who have no particular interest in religion and promptly converts them — not spiritually, but architecturally, historically, aesthetically. The medieval streets are largely car-free, the pink stone glows in the afternoon light, and the valley below stretches out in every direction. Most visitors arrive by bus from Rome or Florence, with stops at Santa Maria degli Angeli and Piazza Unità d'Italia. Give it a proper day, ideally two, and it will earn its place at the top of your Italian itinerary.
What to see in Assisi
Roman Forum and Archaeological Collection
Four metres beneath Piazza del Comune lies a remarkably preserved Roman forum in Assisi, accessed through the crypt of the Church of San Nicolás. A glass walkway stretches over 100 metres above the original 1st-century remains — funeral urns, sarcophagi, stone markers — offering a genuinely striking view of ancient Asisium.
Sanctuary of San Damiano
A short walk — roughly 2 km — from the town centre, this modest Franciscan sanctuary is where St Francis is said to have heard Christ's voice and where St Clare lived for 41 years, founding the Poor Clare order. The original cloister, garden and monastic cells survive intact, and the atmosphere is noticeably quieter than the busier sites in town.
Hermitage of the Prisons
Set within woodland on Monte Subasio, 4 km from Assisi, this 15th-century Franciscan hermitage retains its medieval church, cloister, cells and the caves where St Francis is said to have prayed. The surrounding natural park adds to its appeal — it's well worth combining with a walk up the mountain if conditions allow.
Assisi Abbey
San Pietro d'Assisi is a Benedictine abbey first founded in the 10th century, its striking Romanesque façade punctuated by three rose windows. Inside, 14th-century Gothic funerary monuments, original frescoes and an early Christian sarcophagus make this one of Umbria's most rewarding Romanesque churches — and one that many visitors walk past without stopping.
Casa del Larario
Uncovered by chance in 2001 during restoration work, this 1st-century Roman residence retains original marble fixtures and fine-quality frescoes. Visits require prior arrangement. Alongside the nearby Roman Forum, it pieces together a clear picture of daily life for Assisi's wealthier inhabitants during the Imperial period — far more vivid than most Roman sites of comparable scale.
Museum of the Treasure of the Basilica of Saint Francis
Within the Basilica of San Francesco complex, this treasury holds centuries of Franciscan reliquaries, sacred metalwork, medieval textiles and donated artwork — including pieces by Lorenzetti alongside Flemish and Italian paintings. It sits alongside the basilica visit itself, making it an efficient addition rather than a separate detour. The collection is more substantial than the modest entrance suggests.
Monte Subasio
The sedimentary mountain rising above Assisi now functions as a regional park, home to the Eremo delle Carceri hermitage and a Geo-Palaeontology Laboratory displaying local Mesozoic fossils. Its spiritual significance as a retreat of Saint Francis sits comfortably alongside its appeal as walking country — the views back over Assisi are particularly good on a clear morning.
Pilgrims' Oratory
This 15th-century chapel in the historic centre once sheltered pilgrims travelling the religious routes through Umbria. Inside, frescoes by Matteo da Gualdo and Andrea d'Assisi — a student of Perugino — have survived in good condition. It receives a fraction of the footfall of the main sites and is better for it. Worth ten quiet minutes of anyone's afternoon.
Audio guide for Assisi with Guipock
An audio guide for Assisi makes a genuine difference here. The city's layered history — Roman, medieval, Franciscan — rewards context, and walking between sites without any background information means missing the connections that make Assisi coherent rather than just scenic. Guipock's Assisi audio guide app is built around that principle: depth without the group-tour format.
The audio is produced using high-quality generated audio available in multiple languages and regional accents — en-GB, en-US, en-AU, de-DE, fr-FR, es-ES and more — so every member of a group hears commentary in the accent they're most comfortable with. There are no headsets to hire, no shared devices, no waiting around.
Navigation works via a GPS-guided map that tracks your position as you move through Assisi's streets. When you reach a point of interest, the app alerts you so you can open the guide at that moment — at your own pace, without being hurried along by a fixed itinerary. The winding lanes of the historic centre suit this approach particularly well.
Before leaving your accommodation, use the offline download feature to save the full content to your device. Once downloaded, the guide runs without any mobile data — useful in a hilltop town where signal can be unreliable and international roaming charges add up quickly.
Travelling as a family? The family code means a single purchase covers the whole group: each person uses the app on their own device, in their own chosen language, simultaneously. And for younger visitors, the children's mode delivers the same tour with age-appropriate language, shorter commentary and details selected to hold a child's attention — the medieval fortress and the Roman underground forum tend to go down particularly well.
