Assisi sits on the western slope of Monte Subasio in Umbria, holds about 28,000 people across the commune and only a few thousand inside the walls, and has been a destination for eight hundred years for one reason: Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone, born here around 1181, who gave away his inheritance, founded the Franciscans and became the patron saint of Italy. UNESCO listed the town and its Franciscan sites in 2000.
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The Basilica di San Francesco is the reason most people come, and it is two churches stacked on each other. The Upper Church holds the cycle of twenty eight frescoes on the life of Francis attributed to Giotto, which is among the most consequential works in the history of European painting: it is where medieval art starts behaving like the Renaissance. The Lower Church holds Cimabue, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, and beneath both is the crypt with the saint's tomb.
The 1997 earthquake damaged the basilica badly, killed four people inside it and shattered Cimabue frescoes in the vault into fragments that took years to reassemble. The restoration is one of the great conservation efforts of the last century, and knowing it happened changes how the building reads.
Two practical facts. The dress code at the basilicas is enforced, not advisory. And the town is built up a steep hillside, so every walk is either up or down.
This guide covers the basilicas, the walk to the hermitage, the seasons, safety and the full packing list.
The Dress Code, and the Basilicas
Shoulders and knees must be covered to enter the Basilica di San Francesco and the Basilica di Santa Chiara, and people are turned away at the door every day in summer.
That means no vest tops, no shorts above the knee and no bare shoulders, for everyone. A large scarf solves it instantly and is what most visitors end up carrying. Photography is not permitted inside the Basilica di San Francesco at all, and the stewards enforce it; the frescoes are light-sensitive and the rule is absolute rather than a matter of flash.
Beyond the two basilicas, the Piazza del Comune holds the Temple of Minerva, a first century BCE Roman façade with six Corinthian columns still standing, absorbed into a later church. The Rocca Maggiore, the fortress above the town, gives the view down over the Umbrian plain and involves a steep climb. San Damiano, below the walls, is the small church where Francis is said to have heard the crucifix speak, and it is quieter and plainer than anything in the centre, which suits it.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Eremo delle Carceri, and Monte Subasio
The hermitage above the town is the best walk here and the one that most needs real footwear.
The Eremo delle Carceri sits about four kilometres above Assisi in a fold of Monte Subasio, among holm oaks, where Francis and his companions withdrew to pray. You can drive, and you can walk up from the Porta Cappuccini, which takes around an hour and a quarter of steady climbing on a stony track with roughly 400 metres of ascent. The walk is the point: it moves from town to woodland quickly and the hermitage itself is tiny, austere and, if you time it away from the coaches, close to silent.
Above it, Monte Subasio is a regional park of open grassland and beech woods with paths across the summit ridge at around 1,290 metres. It is exposed, and the weather up there is not the weather in town.
For the classic view of Assisi itself, the one on every photograph with the basilica's arcaded buttresses rising above olive terraces, you want to be below the town looking up, in the late afternoon.
When to Go
April to June and September to October are the right months, and Assisi is small enough that high summer feels genuinely crowded.
Umbria has a continental climate: hot summers reaching the low thirties, cold winters with frost and occasional snow, and long comfortable shoulder seasons. Spring brings wildflowers on Subasio and the Calendimaggio festival in early May, when the town divides into two halves and competes in a medieval pageant that is genuinely local rather than staged for visitors.
The Festa di San Francesco on 3 and 4 October is the major religious event and fills the town. Christmas is quiet, cold and atmospheric, with a large nativity tradition across Umbria.
Whenever you come, note that Assisi receives an enormous number of day visitors and pilgrimage groups, and that they arrive mid-morning and leave late afternoon. Staying overnight gives you the town early and late, which is when it is worth being here.
Is Assisi Safe for Women Travelers
Assisi is a small, prosperous pilgrimage town and it is about as safe and easy as travel gets in Italy.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Italy. Its guidance concentrates on petty theft in crowded tourist areas and on the ZTL, the limited traffic zones in historic centres that catch drivers out with automatic fines months after the trip.
In a town this size the crime picture is close to empty. Pickpocketing is possible in the crush outside the basilica at peak times and that is the whole of it. A woman walking alone in the evening here, including up the dark lanes to a hotel, is doing something completely unremarkable.
The realistic hazards are the gradient and the weather. The streets are steep, cobbled and polished, and wet stone on a slope is what actually injures visitors in hill towns. The walk to the Eremo is a proper walk, not a stroll, and people set off in sandals. Monte Subasio above is exposed, and summer thunderstorms build over it quickly in the afternoon.
Healthcare is excellent and the reciprocal arrangements are worth understanding before you need them. A UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which is not the same as free and does not cover repatriation or a private clinic. Travel insurance sits on top of it rather than instead of it.
The Assisi Packing List
Covering up, which the basilicas require
The simplest solution is a large lightweight scarf that lives in your day bag and goes over shoulders at the door. Beyond that, plan on knee-length or longer and sleeves of some kind for any day that includes a church, which in Assisi is every day.
Footwear, which is the real decision
Steep polished cobbles in town and a stony four-kilometre climb to the hermitage. Walking shoes with genuine grip cover both, and if you intend to go up onto Monte Subasio proper, bring boots. Merino wool socks for the ascent. Sandals are wrong for everything here except an evening in the piazza.
Base layers
Umbrian churches are cold inside in every season, and the contrast between a 30°C piazza and the Lower Basilica is abrupt. A merino base layer handles that swing and the one between afternoon and evening at altitude. Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron and 160gsm with no synthetic blend, and a merino wool base layer for women is the right base for any month.
Mid layer
A fleece mid layer, for the churches, for the evenings and for Subasio. This is a hill town and it is cooler than the Umbrian plain below it.
Rain and wind
A packable rain jacket for women. Afternoon thunderstorms in summer build over Subasio fast, and spring and autumn bring frontal rain.
Winter, and the small things
A merino wool beanie from November through March. Packing cubes if you are touring Umbria, since you will be moving between hill towns every day or two. A refillable bottle, because Assisi has public drinking fountains. And a torch, because the lanes above the centre are dimly lit.
Essential Resources for Women in Assisi
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
Non-emergency police: the Carabinieri on 112 and the Polizia di Stato on 113. A theft must be reported in person to obtain the denuncia your insurer will require.
Tourist police: no separate force, though Assisi's small size means the local Carabinieri station is used to dealing with visitors.
Main hospital or clinic: Assisi has a local hospital for minor matters. The nearest full hospital is the Azienda Ospedaliera di Perugia, the Ospedale Santa Maria della Misericordia, about 25 kilometres away, with a 24 hour emergency department.
Official health authority: the Italian Ministry of Health, salute.gov.it
US State Department travel advisory: the Italy advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Official tourism authority: the Umbria regional tourist board, and italia.it nationally.
Basilica dress code and photography: shoulders and knees covered at both basilicas, enforced at the door. No photography inside the Basilica di San Francesco at all.
Solo women safety assessment: Assisi is one of the easiest places in Italy to visit alone. It is small, affluent, heavily visited by pilgrims and families, and the evening streets are quiet rather than empty. There is nowhere in the town a woman needs to avoid, and eating alone is entirely normal in a place where a large share of visitors arrive singly or in religious groups. The precautions are simply the ordinary Italian ones: watch your bag in the crush outside the basilica at peak hours, and take the usual care with an unattended phone on a café table. What is far more likely to affect your trip is the ground. The streets are steep, cobbled and slick when wet, and the descent is harder than the climb. If you walk up to the Eremo delle Carceri, treat it as a hill walk rather than a stroll, take water, and turn back if a storm builds over Subasio in the afternoon, which in summer it frequently does.
Reading On
For the country-level picture, start with the Italy travel guide for women. For why merino handles the jump between a hot piazza and a cold basilica, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
