Umbria's pilgrim, St Francis of Assisi

A place where spirituality alternates with amusement. This is the intrigue of Umbria. Retracing the steps of the pilgrimage of Italy's most famous saint, San Francesco, one crosses numerous Umbrian towns and villages, including one named Gubbio. Legend runs that here the saint met and tamed a frightful wolf that terrorised the city.

A few centuries after San Francesco's fearless feat, Gubbio has instead become famous as "the city of the mad". The reason: it's inhabitants confer a kind of mad licence, a licence to be crazy, to anyone who does three turns around the Fountain of Largo Bargello.

Roaming the characteristic streets of Gubbio, one can't help but breathe in a little of this unusual, playful air and perhaps for this reason Gubbio has also become the set of multiple Italian TV soaps, first among them Don Matteo with Terence Hill.

From Gubbio, it's a jump to Assisi, birthplace of San Francesco and spiritual heart of the region. Here rises one of the most particular basilicas in all of Italy. Dedicated to the saint, it's actually built with two churches overlapping each other, the Lower and the Upper. Inside, the frescoes of Giotto and Cimabue, two exemplars of Italian 12th century painting, are spellbinding and the works depicting the life of San Francesco are so exquisite as to wrap any viewer in a real sense of the divine.