I leave Roma at noon on a train, and enjoy a two hour journey through the Italian landscape. I get several seats to myself, and thoroughly enjoy the comfort of enough legroom, beautiful views - I lean back and smile smugly to myself, listening to Pat Matheney and Charles Haden on my MP3 player. Elisabetta gave me some Norwegian sweets and Barbara a magazine. I am really going to enjoy travelling through Europe by train.

When I get to Assisi I just grin. And I keep grinning throughout the day. I walk along almost empty streets, and cannot contain my wonderment and joy at having been so fortunate to have found this place. At one point I was planning on spending Easter in Roma - Geir was on a sabbatical too, and he was in Roma with his family and said Easter in Roma was a great experience. But the Youth Hostel is far from the centre of town and the city will be packed with people. Not to mention that it would be an anti-climax to be by myself here after hanging around with Crazy Dasy 1 and Crazy Dasy 3 (Barbara and Elisabetta).

I'm now in the region of Umbria and it's warmer here than in Roma, and there is a definite countryside feeling all around. Few people and green as far as the eye can see. And it's spring. For my friends from the southern hemisphere this won't mean so much, but for everyone else it probably will. That time of the year when it's been so long since you've been wearing bright and light clothes and sandals. When you can barely remember what it feels like to sit in the sun and just soak up the warmth and the light. When all of nature is just bursting with renewed energy - summer is when nature is in it's full glory, but spring is special because it's the first signs of it. You still have to bring a cardy or a scarf - there is definitely uncertainty in the air. The birds are competing in the trees about making the best spring tune. After a while you have to mow the lawn, and that is a joy in itself. It means there will be a whole season of getting to be outdoors ahead of you, and the smell of freshly cut grass holds so many memories of days spent bare feet in the garden when you were a kid.

In the south of Europe, spring is already here, and all the trees are busting with flowers and it is just so fantastic to feel the freshness of everything. The train station is in a nice area, and I just go for a walk after I've left my luggage in storage. Between some houses I suddenly see a light coloured old city in the hillside - it's the old Assisi town. It so beautiful. Apparently the city is almost the same as when Francis of Assisi lived here. I walk around a bit and just sigh out loud to myself - both from a sense of relief and of joy for the beauty around me. I find my way to Santa Maria degli Angeli, a cathedral in the town with the same name, it's just next to Assisi. After Barcelona and Roma I'm not expecting much, but I am astonished by how big and accosted it is.

I get on the bus to Assisi and the bus driver tells me when to get off. People walking on the street greets him and I gather that there really isn't so many people here. Apart from truckloads of tourists that is. I get off the bus and walk down a little road amongst olive orchards and the view is breathtaking. Ostello della Pace is halfway up the hillside - giving it perfect views, both to the the landscape below and the medieval city above. It's just too much. I don't have eyes built for this stuff. The smell of flowers, herbs and freshly cut grass. There must be hundreds of birds singing in the trees and the sun is warm, but not hot. It is just perfection. I check into the hostel and go to my room where I am happy to share with only two other people. In the garden there are lounge chairs facing the view. The book I'm reading at the moment is fantastic, and I just sigh and shake my head in disbelief. Ah yes, there is the sunset...