Here, I finished my all too short loop through Assisi. This store is built into the Hotel Berti, which stands just inside the city walls alongside the (nameless, as far as I know) gate that we saw in image 1998. The yellow sign just to the right reads (in English, curiously) "Stamps & Mail Box", and a red "Poste" box is mounted to the wall a couple of metres further along to the right.

As has been the theme of the last few previous shots, an abundance of pot plants brightens the area up.

A lot of places like this sell things that you wouldn't necessarily want to buy, or which you buy in the romance of being in a place and later think "This is just clutter and junk, why did I buy this?" But there are exceptions!

As soon as I passed through the gate to the left of this shot I re-joined the car park. Running along the hilltop edge of the car park are some tourist shops. You'll find the usual stuff, Italia 1861 baseball caps (see my earlier comments about the Leonardo T-shirts), tea towels ands the like.

I did not have my backpack with me for the stop at Assisi, because backpacks are frowned upon (for obvious reasons) at many tourist destinations. I therefore took my messenger bag with me instead. I had bought it at Strandbags (an Australian retailer) before we left. Made from heavy fabric and with metal fittings, it cost me about 80 bucks Australian, but I figured it would last a good long time. However at this point I realised that a small, light, formless backpack would be a useful thing to have to go to places normal backpacks were not frowned upon. At a market stall here in Assisi I found one at one of the market stalls for a mere dodici euro (12 Euros, about $AUD18 at the time). It was a relatively simple design, with a green canvas material and nylon zips, but it seemed well stitched with a good array of compartments, though it was never destined to win any fashion awards.

You can guess the rest; a clip on that heavy fabric bag failed about two weeks into the trip, though I was able to jury rig it so that I could still use the bag in a fashion. (For a time at least; it eventually became unusable and is now landfill.) However SEVEN YEARS LATER (as of September 2023 when I'm finally publishing these images), the €12 backpack is still serving me as my primary camera gear bag.

It's interesting that the seemingly important (visiting the basilica) can become trivial and irrelevant, while the seemingly trivial (buying a low priced bag from a car park stall that I didn't even think to photograph) can ripple through your life long after the event.

I'm sure that there's a lesson there somewhere.