The best hikes from bus stations around Nature Reserve dei Laghi Lungo e Ripasottile

Elena renovated her grandparents' house alone and created a place where you can feel welcome and comfortable. She is a woman with incredible energy, warm-hearted. She lovingly takes care of her guests. For the pilgrims, she prepares delicious food and is fully committed.

Sanctuary of Grecchio, one of the four shrines of St. Francis around Rieti Valley. Here, Francis depicted the Christmas story with living figures to help the local farmers understand it. Since then, setting up a nativity scene at Christmas has been a custom throughout most of the Christian world. Grecchio is a very special place

Many different representations of the one event, the incarnation of God, which cannot be understood with the mind, are brought together here in images. They are intended to help us to recognize the invisible - God's presence in this world - through the visible sign of the manger.

The sanctuary of Santa Maria della Foresta is one of the four sanctuaries that celebrate the passage of San Francesco in the Reatina valley. According to some, it was precisely here that the Saint composed the Canticle of the Creatures. In this place there originally stood a small church dedicated to San Fabiano flanked by the priest's house alone. Legend has it that, during the period in which Saint Francis stayed here, many people from Rieti went to visit him, often picking bunches of grapes from the priest's vineyard. When it was time to collect the fruits for the harvest, the priest realized that there was very little left, nevertheless, encouraged by Saint Francis, he collected and harvested what little there was, however obtaining much more wine than in previous years. Of this episode, remembered as the "miracle of wine", traces can still be found inside the sanctuary: in fact, inside the domus there are the remains of a tank for pressing wine dating back to the period of the Saint's life.

Above the town of Greccio, in the wooded hills of the Rieti Valley (located about halfway between Assisi and Rome), Saint Francis combined Christmas mass with a nativity scene on Christmas Eve 1223. In some depictions of this Christmas event there is a peculiarity: the baby Jesus is not lying in the manger or in his mother's lap, but is being taken in Francis's arms. Even though Francis is often referred to as the founder of the European nativity scene tradition, there have also been nativity scenes before. But what was important to him was the vivid representation of the event - actually incomprehensible to the mind - that the great, infinite God becomes human. San Francesco connects the divine childhood of Jesus with the celebration of the Eucharist, in which the living God gives himself to us again - this time in the form of bread and wine. “We have come to worship HIM” – that was the motto of the XX. World Youth Day, which was celebrated in Cologne in August 2005. Every Christmas picture, every nativity scene invites the viewer to follow this motto and to emulate the Three Wise Men (the first pilgrims to Christ), Francis of Assisi and all the saints.

The sanctuary of Santa Maria della Foresta is one of the four sanctuaries erected by Saint Francis, together with the sanctuary of Fonte Colombo, the sanctuary of Greccio, and the sanctuary of Poggio Bustone. Source: Wikipedia

This is the place where St. Francis created the first crib of the Christian tradition. The Sanctuary stands in an exceptional position, clinging to the rock and with a unique view of the Rieti plain, nearby Greccio and the Terminillo massif. It can be visited every day and is open from 09.00 to 18.00. Whether you are a believer or not, it is highly suggestive to visit this place, especially during the Christmas period.

The Sanctuary of Greccio is the most famous of the four sanctuaries of the Santa Reatina Valley. Founded by St. Francis of Assisi, symbol and birthplace of the tradition of the Christmas crib, it can be reached via the panoramic climb of Via dei Frati.