Tuscan Weekend!

This past weekend was really long and really fun.

It started early friday morning, when 50 AUR students piled onto a bus at 7am. The bus left around 7:30, and we all headed to Pisa, a 5 hour drive. Honestly, there isn't that much in Pisa. It's a typical college town with a leaning tower, a beautiful basilica and a river.

But, there are also a lot of tourists, due to the main attraction:

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, being held up by random people. Also, check out the sky in this picture. It's pretty and fantastic!

So anyway, after walking around Pisa for the morning, and seeing the inside of the church, the group I was with crashed in a restaurant for a while for lunch. We were tired and really cold, and really took advantage of the fact that you cannot get thrown out of a cafe in Italy for lingering too long.

Kelly and I decided to sprint to the top of the tower to see the view, and despite almost dying on the way up (its times like that I wonder if I actually have asthma or if I'm just really really really out of shape), the view was spectacular. And the cloud formations were cool, too.

Pisa, and the entire Tuscan region, is a very mountainous region located north of Rome, and everywhere you look, you can see mountains. It's really cool.

After sprinting up the tower, and almost dying, we met up with the rest of the group, crashed at the hotel for the night, and ate a yummy Italian-style dinner (3 full courses + salad. :P )

We were up bright and early on Saturday to go to Florence, one city I wish I had more time in. Although Rome is awesome and Venice was spectacular, Florence, or the Italian Firenze, is one city i could honestly picture myself living in. I also quasi came up with a thesis topic, but more about that in about 5 months, when I really have to start thinking about it. :P  Anyway, we had a guided tour of the city for the first few hours, then headed off on our own, and the two biggest stops for everyone on the group was.... well..... Do I have to say much more? The other stop was the leather markets that Florence is known for, and they had some really stunning stuff. The museum that houses the nekkid man, by the way, also has a musical instrument room. And they had a few 18th century clarinets. I was drooling.

But in all honesty, wait a day or so, then check out the Picasa album I have posted. ( I need to caption a lot of the pictures- then go look at them.) The medieval architecture was fantastic, and our tour guide really knew his stuff, although he was rambling for a bit in Italian, then he switched back into English.

Sunday was spent drinking.

I'm totally serious.

No, really, I am. I started drinking about 1130, and the bus left at 4 from the wine tasting in the Tuscan Hills. They brought us to a little villa which is totally run by women, there are no male workers on the vineyard. They grow some of the best wine in the region, including a wine that can not be made anywhere else, because the grape is extinct everywhere else. And the wine they were giving us was not cheap wine, some of it went for at least 70E. We went on a tour of the vineyard, and had a full meal where the waitresses kept feeding us- it was not just three courses, it ended up being around 5.

The landscape around the villa was stunning. It was everything I imagined from reading Under the Tuscan Sun (Beck, btw, we still have to watch that movie- I've never seen it!) and even more.  Rolling hills, and small houses tucked into corners, at night it was dark enough to see the stars from the bus, and there were wildflowers like I've never seen before. The towns were really quaint and small, the type of place where people mind their own business but know everyone else in the town. Oh, and everything is old but it fits. It's not like Rome or Pisa where its old, and seems really old, or it's old and is just strange: in Tuscany, if its new, it seems really out of place.


The weekend ended with a wine-induced coma-filled ride back to Rome, then a walk down the hill to get back to my apartment and do some homework, since this past week and next week were/will be really hectic.

Tomorrow, I'm church hopping- it's time to see some classic treasures, then on Saturday, I'm going to Pompeii -for the second time. I have to start studying on Sunday, but I also want to make it to the outdoor market for a while- I want a pair of boots, since I'm headed to London for spring break. I need something to protect my feet from all that rain.