Florence, Pisa, and Lucca!!

Mar 11th and 12th

This Friday we all went to Florence and got to see Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippino Lippi’s Life of St. Peter in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine; Benozzo Gozzoli’s Journey of the Magi in the private family chapel in the Medici Palace; Santa Trinita chapel the Adoration of Christ. They were all extremely beautiful and once again Prof. Skillen made them come alive and really gave meaning to them by putting us in the period mind. The river that runs through Florence was gorgeous. There were tons of motorcycles and mopeds everywhere along the river. The houses lining the river and along the bridges made it look almost like Venice, but very quaint and beautiful. We got some gelato in a little gelati right on the river which was fun. I had a Bacio and Cookies gelato. Bacio is like a ferror rocher(chocolate hazelnut) and cookies was like yellowish with like this chocolate covered cakey things that tasted delicious. A couple people stayed in Florence that night and came back the next day and the rest of the people took a train back to Orvieto that evening, but 7 of us took a train to Pisa that night. Figuring out which train to catch and the whole schedule was good Italian practice. I was kind of worried that it might a tourist trap, but it was a beautiful città (city). We got there right as the sun was setting after an hourish train ride. On the way to check into our hostel we walked down the corso (main road of a town). The corso was full of people out walking because evidently it was their passegiata (nightly walk down the main street of town which typically happens around 6 or 630 in a town…people put on nicer clothes and just stroll through town…happens every day on a small scale and then on Sundays it is like literally the whole town out walking…pretty awesome that they take the time to stroll through town and mingle with everyone…we should do that in America) anywho, so we were rubbing shoulders with everyone on the passegiata on the corso. The shops along the corso were very trendy and modern. Zara, H & M, and many more expensive shops were everywhere. Everyone was dressed super trendy as well. I felt like I was in uptown New York European style. Our hostel was very nice. We were on the second and third floor of a building right on this piazza which looked out over the river. This piazza was supposedly the place to be in Pisa. There was live music and a bunch of people just mingling around the statue in the center of the piazza and several people spilling out of bars off of the piazza. Our hostel was very upscale though and felt very secure. After we dropped off some of our stuff in lockers in the hostel we went to go walk to the Tower of Pisa and stop along the way for some cena (dinner). We were kind of hoping for some pizzeria, but we stumbled across this restaurant that had pretty white lights outside and a pretty patio area so we stopped there. It was still a little chilly so they thought we were crazy americani for wanting to eat outside. Ha. They were like fredo fredo?? (cold cold?) but we were all bundled up anyway and it really wasn’t too bad and we wanted to outside so we insisted. Ha. I got some amazing pesto pasta which was full of fresh delicious herbs. So good. Then we started heading towards the Tower and I wasn’t leading the group so didn’t really know where we were in relation to the tower, but we just wandered up to it pretty much and it was like dang we are really here and that is the leaning Tower of Pisa! It really is an awesome sight to see. It is so funny looking because it is hardcore leaning and just like from seeing it in movies and books and stuff your whole life to actually see it in person was pretty sweet. Ok, you know those old little plastic picture viewers where you put in a paper disk thing with little pictures in it and then click the button and when you hold it up to the light you can see the pictures? I had one of those with the Tower of Pisa in it when I was a kid so that was like the first thing I thought of when I saw it…it was like wow I’m actually at that thing. Ha. At night it was all lit up and you could see the back of the Duomo (cathedral) behind it which was beautiful. I was doing 30 second or more exposures of the tower at night which turned out pretty sweet. Then we walked along the river edge on the way back to the hostel. It was so pretty at night with street lamps lining the river and along the bridges. You could see the reflections of the lamps and building lights in the river. Wow. I took some more long exposure shots that night of the river and reflections as well as down the roads with cars and motorcycle headlights going by which was a lot of fun. Right below our hostel in the piazza was supposedly the best gelato place in Pisa according to Rick Steve’s book on Italy which Kelsey (a girl in our group) brought along with us. I got a banana and chocolate fondante gelato. A maze ing! We took the gelato up into our hostel and ate it out on the balcony looking out over the piazza where we could see a bridge and river as well as hear the live music coming from the piazza. It was perfect. It was fun traveling with a smaller group and getting to know everyone better. The next morning we got up and went down to check out a market that was supposed to happen near our piazza. There were just setting up there tents and stands when we got there so we stalled by going to a café nearby for a cappuccino and then walked down the via (road) to a pastry shop. I got a slice of plum cake…really dense and delicious. The market was sweet. We got a giant loaf of fresh bread and a half of a block of cheese to eat later for lunch. I also tasted some special saffron honey (miele e Zafferano). This honey is meant to be eaten with cheese…yeah weird right, but probably some of the best honey I have ever tasted and with cheese like literally dipping a chunk of cheese inside the jar of honey was delicious!! Then we walked towards the tower to check it out in the morning and stumbled upon another open air market on the way. I got a scarf…those guys that might be reading this…don’t judge…it’s a European thing…I have to fit the part…ha. Anyway, the tower was awesome and we did the traditional fun pictures with the tower. Leaning on it, kicking it, etc. We also went into the prayer chapel of the Duomo which was free to go into if you were just going to pray. We got to see this sweet pulpit though that we had learned about in class that was carved and like 20 feet tall or something like that…giant and beautifully carved. Amazing. We had our lunch on the Field of Miracles ( name of the grassy lawn where the tower, Duomo, baptistery, and some cemetery were scattered about). A few of the girls met some other girl from University of Southern California in the bathroom who ended up eating lunch with us and traveling with us to Lucca. Her name was Kyndal and she was studying a year in Spain and was just traveling in Italy for a couple days. Lucca is this quaint mountaintop town which has a giant wall that goes around the whole city which was wide enough for a road to run along top of it. One of the girls in our group heard that it was a must see place to see in Italy and so we took a bus from Pisa there and rented bikes for 2.50 Euro and rode along the wall around town. So much fun! It was a gorgeous little town and I had fun riding with one hand and snapping pics with the other the whole time so you will hopefully get to see some of those fun pictures. We hopped on the bus back to Pisa and then as we walked down the corso again the girls checked out the shops while I wandered around and took pictures. After a couple more hours in Pisa that evening we took the train back to Florence and then caught another train back to Orvieto. The train station in Orvieto is in Orvieto Scalla (lower part like in the valley)…usually we would take the funiculare up to twon, but we got in after it had closed so we had a night hike up the mountain to San Paolo. It wasn’t too bad, but everyone was tired from traveling and just ready to be home. Yeah, San Paolo feels like home now :). We just told ourselves on the way up the mountain that we had cornflakes, showers, and a warm bed to crawl into when we got there. I actually had some Choco Krave (nutella filled cereal) and some OJ. Ha. It was a great weekend of travel and I got to know everyone I travelled with a lot better. So fun!