Photos from Cevita, Bolsena, and vineyard

View from Cevita (Bagnio Regio)

Inside the town of Cevita

View from Cevita

A door in Cevita

House in Cevita

In Cevita

In Cevita

View from Cevita - you can see the bridge we had to walk on to get to the city that is only accessible by walking on that bridge...

Looking towards Cevita - the bridge that you have to walk on to get to the old medieval town of Cevita

The town of Bolsena

In Bolsena

In Bolsena

The Castle in Bolsena in the background - those little three wheeled tiny trucks are all over Italy -- noisy, slow, and cute...ha.

Castle in Bolsena and a house in front...just a very medieval feel to the whole town

Looking out over the rooftops of Bolsena to Lake Bolsena - this picture doesn't do the beautiful lake justice

Another view of Lake Bolsena

In Bolsena

The Castle in Bolsena

Medieval street in Bolsena

Castle again in Bolsena

Medieval section of Bolsena

Some ducks at Lake Bolsena

Looking out over the vineyard from an old winery dating back to 600 BC across the valley from Orvieto looking towards Orvieto in the distance....those big buildings poking up in the distance are from Orvieto...the biggest is the Duomo

Ditto from the previous picture...just the beautiful vineyard about an hour before sunset

Quaint little road on the winery property

Cevita, Bolsena, Vineyard

May 24th

This past Tuesday we had our last program excursion. It was definitely bittersweet. First we went to Bagnio Regio and Cevita. It is an ancient cliff top town that is only accessible through walking on the long bridge across the valley. There are no longer any permanent residents because it is falling apart and unsafe for habitation. It was gorgeous! It had a very medieval feel to the town and was made entirely of the same tufa that Orvieto is built with. The tiny town was full of quaint little nooks and crannies. The other class that is taking place this month is the Renaissance theatre class and they did a mini performance inside the church in the center of town. I’ll try to put up some pictures soon of the day.

After Cevita we went to Bolsena. Lake Bolsena is a huge beautiful lake that sits below the old medieval town of Bolsena. I was hoping to go into the catacombs in Bolsena, but sadly they were closed and also the castle in town was closed. I did go around and take several pictures around the town and enjoyed a book by the lakeside.

After Bolsena we went across the valley from Orvieto to this old vineyard and winery dating back to 500 and 600 BC. The Etruscans, monks, and Italians, now a man named Alessandro have been making wine in those same fields ever since then. He gave us a tour down in the tunnel system beneath the winery, which was very fascinating. The tunnels were dug out by the Etruscans to store and age wine and then the monks lengthened the tunnels several centuries later. We were able to see that point in the tunnels and Alessandro said we were “time traveling.” Ha. The view from the vineyards back towards Orvieto near sunset was breathtaking.

Well, I was trying to upload photos on this one, but it didn't work out so you'll just have to wait a bit for these pictures. :/

Photos from Stockholm, Sweden!

Stockholm, Sweden!

May 20th - 23rd

So, this past Friday morning I flew to Stockholm, Sweden with four other girls and had an awesome weekend returning late last night. Stockholm is known as the “Venice of the North.” It was really nothing like Venice, but you could see where it got the name because there was so much water everywhere. It is made up of numerous beautiful islands. The city is one of the cleanest cities in the world so was pretty sweet. This will sound funny, but it smelled great. Ha. There was no trash in the streets and I felt like I was constantly getting wafts of great smelling food throughout the city.

We got to go the museum of modern art, which was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Sweden. Ninety percent of the museum was filled with photography exhibits, and so I loved it. I loved just walking around the city and exploring. We took a short boat ride on Saturday, which was pretty awesome to see the city from the water. It was definitely weird leaving Italy, and made me sad thinking that I only have one more month here. Landing in Rome after the weekend definitely felt like I was home again. Almost everyone in Sweden could speak remarkably good English so that was quite the switch from Italy. When we were waiting in line at the bus station in Stockholm waiting for our bus to take us to the airport I heard someone speaking Italian in line behind me and it was so weird, because it felt so familiar. I turned around and was like, “Di dove sei?” (Where are you from?). “Milano e tu?” (Milan and you?) was the response…”Estudio in Orvieto per Quattro mesi.” (I am studying in Orvieto for 4 months) I said back. It was great just to use my Italian in another country…I’m really looking forward to finding Italians in the States and practicing my Italian. I also sat next to another Italian on the bus back from Naples so that was fun talking to him too.

Today was the first day of my last class, Text and Image taught by Jeremy Botts. It is pretty sweet because Jeremy actually taught at a Christian Arts camp (Masterpiece Ministries) I went to the summer before my senior year in high school. I wasn’t sure if he would remember me or not, but immediately recognized me so that was sweet. I’m really excited about this class. Today he showed us a bunch of fonts and instances of text and image blended together. Pretty cool stuff and then we made calligraphy pens out of bamboo shoots from out back. He just saw them last night and thought it would be a fun way to kick off class. So cool. We even made ink reservoirs out of soda cans. By the end of the class we are going to collectively create our own font and carve the letters out of wood so we can “print” things. I don’t know a whole about it, but it sounds pretty sweet. Well, I would write longer, but the electricity is not working in the monastery right now, so my computer is about to die. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures of Sweden up soon!!

Photos from Giro d'Italia & Light Graffiti

Here are some photos from the Giro d'Italia in Orvieto.

This was some of the crazy partying going on in Orvieto the night the cyclists were in town. Felt like a totally different town.

Here is some of the light graffiti that I did last night in the caves underneath the cliffs that Orvieto is built on.