May 31st, 2008: Florence without Rain!
Today was our first day without lecture in the morning. We didn’t have to be at breakfast until 8:30am, almost an hour later than usual! The extra sleep was wonderful. We traveled first to the Brancalli Chapel, which is in a slightly more remote area of Florence. The roads were more narrow than anything I’ve ever seen, but that didn’t shake Freddie at all. At one point he had Myles get off the bus and move the temporary construction street signs so that we could go the wrong way down a street that was marked one way. When Myles asked if he should put the signs back, Freddie shouted “just leave them…its Italy!”. That basically sums up Italian driving.
We made it to the chapel and saw the frescos done by Masaccio. Once again, they were incredible. The colors were very vivid, and the chapel that held them was also exquisite. From the chapel we walked toward the Medici chapel, and found the leather markets that everyone associates with the city. I bartered for a purse and got some earrings! Other people bought wallets, purses, belts and ties…it was definitely a shopping day for everyone.
We went into the Medici chapel after lunch as saw the tombs of the Medici family. I’ve always thought that I would want to be cremated, but after seeing those tombs I think I might want a monument carved of me instead. Go big or go home, right?
We spend some more time in the markets after the chapel and then headed back to the bus. We spent a couple hours at the hotel sleeping, doing laundry, and grocery shopping (everything is MUCH cheaper in a supermarket). Freddie offered to drive us to an overlook of Florence for sunset, so a bunch of us loaded up on the bus and went to see beautiful Florence one last time. After taking many, many pictures we drove back into the city to find some dinner. We ended up eating at an outdoor café that agreed to give us the early bird special since it was only 9:45PM. We spent a long time at dinner, being loud and eating amazing food. From the restaurant we went in search of more gelato, and then just walked throughout the city one last time. The weather was absolutely perfect, and it was interesting to see how the dynamic of Florence changes after dark. There are people selling fake purses and sunglasses everywhere, people replicating paintings with chalk on the sidewalk, and many tourists out walking around. It’s a really cool environment to be a part of. We went on a “photo shoot” of sorts and took a lot of fun pictures as well.
We left the city just in time to catch the last bus of the night. It was a perfect way to end our say in Venice.
June 1st, 2008: Travelling to Rome
Today was a travel day. We woke up early, at breakfast, and loaded the bus. Its starting to get easier to pack everything up now that we have done it several times. We actually left the hotel early (who would have thought it was possible?) so we stopped at the same lookout we had visited the night before for another photo op. From there we headed to Siena to spend a couple hours visiting and to kill some time before we arrived at our hotel in Rome.
Siena was a very unique, beautiful city. They use to be rivals against Florence, so much of the architecture was the same, but the city is much more hilly that Florence. There are shops that seem to be at almost a 45 degree angle, and people just make do. We walked through the city to the town square, which is where some of the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” was filmed. The square was awesome. It was huge and there were so many people around to watch. The weather was gorgeous, so we just sat down and read and chilled for a few hours. We saw two weddings go by, and watched a parade that had something to with the annual horse race that the city has. It was so fun to experience a piece of Italian life. Should I mention that we also got some gelato?
From Siena it was about four more hours to Rome. I can’t tell you much about the trip, however, because I was asleep for almost all of it. When we pulled into the hotel the first thing everyone did was log onto the FREE wireless. Its super slow but no one is complaining! Our welcome dinner was great, much better than past dinners. We decided to wait until tomorrow to go out and explore the city; we just stayed in and hung out with people in our room for the rest of the evening. I am excited about tomorrow!
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