Florence in Photos

I know I lured you in saying today is the day I have posted Photos of Florence, and they will be here, I assure you, but first stories from today. They're aren't many!

First, I walked around the Eastern/South Eastern side of Siena today, all the way to the Porta Romana (a very, very large gate). I passed the Basilica dei Servi on they way, which is a church and is or was a convent. I walked through the Contrada del leocorno (unicorn), La Contrada del Valdimontone (Ram), and La Contrada del Nicchio (Seashell). This may sound like a lot, but I made the whole walk there and back to the Campo in less than forty minutes. I only had a little while until the other student's had their lunch break at this point, so I then went and sat on the Piazza del campo where I sat and people watched for a while. I was looking at my syllabus when I heard a voice over me say "Buon Giorno." I thought maybe it was someone I knew-but it wasn't. It was just some man who felt like saying good morning to me...I went back to what I was doing and then he fortunately moved on!

My Italian class today went very well, I basically talked with my teacher for an hour and a half straight and then spent an hour working and grammar and talking.

Alright, now I will hand over the pictures!

A carousel on a Piazza

DINNER! Trofie (little corkscrew shaped pasta) with pesto and tomatoes

A parade passes in front of the Uffizi, the building in the beck left corner of this photo. If you can see the white squares directly above the people's heads, those are flags.

Piazza del somthing. Not sure which one it was. It's near the Uffizi though.

Florence from the Ponte Vecchio

We ran into this parade outside the Uffizi. It was for a tournament, Calcio Storico. We thought it was just soccer, but the men on the teams all looked to big to be soccer players. Today though we saw on TV in Siena what it was. It is an old version of soccer. They played on a dirt field and carried the ball. It seemed like a mix between modern soccer and American Football, which could explain the origin of football. I don't know that for sure though, so don't quote me on it.

Ponte Vecchio (The Old Bridge). All of the shops on the bridge sell jewelry

Ponte Vecchio from land.

These three girls plus me saw ALL of the Uffizi!

The chapel (maybe?) across the street from the Duomo.

The Duomo. I am putting in lots of pictures of this so that I can try and give you a full picture of it. It's very, very large and every inch is decorated!

Il Duomo

I took these photos today at our art history classes trip to the Duomo. The Duomo is Siena's cathedral. It was built between the 13th and the 16th centuries, and thus has architecture from many different eras. Because Siena grew so quickly at the beginning of this time period, it was the third new cathedral built on the same site. Before the cathedral, there was at one point a Roman temple to Athena. The white and black stripes are a sign of the influence from the middle east brought to Siena by the Crusades and by the Francigena Road for religious pilgrims.

The following two paintings were in a side room built by one of Siena's families which contained several popes.

The nave of the Duomo

The pulpit at the Duomo

The floor of the Duomo. This image is both Mary and Athena, representing Wisdom, and people choosing to Wisdom in place of Fortune.

Another work on the floor of the Duomo

The pulpit of the Duomo

We ran into the Contrada della Tartuca (tortoise) having a parade on Sunday afternoon! We ran into them on the Piazza del Campo

Hike in Crete Senesi and an Italian Church

Yesterday afternoon we took a bus about 40 minutes outside of Siena to a small town called Rabolano, where we met up with a two guides who were to lead us on a hike (in Italian, trekking), through the hills to another nearby town in Tuscany.

The started with all of us meeting to make brunch together. I did not actually make anything because my homestay family gives us breakfast every day, but the spread of food the others made was quite impressive! Then we all met again at the bus stop to venture out into the Tuscan countryside, in Italian, la campagna toscana.

I wanted to take as many pictures as I could to show you all how beautiful it was, but I quickly realized that pictures could not do it justice. I will try to describe what we saw and I have posted pictures below in this post, and then you can use both and imagine it for yourself

The town we started at was a very small and very old town built into the side of a hill. Siena might look much like it today had the Francigena road not been built straight through its center. At the time we arrived, there were no people and no cars out. We walked down the middle of the street under an old arched doorway and stopped near a large wall which I believe was part of the town's fortifications, and like the fortezza has now been turned into a park. Then we went on to a medieval Grancia, like a granary, and which is still maintained today.

All of this was told to us in Italian. I was the translator for some of our group several times throughout the day, because one of the guides seemed to not speak English, and the other not well.

We turned from here and continued down the old roads until we suddenly were no longer in the town. The small Italian towns are not like American cities. There are no suburbs. The city simply ends. We crossed a street and were in the middle of a field. The fields extended out from the city as far as you could see, and here and there, usually on top of a hill, there was a old villa surrounded by trees. We walked through the fields, through tall grass dotted with purple and yellow flowers. Everything smelled sweet. When the wind blew, all of the grass would wave and seem to change color, darker and lighter. We came to one point where you could see for miles over the hills rolling, up and down, hills which our guide told us were formed under the ocean thousands of years ago.

We had passed one villa and were continuing down the road when a car drove by with a golden retriever running in front. The dog ran up to all of us and just stood there, and then the man pulled over and got out of the car and introduced us to the dog, who had already decided he was best friends with all of us. We passed the farms where many of the horses which run in the Palio come from, and many of the horses had foals. And we walked through some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen.

Today I went to an Italian church, one which is affiliated with the Methodist church. It was tiny! There were maybe thirty people there, and of course they recognized my roommate and I as new immediately, but they were all very kind and helpful. I know enough Italian that I was able to understand most of what was going on, and when I didn't catch a number, the man behind us would find the page in his Bible, hand it to us, and then take ours. I had my English Bible with me but I didn't have to use it! I plan to go back there when I am in town on Sunday, and maybe get to know the people there better. I am going to email the pastor later and see if they have any other programs. I think that this may be a good link for me to Italian culture outside of my host family if I can find a way to get involved somehow.

This afternoon I am going with a friend to l'orto di Tolomei, a garden behind one of the university buildings here. My homework is to watch a movie, Roman Holiday (In Italian, Vacanze Romane) and describe the characters. We are going to do that today as well.

Arezzo Photos

A monument to Petrarch

In a park in Arezzo

My roommate and I in front of the Duomo of Arezzo

The back of the monument to Petrarch

Il Duomo di Arezzo

the Market at Arezzo

View from Arezzo

Wandering around the City

Basilica di Provenzano (the Church that I can see from my window). The red and white banners on the front are the banners of my neighborhood's contrada, Giraffa (Giraffe).

Duomo

Basilica di San Domenico

Siena and the Basicila dei Servi (right)

Piazza del Campo