Three words to sum up Florence so far: fast-paced, friendly, and, strangly, homey. We are in Croce di Malta hotel, a five (or seven) minute walk from the Duomo, and my new roomie is the beautiful Liz Barfield!
Florence will be our most “permanent” destination on the trip. We get to be here for three straight weeks! It will be a welcomed break from all the constant town-hopping we have been doing since we left Venice. Since leaving the sinking city, we have visited Padua, Ravenna, Assisi, Montepulciano, Siena, and San Gimignano, along with a couple pit stops to see a random church, winery, or even a cheese factory along the way (the cheese factory being a small farm with baby goats frolicking about). The last time I wrote we were in Ravenna...and to be honest, I am having a hard time separating those couple days in Ravenna from all the others spent in the other towns. Being able to see so many different places has been an amazing part of this trip, but it has also been the most tiring. I didn’t realize just how little down time we would really have. Today I actually have time to sit down and write this because this is our day off, our second day off since landing. I don’t want to sound like I am complaining...I know how lucky I am to be able to be in Italy. But no matter what country you’re in or what you’re seeing, sometimes you just need time to yourself to recharge and think about all the things you’ve been doing. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish that today.
The towns I mentioned above were all awesome, but some ranked higher on the awesome scale than others. Ravenna and Siena were the largest, busiest of all of them, but the smaller towns were my favorite. Coming in at a number one was the amazing day spent with the Gattavecchi family at their wineries in Poggio alla Sala and Montepulciano.
For our wine class we basically have to visit a ton of wineries, taste their wine, and write reports about each one. We’ve been to...ten or eleven already, but every winery is very different, and they each have their own way of doing things. For this particular wine tasting, I forgot that I was at a family’s business, and instead thought that we were all having a huge dinner at an old friend’s home. The owner of the business (probably a very wealthy and intelligent business man) was dressed in jeans and an old jacket, and served all 26 of us himself. Most of the other wineries also did this, but we all just connected with this amazingly sweet and humble man and the way he treated his guests. We were served delicious homemade food and tasted five different wines. Such a happy relaxing meal!
After the meal, we all walked around the gorgeous town of Montepulciano to look at the shops and scream at the amazing views.
Coming in at a close number two was the picturesque fairy-tale village of Assisi. All I had previously known about this little village was that there was a Saint Francis of Assisi, but maybe that’s why this mountain-top heaven is so special...it is so removed from anything wordly (wars, development, etc) that it has kept its pristine beauty. We drove up the huge hillside toward Assisi as far as the bus was allowed to go. When it couldn’t go into town any further, we all got out, walked the rest of the way up, and screamed at the amazing view. Nothing but green grass, houses, mountains as far as we could see! We walked up to Saint Francis Basilica...by far my favorite church. Simple and quiet on the outside, is it preserved in time by the lack of modern development around it. The inside was bright and colorful, with a strange blue-green tint covering the ceiling. We had an amazing guide for this church and for the rest of the town (which is mostly just shops, much amazing views, homes, and more churches). I wish I could remember his name...After the tour we explored the town, I lost my camera in a hat store then found it again, and saw the most beautiful sunset in the world...(the picture of which I have been trying to upload for forever now...)
What a good day.
Time to enjoy the sunshine/do some homework before our group dinner tonight. Hopefully I’ll have some Florence stories for everyone soon. I hope all my Furman people are having fun on their Spring Breaks! You better tell me all about them...I think I'm starting to get a twinge of homesickness :(
Much love!
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