May 10th - Florenzia

A beautiful train ride through the countryside of Italy was the beginning of our day today. It was absolutely breathtaking. The homes and vineyards were exactly like you picture - located on the sides of the beautiful rolling hills covered with gorgeous expanses of wild red flowers, and green pastures. The train took us from Venice to Florence (it's called Florenzia - city of the flower. Isn't that perfect?) Once there, we had time to explore the city on our own before the tour. I bought my first Italian scarf! :)

 We never found out what this building was even though our tour started here, but I liked the spheres out front :) And behind me (I'm blocking the view) there was a carousel. Not sure why, but it's Italy. 

Kelsey and I found a store with a couple of manikins in an interesting form. So of course we mimicked them :)

While wandering around we found this bronze bore that seemed to attract a lot of attention. It seemed as though everyone wanted to rub his nose and have a picture. Twas very strange. Too bad the sign explaining the bore was in Italian. So what did we do about this curious situation? We did as the Florentine's. However, being a bit of a germaphobe, I couldn't get myself to touch it... so I got as close as I could. I know, pathetic.

Another interesting thing about Florence... their signs. Not only one, but multiple signs had figures painted on them.

Our three hour walking tour of the city began as we learned all about the history of the Florentine's and their city. We got to see some incredible architecture, sculptures and art.

Beautiful Roman arches. 

Incredible medieval architecture.
Our tour ended in the Accademia Gallery where we were able to see Michelangelo's David. It truly is an incredible statue. The fake version (below) is right outside of the building above.

That's where it was originally placed but it was moved inside a museum to preserve it (and apparently some crazy guy tried to take a sludge hammer to it and broke David's finger a few years back. People are weird).

This is the real one. You're actually not allowed to take pictures of it... which is why we had to be sneaky and you can barely see him :) haha don't tell anyone.

I always wondered what all the hype was about a statue of a man but I guess you have to see it to understand. It's absolutely beautiful. Carved out of a single block of marble, it's 17 feet tall and has more detail than you can imagine. You can see the veins in his arms and the stress/determination in his face. From behind you can see the sling across his back and the rock in his right hand. It's not just a statue, it is so realistic and almost mesmerizing. It's interesting that his head and hands are intentionally too large in proportion to the rest of his body. It's believed the Michelangelo did this in order to accentuate and draw attention the things he felt were most important. It truly is an incredible statue. 

Have I mentioned how my favorite part about Italy was the attention to detail? Look at the side of this building! Is that not incredible? Hand carved, it extended up the entire height of the building. I was blown away!

Although our time in Florence was short (mostly because my foot hurt pretty bad that day so I had a hard time focusing on the tour...) we were soon on a bus headed to Siena. We enjoyed another incredible drive through the Tuscan countryside. Can you believe we saw castles?? I had no idea there was so much medieval architecture in Italy, I assumed that was all on the western side of Europe. A lot of the drive actually reminded me of the parkway in D.C. same large, dark trees lining the entire road. Except this time the trees would open up to reveal hills of vineyards and Italian villas. 

Italian drivers are absolutely crazy! No designated lanes - they probably wouldn't use them anyways; cars just weave in and out of each other along with scooters who don't care which side of the road they're on. It seems like everyone drives like a teenage boy (one of our tour guys even warned us about them. "They're just weaving everywhere, speeding around corners, flying through the air, jumping out of windows - you never know where they're coming from!" haha she was cute).

After we made it to our hotel we were encouraged to walk to the city center to eat and sketch. We took a beautiful 15 minute walk through the narrow streets of Siena with gorgeous view of the city and castles high upon the hillside. 

Pictures just don't quite capture the beauty of this city...

On our way there we even saw a couple of boys practicing color guard :) This made me so happy

After an uphill hike, we reached the escalators. 6 flights of escalators in order to get to the city! It was the strangest thing. 

Siena is a medieval city and boy did it look like it! Oh my word! I felt as though I should be dressed the part, it was so real! We're going on a walking tour tomorrow and I can't wait! For dinner tonight I had my first authentic Italian pizza!

Yum!

By 9:45 the four of us girls and Yi decided we were exhausted and headed home - in the dark (shh... don't tell my parents. We didn't know how to get a taxi in the middle of a medieval city). I really enjoyed the walk at night though! The Italian buildings and castle facades were absolutely stunning lit up at night. It was hard to stay focused on getting back to the hotel.

Bad news of the day - I lost my camera charger. Of all things to lose on my trip to Italy! I have got to find someone with the same camera or at least a cord of some kind. I could just die...