Under the Tuscan Clouds

Two weeks ago my program organized a group trip to Tuscany.  We all woke up far earlier than we had for a while to trek to Piazza Malpighi on the west side of town to catch our bus.  And off we went.  Our first stop was Monteriggioni, a very tiny walled city in the middle of the hills.  It was very small at the top of the hill, and I'm pretty sure I've been in castles that are bigger.  The people there were all seniors or tourists too, which means that if my BCSP peers and I all teamed up, we could have probably conquered the place.  Opportunity squandered.

Next we went to the more notable city of Siena, which has a large and totally unmodernized center.  The entire city is constructed like the more interesting nooks and crannies of Bologna, and we were granted plenty of time to explore as we pleased. 

I went with a group to check out the major church and museum, and later we all gathered at the center of one of Siena's contrada, a sort of neighborhood-guild hybrid group, for an explanation of that tradition.  We visited the contrada Selva, "the forest," whose colors are green and orange and whose mascot is a rhino.  Way to go Medieval Sienese.  Renaissance football games must have been insane.

That night we stayed in a monastery-turned-hotel, the same one featured in The English Patient, a movie I've never seen.  The scenery was fantastic...

...and needless to say the food was bountiful and delicious.

We slept there overnight- I experienced absolute quiet and real darkness for the first time in a while.  We'll go over that in a "review" post once I get home.

We stopped at three different towns the next day.  We had planned on walking a hike, but the clouds in the sky were somewhat ominous and we didn't want to risk it.  We visited the quaint village of Pienza...

(This is the most Italian photo I've ever taken.  Wine?  Check.  Pasta?  Check.  Olive oil?  Check.  Tiny streets?  Check.)

...the town of Montalcino (it had a small castle, but I wasn't impressed)....

(Never mind.  THIS is the most Italian photo I've taken.)

..and the famous tower-laden city of San Gimignano, where for whatever reason all the tourist shops sold replica medieval weaponry.

The trip was really great, but bittersweet in that it felt like the beginning of the end (I'll be home in a little over 3 weeks!).  Exams are over as of today, so I've got nothing to worry about for the next few weeks while I travel to Naples, London, Paris, and maybe Sicily. 

What are awesome and rhyme with "hassles?"

CASTLES.

Two weeks ago some friends and I went to Trento up north.  We took a 10:30 train to get there at 12:30, and unfortunately everything closed at about 5 so we only had a few hours there.  However, the main site in Trento is the Castello del Buonconsiglio, whose name literally means "good advice."  Here's some good advice: visit the Castello del Buonconsiglio.

 Museums and castles are both pretty cool, right?  Castello del Buonconsiglio is a museum in a castle.  That's like eating a big cake and discovering a steaming hot pie inside. 

They had mummy feet.  I don't know how you manage to acquire mummy feet without the rest of the mummy, as all of the mummies I've browsed on eBay have been package deals, but I wasn't going to ask.

The moat at Buonconsiglio is drained, and now a grassy lawn you can lounge around in.  I can't imagine why they did this as it leaves a real gap in their defenses.  I don't know how they're going to hold the castle the next time the Visigoths invade if that moat isn't in good shape.

Trento also has a pretty neat archeological dig beneath one of its central piazzas where you can see the original Roman roads of Tridentum.

 We also saw the local church, but at this point that goes without saying.  We ate and went home, and that was the last castle I visi-

 HOLD THE PHONE.

What do we have here?

May 5th was my birthday, and that Sunday two friends took me to the town of Imola to check out the Rocca Sforzesca in nearby Imola (a half-hour away by train).  In other words, my friends got me a castle for my birthday.

I should mention the really interesting time I had on the actual night of the 5th.  Two Italian brothers I met through a language exchange group invited me and three other friends to their apartment that night for a Cinco de Mayo party.  Six nations were represented between everyone there: four Americans, four Italians, a Brit, a Russian, a German, and an Austrian.  We had a great time and negotiated a few treaties and afterwards let's just say I drank a lot of things for free and leave it at that.

I'll soon post about BCSP's trip to Tuscany last week, which was wonderful.  We are in exam season right now and I've done well so far with the hardest left to go.

Ventuno

from popular webcomic xkcd.