Hump Day!

Today is my half-way day! I just finished my last midterm and I'm off to Sweden!

Hiking the Cinque Terra

Yea! Making up the first of many mountains!

The start of the path from Montarossa to Vernazza

2 hours later... Vernazza!

Only 20 min. in, I was still smiling at that point

I went hiking with my roommate Liz on Saturday. She had never been to Cinque Terra before and I had but stuck to the easier shopping/taking the trains route. So we decided to hike the WHOLE thing. It took us 5 hours to hike the whole thing, not including a few stops to eat and buy water. I was really surprised how hard it was and how narrow some of the paths were, at times you had to shimmy across these tiny rocks sticking out from the mountain so as not to fall into rocks or ocean below. It was the perfect weather for it and at the end we had gelato and laid out on the rocks by the ocean before heading home!

Palazzo Pitti & Boboli Gardens

Front entrance to Palazzo Pitti

Back of the Palazzo Pitti from the Boboli Gardens

I spent today wandering around the Palazzo Pitti & Boboli Gardens. Inside of the Palazzo Pitti are a ton of Museums and galleries. I visited The Royal Apartments, Galleria del Costume and the Galleria d'Arte Moderna. The Royal apartments are about 50 of these amazing elaborate rooms! I really can't put into words how detailed and overly decorated these rooms are. I will probably have to go back a few more times! I also loved the Galleria del Costume, it had clothes, shoes, parasols, purses and gloves from the late 1700's to about 1920. I was really looking forward to the modern art but as I quickly realized "modern" in Italy is very different from our modern, the paintings span from 1784 to 1924. "Modern" was impressionism, still a change from all the Medieval and Renaissance art I have been seeing.

I only covered about 1/3 of the Boboli Gardens but they are huge and I was tired. I rested for a while on a bench by the Neptune Fountain and  nearly fell asleep. I decided to end my visit there and go home and take a nap. I have a Friends of the Uffizi pass so I am able to come and go to most of the museums in Florence which is really nice.

Under The Tuscan Sun

Me by the well in Montepulciano, I'm so pale I blend right in :)

Wine Cellar that makes the Cantina del Redi Wine. Some of the barrels were huge, like the one above is about 15 ft. tall... at least. The bottoms ones are smaller, only about 3 ft.

These cellars are centuries old and apparentaly famous. Our guide mentioned that BBC had filmed here a few times. It very pretty but, in a creepy sort of way. I was happy to be above ground again after the tour.

An old church in Cortona

Sunset in Cortona

Old Church in Pienza

Sidewalk in Pienza

Vergelle's Vinyard

Arezzo

Candles in a church in Arezzo

On the Streets of Arezzo

A street in Cortona

This weekend I went on a Gastronomic Tour of Tuscany. It was very very good! I was enjoying the food so much I neglected to take any pictures of it but, the countryside was very beautiful so I have plenty of those. We started off Saturday morning in Arezzo, we walked the town and toured about 5 different churchs.

 After that we went to Cortona. I loved it there! We stayed in a really nice hotel and had a lot of free time to wander the town. In the evening we went on a small hike up the mountain side. When we came back we had aperitivi and then dinner. I was not so much a fan of the aperitivi as the only thing I could eat was similar to a french fry made out of zucchini. I tried another bread that was supposed to have cheese inside and instead it was fish. SO gross! The actual Dinner was by far the best, we started off with a Risotto, then Ravioli with a cream sauce. The main course was a steak but I had a Caprese salad instead, that was followed by a green salad and, then dessert was the best Chocolate Torte ever! It was so good I ate the whole thing even after such a huge dinner. 

The next morning we went to the small town of Pienza. It was so cute and quaint! They are known for their olive oil. Outside of the town we visited a farm that makes their own meat and cheese produces. They are known for their cheese made from Sheep's milk. We toured the farm (which was smelly) and then sat down to lunch. Again wayyy to much food but all of it so good you had to eat it! My favorite was this bean and grain soup that they put pieces of bread on top and sprinkle olive oil and cheese.

Our last stop was to Montepulciano to see the wine cellars. It was also up high on a hill and the views were amazing!!!

Next week I have finals and then I have a week off to travel! My friend Samantha and I decided to head up to Sweden and maybe make a stop or two on the way back down.

Pisa

Samantha and I took a day trip to Pisa! It's only an hour train ride away from us so we hopped on it in the morning and were able to come right back home tonight.

Us!

To climb to the top of the Tower is was actually a lot of money, so we opted to see the Duomo and Campo Santo instead. 

The Outside of the Duomo is famous because of it's facade but inside the church was way better. We spent at least an hour if not more looking at all of the paintings and things inside. I think John the Baptists relics were there in this see through coffin.. kinda creepy and things may have gotten lost in translation...

The ceiling was one of my favorite parts of the church, it was so beautiful.

Prague!

This weekend I went to Prague and visited my friend Kelsey who is studying abroad there! I had some problems getting there (I missed my flight due to a train conductor strike) so I had to take a different train up to Milan and fly out of there! In any event I made it there safely and we had a great time. 

Here's Me on the Charles Bridge. One of the landmarks of Prague.

They have a Mexican Restaurant there that is delish! I was craving Mexican so bad as there is not much of a food selection to choose from in Florence other than Italian. I think this was called the Prague Castle. We walked through this really pretty park to get there. There was a festival going on their so we stopped and got some snacks and watched these little kids dancers dance to traditional Czech songs.  This is in the Old Town Square. I think it looked like Disney world. They also have this giant clock that on the hour wooden dragons and things come out of it and "dance" around.