Ok, so it's been awhile, i know. We made it to Venice, and it is everything you would think it would be, but more. The first thing was did when we got there was get lost. We had thought it would be a good idea to try to get away from the tourist area and in doing so, we walked ourselves right off of our tour book map. Luckily, we found an american who pointed us in the right direction and then we headed to Piazza San Marco. Its easy to observe that the city in in fact sinking. Many buildings have been raised and some doorways into homes have blocks places above the original threshhold to keep the rising waters out. Apparently, even ST marcs square is underwater many months out of the year now. But back to the point of interest. When you see photos of venice, you would expect that the photos were carefullr cooridnated because of how the canal winds, and the window boxes are planted. The photos are not of just a few choice canals in the city. Every..single..canal we looked down was beautiful, unique and photographable. I had to check myself from filling my camera card up too fast. One thing we learned that is different between roads and canals, is that you cannot just jaywalk accross a canal to get soemwhere. We spent several extra minutes trying to find bridges to the unattainable other side of the 'fence'. Overall, i would say venice is nice, but too expensive to stay. We spent one day and that was all we needed.
Yesterday for class joe took us to a small city in tuscanny known as Lucca. I had the most fun of the trip yet. The original city was an old roman (or etruscan) town that was built on a hill. The city was surrounded by a wall to keep the armies of florence out so many years ago. Today, the city has spread outside the walls, but the original ones still stand. The city has made the walls into a large city park. Where soldiers once stood, people now walk their dogs and ride their bikes. Just below the walls on the outside are fields, with the earthwork still apparent, that people lay in the feel the sun, or walk their dogs. As a group, we rented bikes to ride the 2.5 miles around the city. The day was clear and comfortable, the walls were wide and open, and I enjoyed myself so much that I just could not stop smiling.
We ate as a class and I had the best taste of Italian food yet, Lasagna. After lunch we climbed a tower that had 200 year old oaks growing on it. From the top of the tower, we could see some peaks of the southern side of the alps. There was just a little bit of snow left this far into april.
This morning we went to another tuscan town called Siena. Siena was built in the mountains, and is a mountain city all the way. From here, we could see the quintessential farm land so well known in Tuscanny. To start the day we climbed 400 stairs of the town hall that miraculously stands without a foundation. It hit noon when we were up there, so our ears got to feel the bells first hand. Because it is nearing the end of our time in Italy, we did not do much today. We have an assignment due tommorrow, then will basically be done with Joe. The 4 of us, Mary, Andie, Jackie and I will be heading out to spend a couple of days in Switzerland before we meet Astrid for class in Munich.
I made dinner tonight, as it was my turn. We had fresh bread with sausage and bree, to start our pasta with mozzerella and zuchini.
Ciao Bella
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