Cortona

Monday, we went to visit Cortona, the neighboring town of Castiglion Fiorentino. Being so close we had to make time to go there at least once before leaving Italy. Cortona is well known for having beautiful scenery and the filming location of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun. It definitely lived up to our expectations as many students who had taken day trips there had loved Cortona and raved about it. It is a little bit bigger town than Castiglion Fiorentino and also home to a few universities.

main piazza

a lot of interesting doors

view from Cortona

Then back at Santa Chiara our professor had us haul our sticks up the steepest hill in Castiglion (in the rain) to put them together...

trying to show steepness of the hills

we even had visitors...

Field Trip to Tivoli

Wednesday's field trip took us to Tivoli on a 2.5 hour bus ride.Tivoli is south of Rome. First we saw Hadrian's Villa by Palladio. It was mostly in ruins which was sort of a shock because what we saw in history were pictures from its prime. Next, we went to one of my favorite things I learned about--Villa d'Este. Villa d'Este is a beautifully manicured garden space with fountains everywhere.

ruins of Hadrian's Villa

turtle sunbathing at Hadrian's Villa

Villa d'Este

wall of a thousands fountains--spans a large portion of the garden

Castiglion Fiorentino

Setting up our 'sticks'. We each had to carve and design a stick and then assemble them all together. We have done this a total of 7 times so far with different rules each time. Its interesting...

pink clouds at sunset

Group Dinner at La Foce

Saturday after visiting the statue of David in Florence we headed to the top of the mountain in Castiglion for a group dinner with k-state students. The restaurant was called La Foce and it was the best meal. It was also the first time eating quality meat since we have been in Italy. Usually we have mystery meat at the study center or it is in smaller portions. After dinner we went to the carnival that is in town.

brushetta with various meats

ravioli with a really good cheese center

pasta filled with a cheese similar to ricotta cheese, really good.

a really good meat similar to filet mignon with potatoes. the meat was so good.

a pound cake like dessert, it was ok

 

our professor and his wife on the bumper cars

the ride that spun and tilted really fast--notice the lack of safety belts. It was a little scary at times



Update--We just completed our projects so the sleep count has been a little low. I have lots of blog posts to catch up on in my final week here in Italy. I can't believe it is almost over.

Kanishka's Birthday

We went to Passagio's for Kanishka's birthday lunch. This is our favorite pizza place in Castiglion.

big calzone!

spicy pepperoni and ham pizza

bacon and rugula pizza

Florence Field Trip VI

We went back to Florence for another field trip. This particular week was cultural awareness week so everything was free to visit. This meant extremely long lines everywhere. Our class stood in the rain for about 2.5 hours waiting to get in somewhere and then we stepped out of line when we had to go to lunch. We did get to have a class lunch at a restaurant that has been open since the 1500s. After, we had to go to the Galileo Museum to meet with our history professor. We saw some more books and maps from the 15-1600s.