Odds and ends plus Pisa/Lucca

Hello bloggles!  I don't know that what means, but I like the way it sounds :)

This past week has gone by pretty fast and Caroline is settling in very nicely as our 3rd roomie!  When she first got here it was right before the weekend so we of course wanted to introduce her to Florentine nightlife...which then made it hard to introduce her to Florentine daylife.  Oh well, we had a great weekend that included a wine festival and an international festival.  The wine festival was called Wine Town Firenze and it was really cool because they had wine tastings set up all over the city in almost all of the famous buildings (churches included).  You had to go buy a card to load credits on (1 euro = 1 wine tasting credit) and then find these different sights to have tastings.  We started at the Pitti Palace since we were already there to check out the Palatine Gallery, which houses many famous paintings from Italian artists that were collected by the Medici family.  We actually saw a ton of paintings by Caravaggio, way more than we saw at the actual Caravaggio exhibit in the Uffizi, which was strange but a nice surprise.  After we toured there was a tasting inside the palace with wines from the 8 major wine capitals (or so I was told) of the world: Portugal, France, New Zealand, South Africa, Napa Valley, Spain, Germany, and Argentina.  I tried a Rose from Portugal and it was only after I almost gagged that I realized it was a Rose PORT.  Yuck.  I actually couldn't finish it, which almost never happens.  My next wine was from South Africa, a Malbec I believe, which was able to wash out the taste from the port.  We then headed to an old church, Santo Spirito, for some Italian wines.  I can't remember the regions we tasted from, but it was a beautiful set up with candles, a lively Italian folk band (yea, it sounded weird to me too), and snacks to pair with the wine, which we definitely needed since we hadn't had dinner yet and didn't realize that most of the "tastes" were full glasses of wine.

At the Italian wine tasting area with the band in the background.  Perfect ambiance.  

After the wine tasting, we headed to a nice dinner and then a night out on the town where there were yak and copes (aka jack and coke and there was only one for the one and only Kate), tripping on the chains that block the street (me, but I didn't fall which was a miracle), secret bakeries with pizza and chocolate croissants (there may or may not have been some trying to eat pizza that had fallen on the ground, not me though!) and getting home around 5am...yea that will not be happening again anytime soon, but at least we were able to show Caroline some/most of the nightlife!  On Sunday we all met at the International Festival being held at Santa Croce.  It was so cool with food and goods from countries around Europe: Spain (giant pans of paella), Hungary, Belgium (chocolate!), Germany (beer and stinco di maiale, which is pig shin...weird), Holland (cheese, where I bought 3 different types, one that was pesto aka all green!!!), America (oldies CDs??), etc.  Hungary had these cinnamon sugar cylinder things that were AMAZING!  We all got one to split, yummy!  I wish the International Festival was there everyday :( or just that the cinnamon sugar things were there everyday, either one.

This past week we just did some more sightseeing around Florence since there are so many exhibits around.  We went to the Bronzino exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi - he was a painter who was commissioned by the Medici, but honestly, who wasn't commissioned by the Medici around here?  It was a huge exhibit and I had never heard of him before, but I really enjoyed it!  Also this week we finally made it inside the Duomo, the Bargello (sculpture museum) and the Casa Buonarroti where there were many works by Michelangelo along with works procured by his family.  In the Casa Buonarroti there was an extremely paranoid docent who found it necessary to hound everyone who came in to see the exhibit.  It was absolutely ridiculous.  She would literally run into a room after we left it to make sure we didn't break or steal the 2 ton marble statue created by Michelangelo...I mean, really?  She was definitely a negative to that museum.

On Saturday we headed to Pisa and Lucca.  It was another gorgeous fall day so we were excited to do some sightseeing!  Pisa was not what I expected in that there was graffiti everywhere.  And, as Kate put it, the graffiti wasn't even pretty it was just curse words and ugly scribbles.  At least in some other places where we've seen graffiti there has been some artistic quality in it.  The monuments in Pisa are a bit of a walk from the train station, but they are definitely worth it.  The buildings located in the Campo dei Miracoli (field of Miracles) are the Leaning Tower, the Cathedral, and the Baptistry.  The tower was started in 1173 as the bell tower for the Cathedral and it wasn't until 5 years later that the tower started to lean because of the unstable clay that it was being built upon.  There were only 3 floors completed by this point and the architect decided to leave it alone.  It wasn't until 100 years later that the project was picked back up by another architect.  He completed 4 more stories and finally in 1372 the bell tower was completed.  It wasn't until the 19th century that people started to mess around with the tower again and their meddling exacerbated the lean.  The tower was also almost destroyed during World War II by American troops, but thankfully wasn't.  It was also closed down for 10 years in 1990 to stabilize it and make it safe for the public.  It's really a beautiful building and has a very exaggerated lean (duh) but it was really cool to see in person.

You can see the tower poking out behind the cathedral

Caroline doing the obligatory pose

After Pisa we headed to Lucca, an old medieval town in Tuscany.  Lucca was founded by the Etruscans and in 180 BC it became a Roman colony.  The medieval walls that surround the city are still intact, which was one of the many charms of this small city for us.  Lucca was an independent republic for over 500 years and it had run ins with a few famous people you have heard of - Napoleon took it over in 1805 and had his sister rule the city and also Dante spent some of his exile in Lucca.  It is also the birthplace of Puccini and I was excited to go into a Puccini opera museum.  The walls surrounding the fortified city are still in tact and on each side there is a different type of tree species planted.  It is also a really nice place to walk around and we spent some time hanging out up there.  There was one downside to the walls because apparently they are also a huge makeout spot for Italians...couples were everywhere.  And if you have been to Italy, or France...or Spain for that matter, you know that people get overly affectionate (understatement) in public so needless to say it was a little awkward.  Oh well, it was still a beautiful and charming city that I would love to go back to and explore more!

View of the walls

Ok well that's all for tonight!  Tomorrow Caroline, Courtney and I are heading off to Cinque Terre, aka the Italian Riviera to hike and enjoy the views!  It's going to be an early day (waking up at 5am...yikes), but we are set on hiking at least 4 towns and making it back to Florence in 1 day.  We'll see if that happens...

Miss you all!