The weekend started off with a bang with my friend Anne coming to visit from Rome! We spent friday in Florence shopping, walking around Ponte Vecchio, seeing The David in l'academia, etc. I headed back to the villa for dinner, and then my roommate Caroline and I decided to head back to Florence to meet up with Anne and her roommate. For some reason public transportation was a major struggle! As we were leaving the villa we ran into a couple of kids from the program. As we were stopped to talk to them, we saw a bus come around the corner... oops. We continued walking only to see another bus drive around the corner. We ran to catch it, but since there was no one at the stop, it didn't stop, and we again missed this bus. The next bus wasn't scheduled to come for about 20 minutes, so we sat at the bus stop waiting. As the next bus pulls around the corner, it flashes its lights at us, and then passed right by without stopping. Apparently you are supposed to wave the buses down, or they don't stop. Who knew?
On Saturday, a group of us took a day trip to a beautiful Tuscan town called San Gimignano. San Gimignano is known for its medieval architecture, and a white wine called Vernaccia. The town is often referred to as the Manhattan of Italy because of all the large towers that can be seen miles out of the city. We first got some lunch at a little cafe, and then did some exploring. There was a cool little trail/path along the outskirts of the town we walked through with fantastic views of the surrounding landscape. We then went into a museum housed in the tallest tower in the city. There were a few rooms of painting and frescos that we took a look at, and then we climbed to the top of the tower. The view of the city was strikingly beautiful! I'm not exactly sure how long we spent up there, but we literally had to talk each other back down because no one wanted to leave. Lots of the little shops had free wine tasting, so once we made it back to ground level, we decided to take advantage of that. The woman in the store gave us a variety of different wines to taste, and also some olive oil made in the region. It was delicious!
I took so many pictures on this trip, so I'll share with you some of my favorites!
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