Week Two

I cannot believe that it has already been a week since my last post on here! Last Friday, Jill, Lisa, Kristin and I took a trip to Pisa. It is about an hour train ride from Florence, and there is not much there aside from the tower, but it was definitely worth it! It is amusing to watch all of the tourists swallow their pride to pose for the infamous Pisa shot.

Saturday was a day trip to Siena and San Gimignano with Palazzo Rucellai. The Renaissance town of Siena is about an hour southwest of Florence, and truly beautiful. We took a short tour of the city, which started in the main town square, or piazza, where there is a huge bell tower. I learned that each town has one of these, it is meant to represent power and "manliness," as our tour guide put it. The taller the tower, the more powerful the town. Also, the bell is rung each morning, and also when someone important passes away. Our tour ended up at the duomo, "church," where we climbed to the top the steeple. The view was nothing that I have ever seen before, and definitely worth the terrifying climb to the top (very steep, very narrow, two-way spiral stairs). For lunch, we had the equivalent of Italian fast food pizza, which was relatively cheap, and still pretty damn good.

For the second half of the day we made our way to San Gimignano, which is a medieval town northwest of Siena. It is very quaint, and similarly to Siena, very beautiful. It was interesting to see the contrast between the architecture of the two cities. After a short walk, free time ensued. A bunch of us went to the museum of torture, which was pretty intense. Then, I got some gelato from a place that has been awarded the title of "Gelato World Champion." How could you turn that down?

On Sunday we returned to Viareggio, which was a huge mistake. During the week we were able to sit on the private beach, but this time we were not as fortunate. We were pushed to the "publc beach," a 10 foot strip of smelly beach, crowded with Europeans. Some little Italian woman asked me to spray tanning oil on her back. Needless to say, after an hour, we left. I have heard that there are other beaches that are farther away but much nicer, so we are going to check those out soon.

This week has flown by. We have had two site visits for marketing class so far: a terra cotta factory and a textile plant, both of which were pretty interesting. More interesting is our trip to a winery on Friday, complete with lunch and a tasting.

This Saturday we are travelling to Venice for the day, and on Sunday there is a soccer game: Rome versus Florence.