Ciao Ragazzi!
Buona Pasqua! That means happy easter over here in Italy :) This past weekend has been kind of crazy, we did 3 day trips AND experienced some local culture with traditional easter festivities! I'll try to make this short, but no promises :) as always, check out my pictures! They tell the story of my trips better than my words can.
Friday we day tripped to Siena, Italy. This is a gorgeous little medieval city about an hour and a half train ride from florence. We wanted to go to Verona, because we had just watched Letters to Juliet, but the Verona train wasn't going through florence that day. So we decided to go to Siena instead. Which was just fine because it turns out part of the movie was filmed there too. Tickets are super easy to buy and cheap too. I liked traveling by train! It was fast! We walked a little ways until we reached the main city center and saw the main piazza with the gorgeous clock tower, had some lunch, went and did some shopping, went inside a few churches and then hopped back on the train! Just there for a few hours but that's pretty much all you needed for this city. It was so cute! Our pizza was tasty. It was a nice day, so it was good to walk in the sun and get some vitamin D.
Saturday all four of us had signed up for a school trip to Chianti for a vineyard tour and a wine tasting! Chianti isn't that far from florence, maybe an hour by bus. We toured this spectacular vineyard that used to be a villa belonging to a royal family. They taught us all about their wine, and what makes their chianti different than others. Then we toured their gardens, and the places where they store all the wine... it was all so impressive! The last part was the tasting, and surprisingly I actually liked it! We tried a Chianti, a Chianti classico and then a sweet dessert wine that you put your biscotti in. I liked the Chianti classico that was aged for less time than the other one, because it was lighter and more fruity. I didn't really like the dessert wine, lol. They gave us some bread, cheese and meat to for a light lunch, and it was so fun! Such an Italian thing to do during the day. That was pretty much it for that one too! Only a few hours there, and then they brought us back on the bus. We went to a Mexican restaurant that night for dinner here in florence, and it was actually delicious :) fantastic margaritas, because we are actually closer to Spain than I had thought :) someday I'd like to go there! I don't speak any Spanish though. We went to a late night easter candlelight vigil, which was so cool! They built a fire inside Santa Maria del Fiore, and then the bishop lit the Christ candle from it, and thus all of our candles that we had were lit from the flame of the Christ candle. It was so cool! So many people. There was a choir, and an organ player, and they really pulled out all the stops for this service. Also, it went on for 3 hours. Yeah, it started at 10:30, so we didn't get back to our apartment until around 2, and we were pooped. But we had to wake up early for the stuff on Sunday!
Sunday Easter festivities began around 9:30, a parade started in town with people dressed up in medieval garb and instruments of all kinds. They pulled the cart along behind them, which is rigged with hundreds of fireworks and it is the pride of the city. They start working months in advance to attach all the fireworks. We see flag twirlers and dancers, and so many different animals and interesting things. The main spectacle- called scoppido del carro- began at 11 right in front of the Duomo, which is where the cart stopped, a fake dove with a fuse attached to it was sent down a wire from inside the Duomo, flew into the cart, hit the fuse and started this huge chain reaction of exploding fireworks on this cart. It was cool!!! So many people cheered and screamed. And boy was it crazy trying to get out... only thousands of my closest friends had shown up to watch the show with us. Another easter tradition in Florence is huge chocolate eggs, so of course I bought one, it was about the size of my head. And it was delicious :)
Monday we had the day off, so we decided to go to Livorno, Italy. We again tried to go to Verona, but tickets were really expensive because it's kind of far, so we chose a city none of us had ever heard of. Completely a "zingarata", which comes from the word meaning "gypsy" and it means to take a spur of the moment trip to unknown places, maybe even alone, get a little lost, and there you will find yourself. Italian is the coolest language! Anyway, we get on the train like last time, and its about the same distance but in the opposite direction. This town wasn't as exciting because it was a holiday, and so the town was almost completely empty. Also it was a costal town, and therefore it wasn't in the best condition. But we managed to walk about 12 miles just wandering and looking at random stuff. We had a delicious lunch, and the walked down by the marina that they had. There were lots of boats which was cool to see, and it was nice weather that day. We talked about friends, family, boys and all sorts of other topics which was nice to bond about. And then we took the train home again! Something to do, just for fun for a few hours. We really like traveling on the train, and it is super easy!
Well that's pretty much all for now, until later, ciao ciao!
xx
