Blogs from Siena, Tuscany, Italy, Europe - page 26

Ciao a tutti! Our three week intensive language course ended Friday, and this week is the beginning of our regular semester classes. I am taking four classes, but one of them actually counts as two classes, and my schedule looks really great. I will continue to have an Italian language class, then I also have an introductory Art History class, complete with field trips to Florence, a class on Italian history, and a class called Education and Linguistics. The education class is about Italian Sign Language and it's going to be pretty challenging. Part of the class is taught by a woman who speaks only in Italian, and with her we learn more of the history, methods, and cultural context. The other half is taught by Roberto, who is deaf and therefore instructs the class entirely ... read more

Hello everyone, well we are in Siena and its raining again. We have had some problems since our last entry. We had a good visit to Radda, Judy and Don, we loved it.Had a little trouble copying photos onto a disc but its done! Small village really with those wonderful cobbled streets and again surrounded by a wall. On the Friday we parked at Montervacchi and took the train to Florence. What a wonderful city, the architecture is incredible, sorry haven,t time to post pictures yet! We had tickets booked for the Uffizi and Accadamia where we saw David by Michelangelo. Word cannot describe this magnificent statue! Even with reserved tickets for both we had to line up for about 1/2 hour. We were exhausted after the Uffizi , again words cannot describe all these wonderful ... read more

Just a quick update on an entirely strange and exciting afternoon yesterday.... So, after class ended, I was walking with Hannah, my new friend from Bryn Mawr (we didn't really know each other before coming to Italy, but she's wonderful and I'm glad that Italy introduced us to each other!). We are in the process of making plans for a trip on Saturday. We think that we would like to go back to a beach while the weather is still nice, so we were heading to a travel agency to ask about the best places to go and the transportation. While on the way to our destination, we ran into a group of people looking for a different destination- a group of very tired-looking religious pilgrims carrying an enormous cross. Before I knew what was happening, ... read more

Florence - Siena (Bus) 2-3 September Its un-salted bread is a fitting metaphor for Tuscany. The appearance and the texture of this area, like that of bread, is universally recognisable because this region has been superfluously described in any number of newspaper travel sections, magazines or the glut of “a day of my life in Tuscan …” (insert cliché here - eg: sun; rusticos; olive groves; chianti vineyards), that are crammed into the travel writing shelves of bookstores the world over. Immediately upon biting into a piece of Tuscan bread, I noticed something was amiss. The bread, at first, seemed rather bland. After searching for the explanation to what was missing, the absent ingredient was, in fact, salt. After a feud with their neighbours in Pisa, the coastal city cut the salt supply to the Tuscan ... read more

a glorious week without charted hours. I found myself in Siena for the Palio;a medieval horse race that involves baptising the horse, controara parties, music, drinks, crying and chanting. ... read more