Hey guys!
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| Il Duomo di Milano |
Ok so with papers and tests creeping up on me, I feel like my blog posts are probably going to become shorter and less frequent (like this one) but I promise I will do my best!!! UK trip will be posted soon!!
Anyway so the weekend before last twas the Ragedrian weekend. I had to wake up at 6:30 to go on my trip to Milan and Florence with my Leonardo DaVinci class. We headed to Florence first. After the two and a half hour bus ride we finally made it. We walked straight to the Uffizi. I remember coming to Florence the first time I’ve been to Italy and deeply regretting not going to the Uffizi, so it was really cool for me to finally make it back here. Adrian rushed us in, and we saw famous works by Leo that we learned about in class. We also got to see the famous “Birth of Venus” by Boticelli. We moseyed around for a little bit, and after accidentally setting off a few alarms, we left the premises.
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| Meandering in Florence |
We then left for lunch and walked around Florence for a little bit. Although Florence was just as beautiful as I had remembered, I didn’t realize just how many Americans there were in the city- specifically college-aged girls. It made me realize just how grateful I am to be studying in a small town like Perugia. A place where the only Americans I know, are the ones studying with me in school. I have been forced to practice my Italian everyday and have learned so much about the Italian culture, an experience I most likely wouldn’t have gotten if I studied in Florence.
But anyways after lunch we went to the Pallazo Vecchio, where National Geographic is doing a special on a possible lost and found painting of Leo’s called “The Battle of Anghiari.” They may have possibly found it underneath frescos done by another artist. So they are doing careful tests to see if the famous painting is really hiding underneath the frescoes. It was really interesting, and it’ll be exciting to find out if it’s really there. Guess I’ll have to tune into National Geographic.
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| There on the right is where "The Battle of Anghiari" may be located |
After that we headed back on the bus (not before I accidentally trailed off and absent-mindedly followed a group of Asian tourists…), and passed out for the four-hour bus ride to Milan. I was especially excited about Milan because I’d never been there before. When we finally reached Milan I was shocked. It was so modern compared to all the other Italian cities I’ve seen. We were pretty sure we were actually driving into Philly instead of Milan (the drive seemed long enough…). After we arrived at our four-star hotel we went out and tried to explore the town- not before we remembered the supermarket closed in a few minutes- so we quickly ran over and bought some cheap vino. After dinner we trekked back to the hotel and enjoyed some of the wine in one of the rooms (we wanted to get Adrian to join us, but the chances of that happening were about the same as getting Leonardo Da Vinci himself to accompany us).
The next day in Milan was my favorite day- especially since we got to see “The Last Supper.” We rose pretty early and had free breakfast (I was pretty excited when I saw the buffet table- until a waiter pointed me to the cheap breakfast room, and I embarrassingly had to back out- not before grabbing an apple first). But after that we headed to Santa Maria Della Grazia, which is where The Last Supper is kept. They take it extremely seriously- we had to go through a sanitation room or something before we entered. But it was amazing- I heard about this painting all my life, and here I was standing right in front of it. It was a lot bigger than I thought. To any of you who have read he DaVinci Code, I may have initially thought that the person to Jesus’ right was Mary Magdalene. But Adrian was very adamant that we all knew the person was actually John the Babtist. Im not 100% convinced though…
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| Ok, thats not the actual Last Supper, but it's as good as i could get seeing as I couldn't take pictures, and it was right next to the real thing! |
But anyways, it was an amazing experience, and I would have deeply regretted coming to Italy and not seeing it. But incase you were wondering, you actually have to make an appointment to see it, and they are booked until October!!
After that, we saw the Sforza Castle- the home of the important people who commissioned “The Last Supper.” There was like some sort of carnival going on right next to it, so during our lunch break we actually went on a crazy ride- with the view of the Sforza castle in the background. Typical day in Italy. After touring the Duomo (the third largest church in the world), and looking at an awesome collection of Leonardo's drawings focusing on human flying machines (it was also really cool to see his backwards handwriting) we headed back on the bus and made our 6 hour bus ride back to dear Perugia. This happened to be on Saint Patrick’s Day. Let me just say, I have never seen any place, let alone Perugia more packed than it was on Saint Patrick’s Day. Though exhausted from the traveling, I had a very fun night!
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| Pretty excited outside the Sforza Castle! |
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| Carnival ride with the view of the Sforza Castle!! |
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| The group of us with Adrian (dont ask why I was doing that face...)!!! |
The rest of the week was pretty cool. Among the highlights of the week, on Tuesday we had a wine tasting in my foods class. They were extremely generous with the wine. You should have seen the differences between the beginning of class and the end of class, it was very entertaining to say the least. We also watched the movie “La Vita E Bella” in my Italian class. It was really good and really sad, I weeped a little bit in class. On Wednesday we had an olive oil tasting workshop. I feel slightly pretentious now after all these tastings…
Alright, well I’m gonna go to class- but stay tuned I am going to try and update tomorrow about my weekend in Liverpool!
Ciao! I love you all :)
Emilia
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