Assisi

Ciao, ognuno! I dropped Elizabeth off at the airport yesterday, but I still haven't written much about what we did while she was here!! It's about time I did that, starting with the beautiful Assisi!

Just for fun I'm including a map of Assisi. The town is very, very small. In fact we could walk from one end to the other in practically no time at all, that is, if you don't get distracted along the way! Assisi is like a little castle town; the streets own the same (or at least very similar) architecture as when it was originally built, old stones and brick paving the pathways and building the walls. The entire city was surrounded by a wall, containing it in the otherwise mountainous region. It was stunning, the views from anywhere in the city were gorgeous, you could see planes and farmland and forest all intertwined into the hills.

We stayed in a hotel right next to Piazza S. Chiara on the Eastern side of town. It was so easy to wander the city because you could always find your way back to the main roads due to how compact it was. Being built in the mountains, a lot of the roads sloped upward, giving you a great view not only of the mountains around Assisi but also of the city itself! 

Despite being one of the most religious towns in Italy, it looks like it relies heavily on tourism--though not in a way that could be described negatively! It was very modest and the religious aspects of the city, the churches, the priests, the nuns, and of course the history, intertwined easily with the sweet little storefronts and hotels that lined the city roads.

One of my favorite parts of Assisi was getting to feed the pigeons there!! The pigeons were incredibly tame and would fly up to your hand to eat right out of it. It was a blast, we had run into a woman doing just this and she was kind enough to give me a bit of the bread she was feeding them to try it myself!

The largest cathedral in Assisi is Basilica di S. Francesco which of course Lizabeth and I had to see. It is on the far west of town, just on the edge of the city so the view behind it was impeccable! There were many other churches of course, though this is the most famous and we stuck to touring this more than the other smaller ones. Although we did pop our heads into a few others just to see what they looked like!

The inside of the cathedral was beautiful and as you pass through the inside portion, you reach a small courtyard that was wonderfully architectured with archways and sweet little hallways leading to other parts of the church.

This was just outside the city walls!

How I said this was like a little castle town? It wasn't just because of the old brickwork and stone pathways that resembled medieval castles... There were actually castles on the north end of town far up in the mountains! There were two, Rocca Maggiore and Rocca Minore, as their names describe: a larger castle and a smaller. We hiked up to Rocca Maggiore and it was absolutely worth the hike!!! (It wasn't much of a hike, more of a trek through the outskirts of the city and through the northern end! Easy-peasy!)

The castle was extremely well preserved!! It actually felt like you were walking through a medieval castle... There were little corridors and holes in the wall that were open to the public, long, dark hallways like secret passages that lead to lookout towers, it was amazing!! Now that I think about it, I can't recall if anything was actually blocked off from the public. Despite being the larger of the two castles, it was still very small and not easy to get lost in! It was great to see.

Not to mention the views from the top of the tower!!!

That's all I'll say for Assisi as there is too much to put into words ;) I believe I continue saying this for all of my posts, but everywhere I've gone has been too spectacular to truly be able to write out adequately! Perhaps Italian would do it more justice!

I have a few posts I know I'm already behind on but until I get back to Florence, I don't think I'll update this blog! Getting too busy :)

Have a picture of this little greenfinch to keep you guys occupied until I find the time to update! Such a cutie...

Wine Tasting at Vicchiomaggio

One of the things Elizabeth wanted to see while she was here, as well as something I've been thinking about, was a vineyard and winery! After a bit of looking around, we discovered a winery in Le Bolle, Chianti (close to Strada in Chianti and Greve in Chinati, both well known cities in the region) called Vicchiomaggio. I'm going to go ahead and link there website right here because they are a fairly well known vineyard in Tuscany and it's pretty cool to look through their site!

The day started off very rainy in Florence and we were hoping that during our hour bus ride to Le Bolle, the sky would clear up. With a bit of luck it did! By the time we reached our stop the sky was blue with only patches of cloud. I hate to say that when we hopped off the bus, we took a bit of a wrong turn and ended up traveling the highway for an hour or two in order to find this vineyard. Vicchiomaggio owns acres and acres of land! We were continuously seeing signs saying the land was owned by them and thought we were getting close... not so, unfortunately! We found our way eventually, the winery, of course, was just a two minute walk from the bus stop.

Nonetheless, the mountainous region of Chianti is beautiful! Chianti is a wine that you see all over Italy, usually suggesting it was made in this region of Tuscany. Le Bolle is high up in the mountains, giving us a wonderful view of all the vineyrards, grapes, olive trees, and even the buildings, cottages, and castles where they eventually make their wine.

The pictures don't nearly do the view justice. It was absolutely stunning to be up in the mountains with the rolling hills! I think Elizabeth and I made quite a few Middle Earth references throughout the day.

Vicchiomaggio has two main buildings aside from their vineyards: the winery and a castle! The winery is exactly what it sounds like, a building to taste wines and buy bottles while the castle has a lot to offer. There are rooms to rent, a tortoise garden (twenty-some live tortoises live here!), chapels for weddings, and most important, the wine cellars. We took a tour (The Gold Wine Tour for anyone interested!) and so we got to see the vineyards, we learned much about the land and what they grow, how they make their wines, what kinds they make, toured the wine cellars, got a bit of history on Chianti itself, and, last but not least, got to taste five different wines.

A few photos of the castle grounds!!

The barrels they age the wine in were huge!! The larger ones last for about forty years and after each batch of wine they go into the barrels to remove a layer of wood for the next wine they age. The smaller ones only last a few years as they cannot remove layers from them. They only make their red wines here but are well known for them! Their white wines are made elsewhere though I honestly think their white wine was the best despite the high standing of their reds... Perhaps I don't know enough about wine yet :) In any case, getting to try the different types was a lot of fun!! I'm starting to tell the difference between each which I think is a step in the right direction.

Five Days in London! Days Four and Five!!

I've realized that I don't have anything to tell you all about my fifth day in London as that was when I flew home, so I'm smooshing the fourth and fifth days together! The three full days was there there wasn't a drop of rain (aside from few scattered showers at night) but the day I left it was beginning to rain pretty hard.

Fortnum and Mason was where my fourth day started. A friend told me if I could find it that I definitely should. She shouldn't have told me to go here. Bad idea, suuuch a bad idea. It was a sweet tooth trap. It was like a huge chocolate shop!!! Three stories of chocolates, cakes, wines, candies, and every pastry you can imagine!!! I didn't make it out empty handed... I left with a bag of rum-chocolate truffles and a piece of almond, dark chocolate fudge. It would be very easy to spend all of your hard earned money in there and worst of all, it would be worth it...

I went to Buckingham Palace right afterwards to see the Changing of the Guards! It was a great ceremony and I'm glad I got to see it. It had been packed there, even an hour before it began. I can't help but wonder if it is this crowded every day for it! It was perfect however, it seemed as though no matter where you stood you would get a good view of the parties as they walked by. There were constantly police men and women on horseback walking up and down the streets throughout the procession just to make sure everything was going smoothly. It was awesome to be so close to the horses!

Everything about the procession was incredible, from the music to the horses and the uniforms and formations. It was very neat!! I keep thinking of all the illustrations and animations I'd love to base on these guards. Even a children's book.... so much inspiration!

I made my way to the Victoria and Albert Museum next. I was not prepared for this museum. I enjoyed the Tate Britain a lot, but this one... this one was massive!!! So many floors with every type of art you can think of... There was of course the traditional renaissance paintings and the Greek sculptures, but the museum even went into photography, fashion design, silver sculptures, and even the art of iron making. Every floor was very unique and had something incredible to offer.

My favorite hallways of the V&A Museum were their "Technique Hallways" where it offered a lot of different types of sculptures and sketches, all of various techniques (given the name.) It was great... There were artists everywhere sketching! I was very jealous that I didn't have the time to sit and sketch with them. It would be very easy to spend days on end in this museum!!

The building itself circled around a courtyard where there was a little fountain and café. Perfect if you needed a breather from all the rooms, but this museum felt so light and open and free, so much natural light streaming in from the windows! Next time I go to London, I'll be spending much more time there!

To those of you who know the MIA well, you'll recognize this artist's hand! A sun-styled chandelier hangs in the entrance of our little Minneapolis art museum. In the same manner, and in the same location in fact, the same artist has one of his colorful chandeliers in the A&V Museum as well!!! Dale Chihuly is the artist in question, I was so excited to see that we had something in common with this amazing London art institute! (Click here if you'd like a refresher on the MIA's piece by Chihuly!)

I hadn't taken too many pictures of the Underground, mostly because I didn't want to seem too touristy (haha) but I still can't quite get over how much I adored traveling by it!

My last activity in London was a bit of a last minute decision. I'd been looking into musicals before I'd left and of course had my heart set on Wicked. Though... I was constantly hearing the live performance of Once was incredible. Just for fun, I made my way over to the Phoenix Theatre and asked them what their ticket situation was looking like for my last night there. Turned out... They had a very cheap ticket left and in what was, I thought, one of the best seats in the theatre!!!

If anyone gets the chance to, you have to see this musical. Of course the lyric of each song is the same, but the music is so different from one musician to the next. The cool thing about this musical is that because it’s based entirely on the characters playing and living their music, the actors and actresses are chosen for their passion and talent. So with each performance you are going to see completely different artists on stage with different ways of singing and playing. No two musicians are going to sound alike and each rendition of each song is completely unique!

I have loads more to say about Once, though I believe I'll stop there. When I see you all in person I'll be sure to talk a lot about it!

I think that's all I'll have to say for my trip to London... I fell in love with it so quickly, and want to go back so badly! I hope I'll get to go back one day. (Scratch that, I will be going back one day hehe!) I left out a lot of the little things I did in these posts such as hanging out in the parks and finding many little book stores that I adored, though I think I hit the major things I had done there!

Elizabeth is in Florence with me now and we've been doing a lot lately so I'll be writing about that soon!

Ciao per ora!!