Grand Hotel Villa Patrizia Siena

For the last couple weeks my Italian culture class has been on and off again because my professor was hospitalized with pneumonia. This week she finally resumed lectures, however we are in a different class room that is literally right across from her apartment so she doesn't have to walk a long way in the cold. And it is getting really cold in Siena right now.

This, unfortunately, means ...

... oldest town in Italy from before Rome. The etruscan people lived in Montepulciano before the Romans settled. This little hill town is built on a sloping limestone ridge overlooking the Tuscan landscape. As we passed through, Vilmo informed me of all the famous movies that were filmed by his house, the obvious being Under the Tuscan Sun. He mentioned a few others like The English Patient, Gladiator and the New Moon Twilight movie, all of which I've not ...

... and tiny, weaving streets that are closed to traffic (the first European city to banish vehicles from its center, in 1966).

We started our tour of Siena by walking through town and coming across the Piazza Salimbeni, which contains the interesting Palazzo Spannocchi, a Gothic building from which 29 finely carved busts stare down at you from under the palazzo’s eaves! Pretty cool.

We continued walking through interesting ...

... paysage est tres beau, comme dans toute la toscane!!

dans les attraction principale , il y avais le duomo, quelque eglies plus modestes, mais chacune avais un petit quelque chose a voir. puis il y a les ruines d'une anciene arena romaine.

... sud des alpes, encore une tres belle strucutre de marbre.Nous somme retourne a la tour du chateau de la piazza del campo pour y monter et prendre quelques cliches des colines de la toscanes.

le retour en autobus nous a permis de voir de differents paysages, et plusieurs chateaux au travers des vignes de la region des chianti !

... into this weightless, airy consistency. I would chew and it would feel like nothing there but exploding zucchini flavors. Then the cheese. It was soooo melty. And peppered on top as though it was gravy over biscuits. I could eat 12 of these cheese gravy green bundt cake things like donuts. Then, it was the ravioli. I think they were actually called raviolitini. I tried a few cut in half, but no. To really get the humming, swaying, breathe in deep kind of taste, you had to do a ...

... through them.  There are many gelaterias, shops for clothes, food and nicknacks.  We had probably the best dinner of our entire trip at a beautiful restaurant called 'La Taverna San Guiseppe'.  From the romantic original architecture to the truffle gnochetti to the porcini mushroom soup to the amazing beef, ....and the wine....oh the delectable wine!!!  Oh yeah, then we topped it off with a little visit to ...

... documentary on the race to get an idea of what it would be like - they go nuts for it. There were a bunch of American students seeing the documentary at the same time and while we were all waiting they actually bought and ate popcorn from a machine that looked like the popcorn had been sitting there for at least 5 years. Gross. On Tuesday we decided to climb the 400 stairs to the top of the tower in the Piazza del Campo. I managed to ...

... horses representing each of the 17 neighborhoods race around... After that we were set free! All of us were starving so we ate at this delicious pizza place off some side street called Pizzeria St. Martino which is a local favorite. You all have to go when you travel here!!! Matt and I took off on our own to explore the narrow, steep cobble stone side roads and ended up at The Duomo of Siena. Check out the photos, it was so big and full of marble and ...

... A bit of an architectural dillema occurs though, because in the cathedral the floor is so ornately designed that they don't allow you to walk on it. It seems that someone could have thought that out better. We are all off to Rome tomorrow. Craig