Park Hotel Le Fonti Volterra

... could use for our research papers on Italian culture. All in all, it made me think how that was exactly how I would like my apartment to be when I get my own one. Tea set and all. I've become surprisingly addicted to tea since I came here. The English variety, of course, with milk and sugar, but I'm still rather surprised that I've come to enjoy tea so much in Italy. Rather than, say, coffee.

... in Europe and specifically Italy it consisted of this plate, bread, vegetables and some wine. My stomach grumbled waiting for more food to be presented. Vilmo, I think, sensed this and brought out some leftover lentils from lunch. Thank god, I thought, and helped myself to a huge serving. Vilmo grows these lentils on his farm. They were spicy and satisfying. Mira and I stayed for a while chatting with Vilmo. Vilmo didn't stop at the lentils but went into ...

... a guidebook recommendation) for lunch – and It. Was. Awesome. Set off a little street, through a small door framed in ivy, this little hole-in-the-wall served up phenomenal Tuscan food. (A sign inside the restaurant stated: “Slow Food Zone.” Hah.) We started out with bruschetta, and from there, we each had a pasta as our first plate (“primi piatti”) – I had a spicy spaghetti with meat sauce, and Murray had the ...

un autre jour, une autre destination! Aujourd'hui, nous somme parties pour Siene. Arrive a siene, nous avons traverse la ville pour y trouver un bureau d'information touristique. une fois la carte de la vile en main, nous somme aller dinner dans un resto, un peu a l'ecart des sites touristiques. Comme dans tout les restorant italien, il y ...

... whatever we wanted from that room... This was at 3pm too, not like we arrived at some weird hour.
The "dorm" was just an apartment with 6 beds in 1 room, a kitchen and 4 beds in the room joined to the kitchen with no door between - check out the photos on facebook.
Glad we booked the cheaper 6 bed dorm and not the more expensive 4 bed!!!
Found out later that day they have another "dorm" downstairs with a 6 bed room and a double bed in ...

... Volterra and found our accommodation for tonight, the Vescovile Seminary of St Andrea. It is still currently in use as a Seminary...so silence please. We settled into our very comfortable room which has a fabulous Tuscan view before walking into the old town of Volterra. Volterra has two defensive walls, one Etruscan and the ...

... walls as well as a small and large amphitheater, public and administrative building, library and an agora or marketplace. Only 40 percent of the town had been excavated and most was in ruin but you got a good idea of how it once was. The sea over time has been silted in from erosion and earthquakes, so the Aegean Sea is now about 2 miles away. People abandoned the city after the earthquakes, the retreated sea, and a malaria outbreak. On the way back to the ship, we were taken to a Turkish ...

... preparation he did in making the painting. Amazing to see how he applied so much math to art. Then at the end of the museum was the bulk of the special Di Vinci exhibit, which showed so many samples of his writing, his mathematics, his art, his inventions...etc. Just the bulk of his work... he NEVER stopped working. Astounding. It filled the entire floor! Really glad I saw it... especially since I'm doing that show about him! After that (which was ...

... and when we finally reached the top, it was insane to look out on all of the city and on the towns and hills surrounding Florence. We could see everything! It was a beautiful, clear day and we just walked around the dome taking pictures, videotaping (yes, we lugged the video camera up there...can't wait for you all to see this footage!), and taking it all in. I can't wait for everyone to see the photos, because it is truly incredible (by the way, we are having photo uploading ...