San Michele San Gimignano

... for our walk through the walled village. There is a 14th century fort with make up part of the walls. Today it is used as a prison - your not supposed to take photos of it, but I snapped a couple off before I knew... luckily I was not spotted by the local polizi. The town was cute for sure but I'm not sure it deservered all the accolades given to it by other travellers we had met in Lucca. Having said that we did take more photos than usual.

Hello everyone,<br>We had such fun today!! The square had it's first ever market day or flea market. It was filled with cheeses which by the way Percino was our favorite and the fresh sliced procuitto was unbelievable. We just walked around all day. The first part of the day we did two loads of wash and dry which cost $18 us dollars. Then we had wine free and paid and had a great time. We then came back to ...

... of me. She yelled at me and I snapped my hand back. In Italy the Italians eat at the counters after ordering and stand there and eat. It was funny, Mick and I were laughing and then decided we should order a little of meat and sausage. In Rick's book it talks about a picnic lunch they make for around 15 euros. I told the guy just small plate, please. Well 21 euros later the stupid americans were taken again. We went to our balcony and drank some wine and ...

... difference, so much so that Kate wondered why some of the lesser-known artists' work was even hung. (Kate: An insult I know and I'm sorry! I just couldn't help but wonder!) Similar to Siena, there was a ton of art dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who seems to be highly revered in Italian culture. The Uffizi also holds a tremendous number of sculptures and the Florentine artists paid tremendous homage to their Greek and Roman ...

I have resolved to try and keep this blog more up-to-date.<br>So much has happened since late July that i wont even start writing it down, but to summarise our drive as follows:<br>Arcachon<br>Bordeaux<br>Flo rac (Ardeche)<br>Montpellier where the family ...

... tell a") Ice cream at home will never be the same. <br><br>Holly, the owner of the villa, is an artist, but also the daughter of a well known artist - Pauline Bewick who is best known for her "Yellow Man". She showed me a copy of the book and since I've gone on the web to see a play was made of the story as well. I was first intriqued with the character as I saw a figure in Florence windows of a manlike being with horns. The book opens with a picture ...

... Most of the students in our program are from University of Minnesota or Indiana. After dinner we went to a dance club called Space Electronic. I had been there 2 summers ago when I went on my European Contiki trip, so I knew it was going to be pretty fun!! We had a lot of fun dancing and a lot of people went. Unfortunately we had class at 9am this morning, so lets just say that was a ball of fun :) BUT we did figure out the bus system which is fairly simple ...

... Trail, weaving in and out of small towns and vineyards. Everywhere we found ourselves was exactly where we wanted to be. There were a lot of highlights on this leg of the trip. We'll note just a few. The first place we stayed was a converted mill dating back to the 1700's it was called Mulino Di Quercegrossa and was pure luxury for us. The swimming pool was hard to describe (see the pics) Diving off of the meter high ...

... on something only to find that the marble block doesn't allow for your creation - so simply starting into the marble from the start took no small amount of genius and confidence. Examples of some of Michealangelo's unfinished sculptures precede seeing David and the chisel marks into the basic marble blocks show the effort required and remarkable method employed by Michaelangelo - like a body surfacing out of the water. When we finally saw David, well, words ...

... I could vacation here with a friend and stay in private rooms each night with a shower for $85 US a day for all 4 people... easy! That's without any short cuts. Florence is a good base camp because its only 1 1/2 half hours from Rome, and only 3 hours to the very southern tip where all the pretty beaches are. Plus, Pisa is only an hour and so is Cinque Terre. Venice is about 2 or 3 hours at the most by train. I really like Italy...if I could only speak Italian, it would be even better.