My last Italian adventure

Last weekend, Mariana, Sarah and I decided to take one last outing to two little towns in central Italy, Ferrara and Ravenna. We left Friday for Ferrara and checked into this adorable little hostel. The hostel was in this old building and our room actually had an original fresco on the ceiling! After settling in, we went to explore Ferrara! We walked around for a while getting a feel of the city and evetually decided it was time for lunch. We had quite a collection of red tickets (meal vouchers provided by Gtown) and do went searching for a place that accepted them. The only places we could find were non-Italian restaurants, so we chose Indian! It was actually a fantastic meal, very tasty, and almost free for us!Ferrara is famous for it's medieval castle that has a preserved moat. We didn't go into the castle, but instead, spent time acting out a little montage story about a Princess (me) and a dragon (Sarah). It was a funny way to spend part of the afternoon, childish, but hey, we were in a castle!
We enjoyed he sun and wandered out to a few churches and other sites with some famous frescoes. Nothing particularly exciting, but it was a nice leisurely walk. We even stumbled upon a fair with different rides etc. After killing some time, we went to a fantastic dinner in this little place that was packed! We all shared a lot of wine, and some pizza and just enjoyed the atmosphere and the weather! That night, we crashed early to get up in time for our morning train to Ravenna!

Ravenna is famous for having some of the best preserved early Christian mosaics, most famously in San Vitale. The weather could not have been more gorgeous and we ended up spending half of the day just sitting in piazza's and people watching/talking, etc. Anyway our first stop was of course, San Vitale, which was by far one of my favorite places in Italy! I was in awe by the stunning colors of the mosaics, some of the blues and greens look like they were created yesterday! The church is also a strange juxtapositions of early Christian and 18th/19th century decor. The mosaics lead right up to a dome that is decorated in a later fresco technique with more pastel colors and more realism. I spent most of my time just staring in awe at the mosaics that were at the high altar, some photos below.
We spent the rest of the day hopping from church to baptistery, all of which, appear to be humble brick buildings from the outside , but when you go in, the ceilings are covered with brilliant little stones that create this awesome picture. It was such a wonderful day just spent strolling, eating, watching the Italians and somehow always finding something to talk about.
Our train ride back was interesting as well. To go from Ravenna to Firenze, there is only one train and it is a slow train of only two carriages that goes through the mountains. The entire ride we had these amazing views and got to come into Firenze from a direction we'd never seen before. Overall, it was the perfect end to my adventures in Italy.

I enter my last two weeks in Firenze with a heavy load of work. Between papers, final exams, and oral presentations I won't have time to travel in Italy any more. It's so sad that it went by so quickly! Thankfully, my adventures in Europe are not over yet! Once I am done with finals (on the 25th) I am traveling to Greece for a week to visit my Gtown roomie! More stories then!

Gregorian Chanting and lots o' cheeeessseee!!! (continued)

For some reason the blog wouldn't let me post more photos... so here's part two...
Anyway, after the tour we got to eat the cheese! My favorite was the oldest one and we all had wine and bruschette and it was oh so yummy!!!! It was a long drive back, but worth the trip! It was a great finale for the villa trips... it's so sad that it's beginning of end!!!!

Gregorian Chanting and lots o' cheeeessseee!!!

Last Friday, we took our last villa excursion!! *sniffle*Our two Italian professors took us to a region of souther Tuscany, called Val d'Orcia. It's basically the picturesque Tuscan landscape, rolling green hills with little villas perched on top... adorable!!! Unfortunately, it is also a valley that has a lot of wind, so we nearly were blown away all day!!
Anyway, the purpose of the trip was to see several monasteries and go to a cheese factory and do a cheese/wine/olive oil tasting!! Of course, the catch was all of the tours were in Italian!! Eek! We got up pretty early to pile onto a bus and took a 2 hour drive south. It was a long, gorgeous ride to our first stop, an abbey. The abbey is adorable and still active.. meaning there were actual monks living there. We only saw a few of them because they keep themselves hidden when there are people around, I can imagine a group of 20 girls is probably worth avoiding anyway! So we had an adorable old man give us a very lengthy tour of the abbey. We got to see the refectory where they eat and listen to him describe the history of the Dominican monks and the abbey itself.
I tried so hard at first to follow him and understood about half of what he said... but by the end... it was too tough to keep up and I found myself lagging behind, just admiring the famous frescoes everywhere! In addition to the frescoes, one of my favorite parts was the old library which has hundreds of old manuscripts that were actually copied by hand by the monks. Apparently it's a sacred tradition and the monks copy these books in a secluded room away from any other non-monks... so we couldn't see that, but the books were incredible!!!
After we finished with this monastery, we had a traditional Val D'Orcian lunch. Thick pasta called pici with tomato sauce and salad... just a lite lunch in anticipation for the cheese later! Then we drove to another abbey where we had an appointment to listen to the monks of the abbey do their chanting prayers. It was a little disappointing only because there were only 6 monks and I could barely hear them. Then again, I guess they don't perform these chants for tourists, it's prayer...After the chanting, we had another little old man give us a tour of the abbey. This tour was really fascinating because the entire abbey is made of alabaster stone, so as seen below... the stone glows when hit with light. Unfortunately it was cloudy when we were there, but the guide made sure we could see some of it. He then brought out an oboe and played some religious song for us before we were off again.Our last, and best stop was the fattoria di formaggii!!!!! YUM!! There's a small town called Pienza where a special kind of cheese, Pecorino, is made. It's only made in this region and it's only allowed to be produced here. Apparently it gets its distinctive taste from the grass that the sheep eat... who knew that mattered!? Anyway, we got a tour of the factory by the owner and saw the process of making cheese and how they preserve the four different kinds hey make. They vary in age from a few weeks to a few years...