a day in san gimignano!

today was quite the busy and fast paced day. we woke up early this morning-i especially tired after only about 5 hours of sleep-and traveled to san gimignano! it is called the "mideval manhattan" because of two buildings in the middle of the square that resemble the twin towers. i took a picture, but its too late to try to put them up now. it was a pretty cool, but small town.

first we visited the main church which was beautiful. on the right side of the church were paintings of the old testament covering the wall, and on the left side of the church were paintings of the new testament covering the wall. i mean, from the floor to the ceiling. it was pretty cool to walk around and try to name the scenes depicted! right outside of the church was a HUGE tower that overlooked the city-it was part of the government building from hundreds of years ago.

in italy, there was a great seperation of power years ago between the church and the government...so often when we explore older towns, the church and the government building will be side by side. however, in san gimignano, the height of the buildings also depicted power. the reason for the tower attached to the government building was to show that the government had more power than the church (the tower itself was taller than the church building). throughout the city, there were 72 towers at one point-only 17 remain today. the other towers were homes that families built-rather than building a house wider rather than taller, the families built tall houses (i mean 7-8 stories tall) to show their wealth. it was pretty cool.

anyways, enough with the history lesson-so we climbed to the top of the tower and saw the most beautiful view of the tuscan countryside that i have ever seen. it was incredible. rows and rows of grape vineyards followed by mountain after mountain. it was great.

we enjoyed a 4 course lunch at a authentic italian restaurant after. i honestly didnt mind this food too much. the only thing i wont even try still is the patte-liver-that they serve EVERYWHERE as an appetizer. it just looks so nasty. we had-bruchetta, patte, bread as an app. rice with squash, ziti as the first course. salad and chicken as the second course. and apricot cake as the dessert. it was a great meal-so filling that i didnt even eat dinner :)

after lunch we went to the most random place ever-a torture museum. it was DISGUSTING walking around looking at torture devices. haha. we spent about 20 mins in there and got the heck out!

we finished up the day with a wine tasting-i actually liked one of the wines. haha. the rest were YUCK! i thought i would aquire a taste, but alcohol is disgusting. haha. after a busy and crazy day we started our journey home-i was so tired i slept the whole way.

since we have been home, we have frantically been planning our fall break trip to barcelona and paris. prices keep going up, but its so hard to plan a 10 day trip like that. i am so excited for this next month to really take off. i hope september flies by and october comes so fast. october is a busy month with a trip to Orvieto and then fall break. The week after fall break-im skipping my classes and going to Rome with Mom, Terri, and Ash. after that busy week, i will have 2 weeks of classes in november and the last week of november our entire NCSU clan is going to Dublin :) busy busy next few months before i settle back in the states.

it has been such an eye opening experience so far. i have truly enjoyed getting to know people on our trip-people who i would have never met at home. i have had major ups and major downs, but am definitely learning how to deal with them on my own rather than calling mom every day. sometimes are hard, but its been such a growing oppritunity!

thanks for all of your comments! i enjoy reading them! bye for now!