Cinque Terre and Siena

What a busy weekend I've been having! I spent the 4th of July wandering through the villages of Cinque Terre. The whole study abroad group left at 6:45a.m. by bus. We then arrived to La Spezia where took a ferry to the northern most village- Monterosso. The picture below is on the boat ride over. On the left is my roommate Kate, in the middle is my friend Courtney, and on the right is (obviously) me.


Once in Monterosso, a group of us hiked to the next village, Vernazza. This hike is considered the most difficult of all, and it was pretty exciting. We hiked on narrow steps up the side of a cliff and every time we came to a clearing the view seemed to get better and better (see below).

Vernazza is pictured below. And after about an hour and a half of hiking, boy were we happy to see this place! Also on the way into Vernazza I saw Morning Glories growing up a fence so I had to take a picture for my mama :-)

We were all very hot and sweaty from our hike so we of course jumped right into the water. It felt amazing! The area pictured below is where I went swimming and I even jumped off the cliff without any hesitation. It was a lot of fun and the salt water felt great. After swimming for a while, we felt so relaxed that we decided to just take it easy for the rest of the day instead of hiking through the rest of the villages. But we did end up taking a train to the fourth town- Manarola- and then walking the final stretch from Manarola to Riomaggiore, which is called Via dell'Amore.

Via dell'Amore, or rather, Lovers Lane, was full of grafiti that people made exclaiming their love. There was also a bench (pictured below) that many couples would sit on. To the sides of the seat are locks chained to a fence and the keys to these locks were thrown into the water below. It was a very romantic setting.



Today I went to Siena with my roommate. The city is very hilly and we saw quite a few interesting sites. The main site is the Piazza del Campo. This is where the Palio (a horse race) is held twice a year. And it actually just happened this past week. So while we were walking to Il Campo we were stopped by a parade coming through in celebration of the Palio. A picture of Piazza del Camp is shown below.

On the outside of Il Campo there was also the Palazzo Publico (pictured below) which houses the Museo Civico. This was a great museum with the seemingly neverending amazing artwork I've been seeing in Italy. I especially enjoyed Gallori Emilio's Il Dolore and Simone Martini's fresco Maestà. We then went to the Santuario di Santa Caterina, which is a sanctuary in honor of Saint Catherine, who happens to be both Kate's and my confirmation name. The final picture shown below is of the steps leading up to the Duomo (which we didn't have time to see). On these steps is an "X" which according to legend is where St. Catherine tripped and fell in the 14th century because she was pushed by the devil. However, even though the steps are very steep and hard, she walked away without a scratch, which only could happen to a saint.

We also went to the Osepdale di Santa Maria della Scala. This was unbelievable. The first floor had two rooms with classical art on the walls and very modern art statues in these same rooms. There were also many other rooms on this floor with historical information on the hospital. We then descended to the lower levels of the hospital and this is where it got pretty interesting. We were the only two walking down there and it seemed to go on forever with just poorly lit hallways and no artwork on the walls. We got a little spooked but then we finally got to the bottom and this is where the Museo Archeologico is housed. It has Etruscan artifacts from Siena, including jewelry, dishware, and even sarcophagi. The final exhibit held in the Ospedale was of contemporary art. Now, I try to have an open mind when it comes to this stuff, but I had a very hard time in this exhibit. I really did not care for any of it.

Our last stop on the way out of Sienna was a pastry shop where we bought panforte, which is made of honey, almonds, and citron. It was very heavy and had an interesting taste (as you might expect by the mixture of the ingredients). We also got ricciarelli. These were delicious soft almond cookies coated with powdered vanilla.

Tomorrow I am headed to Pisa and Lucca for another full day of adventure! I am very excited and can't wait to let everyone know more about it!