Florence/Pisa!

This past weekend, I went to the heart of the Renaissance...Florence, Italy. It was glorious! What a beautiful place. The architecture, art work, and people were amazing (as well as prices for Italian wine :]) Our group had a great time!

We started by leaving at 6:20 on Friday for Milan. I'm so excited to go to Milan in December, if the city is anything like the train station, it must be gorgeous. Anyway, we got to Florence around 1 and headed to the Pepperdine Villa. The Pepperdine Villa is great! The rooms are a bit small, but the villa is homey and comfortable for the weekend. We got to stay there and they provided breakfast at an awesome cafe not to far away. We put our stuff away and immediately got some great Italian food at a cafe! With a full stomach, we were ready to walk till our feet were about to fall off the rest of the day. We saw the beautiful Duomo, the Church of Santa Maria Novella (not quite sure if thats what its actually called but it was beautiful!), and walked all over town. The Duomo is so magnificent! Like nothing else I've ever seen. Its so beautiful, I took probably about 50 pictures of just the Duomo alone. We were so tired that we came back and slept before dinner (I had gnocchi...yum!) and that was about it. On Saturday, we had a full day planned. We left at about 8, got a delicious breakfast at the cafe, and went off to see Michaelangelo's "David" at the Academia. We stood in line for about 2 hours and we finally got in. David is so wonderful. Its amazing the size and detail of this sculpture. I wish I had pictures but they would do no justice to Michaelangelo's workmanship. After that, some of us walked to the top of a hill in Florence to get some awesome pictures of the city. It was beautiful! We came back across "Ponte Vecchio" the famous bridge filled with goldsmith and jewelry stores, got some good ole' Italian gelato, and headed back to the villa to get ready for the night. We went to the same place for dinner that night and went out with some of our friends that are at the program in Florence.

On Sunday, we decided we wanted to go to Pisa! Its only about an hour from Florence so we got up early again (4 1/2 hours of sleep!) and headed to the coast toward Pisa. Finally, after a 30 minute walk we saw what we came for, the leaning tower! You would never believe just how much it leans! Its incredible that its still standing. It was in such good condition though, as were the other buildings in the plaza with it. It really is remarkable.

One of the best trips I've ever had! We had a great group that made the trip awesome! This weekend is a rest weekend in Lausanne and then were off to our educational field trip in Normandy next week!!!! Au revoir!