So… this past weekend was my first overnight trip. It was a very last-minute trip. I was originally only supposed to be gone Friday. Instead, I ended up being away from Florence Thursday through Sunday.
Here’s what ended up happening:
- WHEN&WHERE: THURSDAY/FRIDAY & VADA/POPULONIA
WHY: Class trip to the Etruscan necropolis at Populonia
WHO: Me, my 2 classmates, (there are only 3 of us in all 5 of my classes), and two of our professors [there’s a 3/5 student/faculty ratio for my program...]
1) We stayed the night at our professor Erika’s house in Vada: we chatted and drank homemade Lemoncello until around 1:30am (which seems unbelievable when compared to my relationships with RU professors)
2) Went to Populonia from Vada Friday morning
POPULONIA: an extremely beautiful Etruscan site – was chosen for its location on a cliff overlooking the sea
It was also extremely humid Friday, with tons of flies. Bleghh.
- Before I include photos, however, I’m going to include pictures from two of my class trips with my Medieval Archtitecture course
EVERY THURSDAY: we have day trips with my professor Rita (Comanducci)
The following pics are from La Montagnola the site of an extremely large tumulus from the 7th c. BC. It’s a three-chamber tomb not normally open to the public, but it seems like everything here in Italy revolves around knowing someone, or working in a certain department… so we got in for about half an hour.
Anyway, here are the pics La Montagnola:
- Now combine that tomb with these pictures from a trip to the ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSUM OF FLORENCE:
The exteriors of tumuli look like the grassy mounds reconstructed throughout the garden of the museum, & the bodies would be in urns like these, or in sarcophagi
- Now, for the photos from Populonia:
Then,
- FRIDAY: POPULONIA –> PORTOFERRAIO –> ELBAAfter having lunch and leaving Populonia, Erika drove us to the port at Portoferraio, so the three of us could catch a ferry and meet up with friends in Elba.
- FRIDAY–>SUNDAY: ELBAWe (a group of 11 including two of my apartment-mates) ended up staying in a hotel near the town of Marina de Campo for two nights.
- Elba was somewhat of a disappointing trip as it just wasn’t planned well enough. We got to the hotel around six on Friday, only to discover that we had to bike or bus to the beach and restaurants. We hit the beach Saturday, but it was pretty overcast, and Sunday was really rainy as we left and it was hard to get around towards the end of the weekend due to the triathlon, the “Elbaman!”
HIGHLIGHTS:
- discovering that Elba is actually a pretty big island with a bunch of towns and not just a fortress in the middle of the sea
- confirming that I actually DO like seafood (the mussels and clams were sooo good)
- eating fresh coconut on the beach
- having the best pizza I’ve had so far in Italy (smoked ham, mushrooms, mozzarella, and a white cream sauce for 8euro)
- biking around the local roads at night
When we finally headed back Sunday, however, it took most of the day to get back. The train was the longest leg (3hrs) as it seemed to stop every twenty minutes. Definitely glad to be back home.
More pics of Florence to follow. Soonish.
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