Civita di Banorregio

A few of us took the bus from Orvieto to a little town of Banoreggio.. the real jewel which is hiding here is Civita di Benoreggio.. a small hilltop town with only 15ish residents. The only way to access it is via a pedestrian bridge=no vehicles=HOT.

We explore what little there was.. ate really delicious bruschetta and basked in the sun. it was a lovely day.

Overrated : Or Pisa

Last weekend was easter and as such, we had both friday and monday off! Four day weekend! My original intent was to travel to cinque terre, but due to money/time complications, it didnt happen. I did however travel the villa medici with rick and a few others and then some of us decided to make our way to pisa afterwards. The Villa Medici rests high above Florence, with really beautiful views of the city. We took a bus to the top of the hill, walked down to the entrance gate and were let in.

And then we took a train from Florence to Pisa to see the field of miracles and the leaning tower. Needless to say, i felt that most of this was incredibly overrated.. The baptistry was really beautiful but the tower was just a campanile that was leaning... i thought maybe once i was there i would have more appreciation for it. Didnt happen. I did have fun watching other people make asses of themselves... so much that i couldnt resist making an ass of myself!

Brad and Jared were having some couple time on the lawn..

Siena

We travelled to Siena two weeks ago on a fog filled morning. I was immensely hung over, and the bus was really warm.. which led to a lot of sleeping.. but from the tid bits i can remember we were basically cutting through fog the entire time. It was surreal, especially in my dehydrated state. We arrived in Siena, Marco on the whisper units, filling our head with little tidbits. We walked through the city, stopping at some highlights, and ending in the Piazza del Camp, where the Palio is held every year. The Palio is a horse race between the different neighborhoods of the city.. there are 17 in all but only 10 are able to compete. It is a HUGE ordeal here and occurs twice during the summer. The horses are blessed in the churches, people are packed in the campo.. its supposed to be really ridiculous. A delightful little detail, when the horses are blessed in the church ( each neighborhood or contrada has their own church), if the horse decides to defecate, it is taken as a sign of good luck. This is because if the horse is not even afraid of god, he/she is deemed to be so crazy/bitchy that they will most certainly win.

Notice the stools the old women are sitting on.

We stayed in the campo almost the entire day... just laying in the sun. It was fantastic.. we bought pizza, sat down and just bathed for four hours. We walked back to get on the bus, but apparently it had a tire issue which was fortunate and allowed us to explore the city some more as the sun was setting.

Parchi Verdi!

So i believe the last thing i left off with was my trip to spain. I safely made it back to italy.. so relieved to be back in Orvieto.. i cant imagine living anywhere else.. ive fallen hard and am not looking forward to the end of my program in just a few short weeks. I havent yet met that reality, so on with the blogging. A few days after my return, our class took a trip to both the Villa Lante and then onto Bomarzo where the Parco dei Mostri rests in a valley. Both of these are famous italian gardens/parks, but with contrasting ideas. 

The idea behind this garden is that of a progression from the wildness of nature, to the complete control that man can accomplish over nature. A bit bitchy in my opinion, but still an interesting idea/execution. In modern times however, this is lost on most because you enter the garden from the point where the natural realm is most controlled and move back towards the rugged portion of the garden.

this was a dining table.. how amazing would this be to have a dinner party!?.. probably a little wet, and a little uncomfortable to sit at, but REGARDLESS

After our exploration concluded, many of us found a spot of grass, a meadow if you will, to lay in and sunbathe for an hour or so.. it was splendid.. minus the clouds that started to loom near the end of our time here. From Villa Lante, we traveled to Bomarzo, another small town where the Parc dei Mostri (Park of Monsters) is located. 

This park was designed (if i am remembering this correctly.. so you might want to wikipedia if you are interested) as a funeral monument to his late wife.. and its basically an open concept.. with statues (of monsters) strewn throughout the park. It was interesting and kind of funny because there was a watcher in the woods (movie reference) who would whistle at you if you got too close to the statues. We ended the day once again laying in the grass. It was bliss.