Siena, Lucca & Pisa

After finally getting internet again, after not having it for the past few days, I can finally tell everyone about our amazing weekend in Siena, Lucca & Pisa. We started off the weekend by meeting early it the morning on Friday to take about an hour bus ride to Siena. We first arrived in Monteriggioni, which was a small town out side of Siena. We took lots of pictures here and learned a few things about the rivalry that Siena & Florence once had for each other.

After visiting this very small area, we made our way into Siena, which is a small, but very rich town. In Siena, once a year they hold a very large horse race, somewhat like the Kentucky Derby I can imagine. The race is in a large square in the middle of the city, and EVERYONE comes to the race. Our advisor said it is very crowded and if you wanted to get out or needed help, you most likely couldn't. He also told us that the winner of the race receives a painting from a local artist, and the race is very competitive. Here we took a walking tour of the city, and had an amazing four course lunch. During our free time in the afternoon, we climbed to the top of a tower in a museum, where we could see over the entire city. Then, we visited a church where Saint Catherine of Siena's beheaded head was displayed. We then met back up with the rest of the group, and walked through another church in the area. After touring Siena, we got back onto the bus and made our way back to Florence. After having a very tiring day walking around Siena, we were dropped off at a church that was on the way back into Florence. We toured the church & then took a 30 minute walk back to our apartments. On the way back, we stopped to take beautiful pictures of the Ponte Vecchio bridge in the sunset.

The next day, we met around 9 am and took about an hour bus ride to Lucca, which is a small town very close to Pisa, which was our next destination. When we first got to Lucca, we took about a 30 minute bike ride, stopping to take pictures along the way. After the bike ride, we all sat in a shaded area and we had a picnic of turkey sandwiches that our advisor had made and pizza from a local pizza shop. Once we were finished with lunch, we made our way back to the bus to go to Pisa. Once we arrived in Pisa, we went straight to the site of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Also, in this area was a baptistery and a cathedral. These buildings were leaning as well, but it was not very noticeable. Our tour guide, Lucca, explained that the buildings in Pisa are leaning because the town is nearly at sea level, and much of the soil is sand. Therefore, the buildings somewhat sink into the sand and lean. When the Leaning Tower was first being built, the architects and builders knew that it was going to lean, so they knew how to build it so it would remain standing once it was finished. The tower started to lean as soon as it was starting to be constructed. After touring the cathedral and taking many pictures of the leaning tower, we made our back to the bus to go back to Florence.