So as I said in my last post, the Tuesday after my weekend with Alex speaking aussie english all weekend, was a MASSIVE struggle!! But then the rest of the week seemed to fly by...but what did I do is the question!! haha...not even I can remember.
Tuesday late in the afternoon there was a seminar at school on a very famous and old author called 'Boccaccio' which was a bit of a challenge. He was a writer from the 1300s or thereabouts and so it was all old-school italian, a bit like how old school english is a bit weird and hard to understand even when you are a native english speaker. For those of you who went to school with me and did literature...or have read it...it was a bit like Franz Kafka, particularly in how wierd and gory the tales were...
Thursday we had good 'ol "Happy Hour" again like 2 weeks ago!! This time I chose not to join them all at the first bar with the 'free dinner' which I dont think you could classify as dinner and I dont know that it was worth the money. I stayed home and had dinner with the family, spoke to Mum and Dad on the phone and then headed out and met them all at the second bar 'Bella Vista Social Club'. I particularly wanted to go as one of the girls from my class (Anita) who I also had my fourth hour of school with everyday (and for some of the time just the two of us), it was the end of her last week and she was keen to go out.
Anita is from the north of Italy, so is Italian and has an italian passport but was at school learning italian because the part of Italy that she is from many, many years ago used to be part of Austria and so they still speak german there in majority. It was great with her as we were forced to speak italian as obviously I dont speak german and she only speaks a little english, so we were better with italian and it was good practice!!
Then on the weekend I was quite busy...
Saturday I took the bus to San Giminiano. I cant say that the weather was very cooperative...blue sky one minute, blowing a gale the next, pouring down with rain and next and then sunny and clear sky again!! This didnt effect my view of San Giminiano, I still loved it!!
I had spoken to one of the women in my class on Friday about going as she was planning to go on Saturday too, Suzanna from Swizzerland, and so we saw each other on the bus in the morning and then ended up spending the whole day together in San Giminiano.
We saw the Duomo (Cathedral) with lots of amazing frescos, the pinnacoteca (art gallery) and climbed the tower, we tried to have a gelato at the world famous gelati shop there but it was closed for winter and we wandered the streets and had a look at all the shops.
Views from up on the tower...
We stayed late enough in the afternoon to also see how much more beautiful the town became once the sun went down and all of the Christmas lights were turned on...unfortunately my camera had run out of batteries by this time!!
Then on Sunday...
I took an early train to Lucca...a town a little north-east of Pisa. Once again, Suzanna had the same plans and so we saw each other on the station in the morning and caught the train together but had some problems as we didnt know we had to change trains at the first Florence station and not the main one and so we missed our connection...and this lost us 2 hours in Lucca!! This was worse for me as I was only staying for the day but Suzanna planned to stay overnight. Never-the-less we eventually made it after a short detour in Florence (AGAIN!!) and then I spent the rest of the day by myself enjoyin Lucca as I wanted to move faster than Suzanna as I only had a couple of hours.
Lucca is another gorgeous medieval walled European city!! I loved it and there were a lot of people as it was a long weekend and all the italians had Monday (the next day) off too...so there was quite an atmosphere there...also with the lead up to Christmas and markets and all the rest.
I saw the Duomo...yes, another church!! haha...
The many markets and decorated piazzas...
Had a quick lunch on the move...
The Amphitheatre Piazza...a piazza and surrounding buildings built up on the foundations of an old amphitheatre...with a very interesting and very modern christmas tree in the middle...
And I had a "passeggata" around the old city walls which was beautiful as the sun was shining and then started to go down and it was a great way to see the locals of Lucca and the italian tourists out doing there thing as they were all also having a walk after their long Sunday lunches...
And then I found a slow food market before racing to the train to return to Siena!!
Then on Monday it was a public holiday for one of the saint days but there wasnt much happening in Siena apart from the regular Wednesday marjet, also being open this Monday. I stayed in Siena for the day and wandered the market...AGAIN!!...and then attempted to see some of the Siena sights...The Pallazzo Publico with its museum and the Duomo!!
Ci vediamo
Jo xoxo
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