Walk This Way

Ohhh, Wednesday is the day to explore. Today, I had my history class. I hadn't slept very well the night before because I stayed up late watching a movie but couldn't fall asleep right away. So, in class today, Lucianna, our history teacher, lectured at us the entire two hours. She told us that she doesn't normally like to do that but next week we're going to go into town and visiting some sites. But because she lectured to us for the entire time, I was falling asleep in class.

We also had our second language class later that afternoon. We worked on numbers and verbs. Most of us know our numbers pretty well, so that part of class was a breeze. Working on the verbs and verb conjugation was a little more difficult for some people but I understood the rules better than most. So class went well but a little rowdy with the guys. They seemed a little keyed up today so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

So, after class today, Betsy, Ania, Allyson, and I went for a walk to a different part of Fiesole. We walked away from the hotel and past an elementary school. We entered this park and immediately it seemed like we were in a different world. Florence itself is a different world but this park was another one. Allyson said it reminded her of the movie "Secret Garden" and I have to agree with her on that point. It was sooo beautiful, quiet, and foresty. Trees everywhere, great views, rocky, dirt trodden paths all over.

We walked up to this plateau where Da Vinci was supposed to have tested out his wings. It has a little stone plaque thing, in Italian, explaining. We walked all over this park, up hills and rocks and unmarked paths. We even found this grove area that had two horses grazing. For a while the four of us petted the horses and fed them plants. Then we continued on our hike through the forest, seeing views that are to die for. It was too bad that today was foggy and cloudy because on a clear day you could see for miles from these spots.

It was starting to get late, around 4:30, when I noticed that the fog was settling in the forest. We finally left the park and walked up another hill to continue on to Fiesole. By this time, the sun was setting and the views were amazing. I took a ton of pictures with the sunset in the background. When we finally made it back to the hotel my pedometer read 4.126 miles. It seemed like we were walking a lot more but that's probably due to all the hills we climbed. Anyway, Betsy and I had enough time to shower and cleanup before our 6:30 meeting in the lounge.

Bob just wanted to let us know that we were going to Lucca on Friday for our first day trip. He had the tickets for us so if we missed the train we were on our own. He handed out a few maps and guides for us and told us to do a little research on our own. Then we headed for La Reggia where we had another delicious meal.

For dinner, we had pasta with a meat sauce for the first course, slice roast beef and french fries for the second course, and tiramisu for dessert. Ohhhhhh, the pasta was filling after all that walking we did (even walking up the hill to La Reggia is a workout). The beef was amazing and the french fries weren't salty but they had some sort of olive oil drizzled on them which made them sooo much tastier. I love the tiramisu at La Reggia. I'm not a big coffee person and at La Reggia, the tiramisu doesn't' have as strong a coffee flavor as Etrusca does.

After we got back to Villa Bonelli after dinner, Betsy, Ania, Allyson, and I played a very lively game of shot chess. Allyson and I kicked Betsy and Ania's butts, winning by a very large margin. It was fun to play with limoncello but after a while we invited others in to finish the shots as we all didn't want another one. I'm now writing this blog and after I post it I'm going to call my mother. So I'll say Buonasera for another night and write again tomorrow. Ciao.