Venezia and Tuscany

Last Friday me and the other 14 people in AHA - only one guy - set out for our first group excursion into the Tuscan landscape. Our first stop was the mezzadria museum, a museum dedicated to showing the original sharecropping economy of Tuscany. It is set inside an old farm house and we learned about the relationship of landowner to farmer and with the typical farmer's household. It was fascinating to learn that sharecropping may not have as many negative effects as I once believed. Although it is very contextual, this system worked for many years in Tuscany and still has it's traces in today's economic system. I made sure to photograph an old wine press so my whole family can appreciate technology.

Our next stop was the beautiful small town of Pienza where we visited a parmigiano regaino factory. The relationship of dairies to cheese factories to aging firms is incredible and most of it is built on strong relationships of trust and dedication to a fine product. The town of Pienza itself has one of the most gorgeous views I've seen yet. The rolling hills of green look like they are made out of play dough and the trees alongside the lonely roads look perfectly formed from a distance - dotting the landscape like they were painted there.

The tour of the cheese factory was led by an amazing man; he became paralyzed from the waste down after a motorcycle accident four years ago and has traveled to America and many other places after the accident to prove to himself he was capable. He - like most Italians - was quick witted and had a dry sense of humor. After pestering him with questions I became known as 'clever girl' in a long drawn out Italian style southern accent. We got to sample cheeses aged from just a month to years and some flavored with truffles and hazelnuts (Italy is a large world producer of hazelnuts).

I personally liked the cheeses aged for longer and some of the parmigiano that was around 3 years old tasted like my parent's favorite cheese Manchego. We taught the man a popular American dance - Teach Me How to Dougie - in our ridiculous sanitary outfits we had to wear and got his information so we will be sending him pictures and what not. He was so great and I know he will be a nice contact to have for a while.

From there we went for a quick stop to Montalcino to visit an enoteca and fortezza or a wine shop and an ancient fortress. The view from the top of the fortress was outstanding as was every view we saw in Tuscany that day.

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The next day we left for Venezia or Venice for an overnight excursion. The 6 hour bus ride was an eventful one. The ride just to Bologna where we switched buses was the windiest I have ever been on. I had brought lunch with me and at one point when I was asleep my can of tuna flew out of my hands only to hit the other side of the bus - which sounded like a gun shot - which is good because I was two seconds away from following my tuna can.

We arrived in Venice and were greeted with sunshine reflecting off of the water and the vibrant colors of the houses mesmerized me. I easily took 50 pictures of just houses and their various colors.

The peeling of the ancient and water logged paint created beautiful backgrounds for modern graffiti, which was beautiful in its own way. Below are Bellini's - Venice's famous drink that wasn't that great.

Just as we were reaching a 5 hour lost-just-keep-walking point and debating getting a gondola ride just to get back to our hostel we found a group of kids our age also in the cracker isle at the grocery. We started talking and before we knew it, three of us girls were in a gondola with some Italians and for the next 6 hours we talked politics, pop culture, taught them bad words, they taught us bad words, and only left the gondola to order pizza. We got to see the real Venice; not the tour of the canals the gondola drivers have down to a T accompanied by funny english banter, but canals up to their houses and canals that you can only go through if you lay down on the boat and canals with only street lights lighting our way and canals that led into huge bustling squares. It was a great night, an unforgettable night.

One of the funniest things about the trip was the amount of signs for their famous square: San Marco's.