Venezia and Siena

Finally, a day off from massive activity. It was certainly nice to not be running around today. Anyways, Venezia was pretty cool to see. It would have been much nicer if the weather had been warmer and I could definitely never live there. There is not a whole lot to do in that city once all the main tourist spots have been hit. San Marco’s basilica was amazing though! Probably my favorite spot of all of Venezia. The mosaic make-up of the inside walls was incredible and I cannot even imagine how long that would have taken (I missed it if my tour guide did say a time frame on the building of it). The museum and art gallery visits would have been a lot more enjoyable, too, had it not been below freezing in the buildings. I know it’s hard to heat a huge marble building, but those places were ridiculously cold. It was pretty cool to see it snow briefly, too.

Yesterday was a day excursion. The sun was out and shining bright, but it was still frigid. I think Siena was even prettier than Venezia (and not because of the weather only), but just like Venezia, there’s not much to do outside of seeing the sights, at least that’s how it seems. However, one day I would love to go back for the Palio, the famous horserace they have twice a year, once in July and another in August. In the main square of the town is where they race. Riders representing the 17 districts of historic Siena compete every year to bring honor and bragging rights to their district. They race around the edge of the square while 25,000 people crowd inside the track. It would be an incredible sight to see! The Palio lasts three laps around the square in around 76 seconds. I sprinted one lap of the square in 58 seconds! I’m only three times slower than a horse (adding time for loss in stamina), which is pretty cool!

Only a few more days of class and then onto Roma! This week will be a little bit more laid back than last week. I’m passing up an opportunity to go on a wine-tasting tour tomorrow. I know that’s probably the thing to do in Italia, but I’m really not a wine person and it will be nice to have tomorrow free as well. Unless anything major comes up, I probably won’t update until I’m in Roma, just because then new stuff will be happening. Hope you’re all doing well! Look at Facebook if you can for the majority of my pictures. It’s just a lot easier to a lot of photos there, rather than slowly update them on here.

Love you all!