the castello!

We had the enormous joy and privilege of visiting our host family's country home last weekend. It's this adorable little house on a hillside, surrounded by trees of all kinds. They grow their own grapes, figs, olives, apples, pears, blackberries, peaches, and a bunch of different herbs. Rising up out of the hot, still city into this place full of fresh air and greenery was an indescribable relief. 

Our host dad, Fabio, was nice enough to set up all his paintings for us to see. His work is so colorful, I love it!

We got a little tour of their property, traipsing all over the verdant hillside and admiring both the family's crops and the view from the little village.

We also ate about a billion fresh figs right off the trees and picked more to take back to the house. I'd never had a fresh fig before coming to Italy, and let me tell you, they are delicious.

Adorable roommate #1 (Savannah):

Adorable roommate #2 (Peyton):

We helped our host mom bring in several bunches of grapes while we were at it.

And also these weird little nut things, the name of which I can't remember. Thanks for the handy dandy utility pouch, Mom!

One of my roommates took the rest of these pictures, since I tend to point the camera away from myself and therefore never have any pictures of me.

Mostly she just got a lot of pictures of me goofing off with my host brother Andrea (he was using an Italian Magic: the Gathering card as a bookmark and I was struggling to read the flavor text), but I will say that we didn't laze around for long. After this picture was taken, we all got busy gathering wild thyme and rosemary, chopping vegetables, and slicing cheese for the pizzas.

And what magnificent pizzas we had. All fresh ingredients, about eight inches wide, probably twenty or twenty-five little pizzas all told. We all ate until we couldn't move. Oh, and the rest of the family arrived while we were neck-deep in our preparations, so we had both parents, all three of their kids (Simone, Serena, and Andrea), Serena's husband Sandro, and Fabio's mother, a beautiful elderly woman who spoke no English but smiled conspiratorially at us across the table and laughed at our fumbling attempts to speak Italian with her. Serena and Sandro also brought their cat, Michi, short for Michelangelo, who sort of lurked under everyone's feet at lunch.

After we'd all stuffed ourselves, we mostly sprawled around to sleep it off. The weather was excellent, cloudy and cool and perfect for being outdoors.

After we'd digested enough to function again, Savannah and I went up the hill with Andrea and did a bit of hiking around an abandoned restaurant and a little lake. Contrary to what it may look like in this picture, he is not holding that log steady for me, he's rattling it to try and make me fall off. I didn't fall, for the record.

We had to get back to the city apartment by 6pm so Fabio could watch his soccer game, but they've extended a basically open invitation for us to go back with them whenever we want. Hooray!

On an unrelated note, I had my second harpsichord lesson this week, and I got to play on the second manual! It was very exciting. We soldered through the entire Bach Sinfonia and she showed me the correct way to articulate on the harpsichord. The phrasing and breaks and lifts and everything are different, but not too different to learn. And it's so nice to have a piece I'm super comfortable playing so I can focus on my technique rather than playing the right notes.

This weekend I'm taking a short jaunt to the beautiful islands of Cinque Terre, so there will certainly be pictures to share when I get back.

C'e vediamo doppo!

- Kasha

Santa Croce of the important dead people

Earlier this week we had a lovely and informative visit to Santa Croce, a church in Florence that happens to be famous for (a. fancy family chapels and (b. important dead people. 

Like, that's Michelangelo's tomb. No big deal. 

And that's Dante's tomb, although his body isn't actually there because the monks in Ravenna totally dug it up and hid it when the Florentines came looking for it.

Rossini's tomb is here, and to my knowledge, his body is actually here as well.

 And while each mausoleum was a magnificent work of art, there were other actual works of art in the church as well. These spectacular paintings were in a side room. I can't get enough of the colors.

The courtyard.

The chapter house, which for some reason seemed sort of nautical-themed to me.

Had a fantastic weekend that I can't wait to tell you all about. Stay tuned!

- Kasha

the marvels of Siena

For the grand finale of our trips last week, we spent most of Saturday either on a bus, driving through the Tuscan countryside, or in the delightful hill-city of Siena. 

(Quick note about travel by bus: public buses are a pain because it's mostly just standing room and they whiz around corners and stop abruptly and I always get slammed into random strangers. The private bus we took to Siena, on the other hand, was spacious with big windows and cushy seats and it was just our group. So that was a party.)

We did briefly dip into the chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine of Siena, where her preserved head is stored, but photography's not allowed in there, so you'll have to take my word for it. 

Behold, the cathedral!

Siena is all steep streets lined with cute little shops. At the top of every hill, you get a magnificent view of the city.

We wended our way downhill to the cathedral, which was so blindingly white in the morning sun that I couldn't even look at it straight on without sunglasses. I basically took all these pictures blind and didn't see how they turned out until later.

The Duomo in Florence is impressive because of its sheer size in addition to its colorful beauty, but Siena's cathedral has the fanciest wedding cake of a facade you will ever see.

Notice the winged bull. Novel-relevancy alert.

Unlike the Florence Duomo, the inside of Siena's cathedral is no less sumptuous than the outside.

Check out that organ!

The architecture is astounding on its own, but the walls are also covered in works of art.

Even the floor is a masterpiece.

Gotta love those educated pagan women carved into the floor, woo!

This is the floor of the little side room where they keep the medieval choirbooks. 

The whole chamber is a riot of color.

And the books are literally like two feet tall. They're massive. And such astounding detail!

Those books actually sort of made sense to me because we learned how to read square notation in Early Music Singers last year at school. I felt like a boss.

Here I am in the main square of Siena with two roommates (thank you Niles):

After toodling around Siena for a bit, we hopped back on the bus and made our way to Greve, enjoying the countryside along the way. Some spectacular views to be had in Tuscany, that's for sure. Unfortunately, they're almost impossible to photograph through the window of a moving bus. So once again, you'll have to take my word for it. We were actually in Greve for a wine tasting festival, but since I don't drink, I went into some of the little shops around the parameter of the square with two other girls while the rest of my program tasted wine. I did buy a book (to supplement my extremely limited supply of pleasure reading here in Italy): The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. I'm forty pages in and enjoying it immensely so far.

All right, next up should be Santa Croce, which we visited today. Ciao, e grazie a tutti per leggere!

- Kasha