Under the Tuscan Sun

Sunny Piazza del Campo in Siena

This weekend we went on a Tuscan holiday to the gorgeous, ancient towns of Siena, Arezzo, Pienza, and Oriveto, and the Tuscan sun was beaming for us the whole time, accentuating the breathtaking landscape in every town. First thing Saturday, we toured the Medieval town of Siena, where I marveled at the incredible Medieval churches and frescoes and the enormous Piazza del Campo, where the famous Palio horse races take place. For lunch I enjoyed a bowl of a Tuscan classic, ribollita, a hearty vegetable stew with cannellini beans. It was delicious!

Part of the flea market in Arezzo

We then traveled to Arezzo, where we toured several ancient churches and studied some famous frescoes. Dinner at the hotel that night consisted of typical Tuscan cuisine, which was...interesting. The first course was good, penne in a meat sauce with bread on the side. The bread in Tuscany has no salt in it because long ago, the Romans put a tax on salt so the Etruscans decided to do without it. The next course was different, to say the least, as it consisted of two common Truscan game meats: rabbit and duck. The rabbit was a non-starter for me, but despite trying to convince myself that the duck was just like chicken, I just couldn't eat it. One of my adventurous classmates actually enjoyed the rabbit, and asked for seconds. However, his breaking point came when the waiter served him the paw of the rabbit. Studying abroad is all about trying new things, and I have been very flexible and open-minded, but I couldn't be this time. But we all got a good laugh out of the interesting meal, and it prompted a hilarious game of "would you rather."

Grounds of Castel del Trebbio

My favorite part of Arezzo was the huge flea market that commandeered the entire town. I could have spent the entire day browsing all the fascinating antiques. Sunday night was my favorite part of the trip: wine tasting at Castel del Trebbio, an ancient castle and vineyard outside of Florence. There we toured the castle and its enormous wine cellar where the owners make olive oil and internationally award-winning Tuscan chianti rufina wine. We then sampled the different types of wine with some delicious bruschetta and biscotti to complement the taste. My favorite was the vineyard's red wine, it had an incredibly rich and smooth flavor. We enjoyed a delicious and fun group dinner at the vineyard's restaurant, one of the finest vineyard restaurants in the world. I certainly acquired a taste for good wine after this experience!

  

Pienza

On Monday we toured the little towns of Pienza and Orvieto, which had breathtakingly gorgeous views of the beautiful Tuscan landscape, forcing me to ask the cliche question again, "is this real life?!" Orvieto is perched on top of a steep mountain so we had to take a funicular, a little tram that runs on an incline. There we saw the Duomo and the monastery where St. Thomas Aquinas wrote Summa Theologica. By the end of the trip I was ready to return home to Rome, but also sad to leave the beauty of Tuscany. Rome is beautiful in an architectural sense, but there's something overwhelmingly beautiful about the way the sun hits Tuscany's untouched sweeping hills and stone cottages.