More gardens and Florence and Pisa!

Hi everyone this weekend started with another trip for my gardens class on Friday. We went to a garden in Bagnaia, which is only about 15 min. from Viterbo, called Villa Lante! It was a very beautiful garden but different from the others we have seen it was very structured where the other ones have had paths going in all kinds of directions you never really new where to go. Then we went to a monster garden in Bomarzo which was very interesting. It was built by a Orsini and is full of huge sculptures that are sculpted from the rocks that were in the garden. There is also a house in the garden that was built on a slant and it is very strange to stand in you get very dissoriented! I wouldn't really consider this a beautiful garden but it was fun to visit!

After the gardens trip our travel crew, Me, Rachal, Bethany, Amy, Jenny, Beth and Mike, headed to Florence. When we arrived we checked into our hostel, which is considered the best hostel in Italy, and then went to dinner! After dinner we walked around the town for a little bit and got some dessert, Jenny couldn't stop talking about these waffels with nutella on top so we had to try them. They were pretty good but not worth the 6 euros! After walking around for a bit we went back to the hostel and met our roommate named Daniel, he was a really cool guy from Australia!! He was telling us all about himself he left home when he was 17 and has just been working all over and traveling all over the world, he told us that if we ever went to Australia he would love to be our tour guide! He has not made it to the States yet but really wants to so we told him what was worth going to for when he comes!! Later that night we all went to an Irish pub and met up with some of Jenny's friends who are studying in Florence. The next day Daniel came out with all of us to see the sights! First we went to the market and found some great souviners... I am collecting a magnet from every city I visit! Then we went to the Duomo... it is such a beautiful building... I feel like I am just repeating the word beautiful in all my posts but I don't know how else to describe all the amazing things I am seeing haha! Anyway Rachal, Bethany and I decided to walk to the top of the duomo, there are 463 steps that are in tiny little hallways wide enough for one person and half of them are spiral staircases so you get a little dizzy! But when you make it to the top it is such a great view of the city! All the roofs in Florence are red so it reminded me of the red rocks in Sedona. After the Duomo we got some lunch and then found one of the Gelato shops we were told to go to and got some gelato. Then we headed to see the statue of David! It is HUGE, much more impressive then the Mona Lisa! There are guards all over because you are not allowed to take pictures of it, which I don't understand because I don't think a picture will hurt the statue, but we totally snuck some Rachal got a bunch, I only got one because I was working as Rachal's guard! After we walked to the river and walked across the bridge then we looked for the other gelato shop and got more gelato, don't worry! haha! Then everyone else was tired but me and Rachal were not down for sitting in the hostel because we were in Florence so we went to some more shops and then met up with everyone later for dinner! Then that night we stayed in and played some card games. Daniel taught us an Australian game and then Amy and Beth taught us another one. Then we wrote on the walls of our hostel and went to bed! In the morning we took the train to Pisa to see the Tower and got some great shots of it, ate some lunch and then headed back to Viterbo! It was another long weekend but Tons of Fun!

Enjoy the pictures!!

VILLA LANTE:

BOMARZO:

The leaning house

Inside the leaning house


FLORENCE:
The Duomo

Golden Doors

The stairs to the top of the duomo

Last few steps

View from the top
Ceiling of the Duomo

A doorway on the way down... I just fit Bethany and Rachal were to tall

A tiny car

The Statue of David

A Painter on the river


Writing on the hostel walls

PISA:
Our cute new umbrellas

I kicked it..

Then saved it!