dovelucille: Second Week Updates: Duomo, Galileo, and other Journeys

This Wednesday we took another trip to Firenze to see the duomo and the OPA museum that houses many of the duomo's artifacts and history and the Galileo Museum. I got to see Giorgio Vesari's fresco painting "The Last Judgement" on the dome of santa maria del fiore again and it is just as breathtaking as the first time I laid my eyes on it. Easily one of my favorite paintings in Florence (minus a couple in the Uffizi museum, which we will be going to soon!) and I am in love with the fake loggia that is painted at the top of the duomo to give it a realist view of the elders/prophets looking down at the levels of heaven and hell.

other cool things:

- The OPA preserved all of the models and sketches of the modeling competition for the duomo. It's so amazing to be able to experience what could have been the duomo vs. what already is constructed. There were so many amazing designs and to be able to look out the window to see the finished product really allows you to feel like you're a part of it all.

- Below is a picture of one of my professors Giovanni who works at the Galileo Museum. WE ALL NEED SCIENCE because it's so awesome and to see Galileo's inventions in the flesh and to figure out how they all worked made many of us (more so myself) feel so overwhelmed and for lack of better words, dumb. Giovanni explained to us how Galileo came up with the Law of Falling Bodies and to see that much hypothesis, failed experiments and realization was so pure to me. So in summary science is cool.

We also got to see Ghiberti's famous Gate of Paradise (as named by Michelangelo) which is now being displayed after many years of restoration

Bailie took us to a place her friend recommended her for lunch called "I Fratellini" or "the little brothers" which was this hole in the wall (literally) restaurant. I had a wonderful prosciutto crudo & mozzarella panino. Afterward I had my first crepe in Italy filled with fragola gelato. The best decision I made that day. It was so delicious!

Enough about Florence. On Friday (also known as feelgoodfriday for those of you who haven't experienced those with me), a group of girls and I decided to hike up to a residential castle in a neighboring town called Montecchio. It was a 6 mile walk to the castle and it was a beautiful day although it got chillier throughout the day. As we got higher up to the castle we got to gaze back down at castiglion and other towns around the mountain and it was all just so surreal. I've never gone "hiking" before and was a little worried about if I could walk that much and then back but I felt great (and exhausted) by the end of it! Beautiful way to work out considering all of the amazing scenery surrounding the journey.