Two day trips, No time. (Cortona, Pisa, Viareggio)

On Saturday and Sunday, we took our first day trips (by ourselves) around Italy. On Saturday, the girls and I took a bus to Cortona, one of my favorite small towns with a leather shop that I have been raving madly about to almost every person on this trip. Being that we are all from Texas, it was difficult to figure out how the bus schedule worked (and where to buy the tickets - you had to go to a tabacchi shop to buy them) let alone figure out how to translate it from Italian. Alas, we did figure it all out and because it was a weekend, the bus only ran a couple times that day and it had to be a shorter trip.

First things first, we went to the leather shop and I bought a beautiful leather bag for my mother and a wallet for my daddy. It took me forever to find the perfect gift. A lot of the girls bought gifts for their loved ones as well and for super cheap. Wallets and small clutches ranged from 10-40 euro and purses were from 35-200 euro and the leather was so much softer than the last time I was there (better quality). 

Afterward we all split up into smaller groups. Shenell, Tessa and I roamed the city for most of the day. We had cappucinos in a cafe and ate our lunch on the steps of the piazza. I people watched and snapped a few photos for my black and white photography class. 

We ended the day early (due to bus schedule) at around 3pm and headed back to Castig to rest.

The following day, we took a day trip to Viareggio for their famous Carnevale but before we got there, we stopped and took a lunch detour to Pisa. The day had started off a little rusty considering we missed our intended bus and were delayed an hour of our day, but I had reassured (for reassurance purposes only, not because I really believed it wholeheartedly) the Shenell and Tessa that God planned for us to miss it for a reason and boy did those words turn out to be true!

Pisa is beautiful.

From the train station, it was a straight shot down to the Tower, which was our destination for the small amount of time we had for lunch in Pisa. Again, I had brought my lunch with the intention of eating next to the tower. I find eating (alone or with friends) in famous public monuments to be so romantic! Afterward, we got crepes at a gelateria that was playing Biggie all while we were there. I felt very at home!

Obligatory leaning tower pose

We spent about two hours in Pisa, which was NOT enough time to see even just one attraction and took the train to Viareggio and the bus was filled with costumes and fun hats and masks! We knew exactly where to go because we just had to follow the people in costume.

Viareggio was everything and nothing like Foiano's carnevale. There were so many people, adults, teenagers and children all dressed up ranging from commedia dell'arte costumes to "halloween-type" costumes to face paintings. The floats were massive and the street that displayed the floats seemed never ending. The only type of "carnevale" I ever knew about before I came to Italy were New Orlean's and Brazil's "Mardi gras" which is essentially carnevale. Some of the floats really reminded me of Mardi Gras floats that I had seened in pictures/videos and to see the dancing and the fun in real life was so magical. The amount of people they could fit in one float!

An important thing I learned through carnevale is the italian sense of humor. Although Italy is 95% catholic, there were so many sacrilegious and perverse floats that they just pointed and laughed at. They seem to be able to very easily go from a religious state yet be very humanistic about life. If there was a float that decorated penises (yes, I am not kidding) or poked fun at politicians, there would be such an outcry against it. It was something very different than what I experience at home.

Around early evening time we decided to head back to Castig. There was an italian man in the seat next to us that was being completely adorable with his girlfriend. We talked to him for the whole bus ride back to Castig. He told us how he met his girlfriend (a story as adorable as they are - short story: They met because of Bruce Springsteen) and then his relationship with Catholicism and God. It was refreshing to see a different side of the catholic faith in Italy compared to the catholic faith in America, which I have really taken for granted. One great thing that our little friend said (this was after he asked us our denominations) was "My Christ isn't Catholic, he's just Christ.." which I thought was so beautiful. It's a long dragged out story that I don't want to type out but if you ever want to hear the story, feel free to ask me! This moment was why I believed that we missed our train in the morning. We would have never met Giacomo.

The morale of these two days is that you can't expect to see all of Italy in a semester; you can barely see one city in a day! All I can do though, is take it slow and see what I can see, and see it well. I would rather only see half of, lets say, Pisa and be in love with that half than to speed my way through all of Pisa and miss out on the minor (and sometimes even major) beauties in that town.

Until next time!

"For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery.... back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness." --D.H. Lawrence