Land of the Medici

So school finished up on Friday with one last field trip to Pisa and Lucca. Bit bummed about the "leaning" tower. In my opinion it's not leaning nearly enough! It was also covered in scafolding which always ruins the effect.

Lucca was fabulous. A smallish town still enclosed in it's medieval walls and filled with delicious shopping. Most of my classmates went totally wild and filled their bags with all sorts of finds. We also discovered that Eric Clapton was playing a concert that night so a few of us engineered a plan to head back to Lucca later that evening. And after some brief drama involving thefts by the cleaning staff (police had to be called, even the Mayor of the town showed up!) we packed ourselves off in a wee Italian car and trundled off to Lucca. Rem and I decided not to spend the money on the tickets, but instead found ourselves a restaurant near the stage and dined to Eric while we slurped our pasta and guzzled our wine.

Saturday, Allison and I booked it to the train station and headed off to Venice. We met up with Sherri later that evening at the campsite/hostel. I LOVE VENICE!!!! In my humble opinion it's far more romantic that Paris. With music buskers around every curving street, maze like passages, and twisting water ways this city is pure magic. Throw in some amazing buildings and a fetish for 18th century masks and I was sold. Venice thus far is my favorite Italian city.

After that the 3 of us made our way to Florence. Ah Florence, so much to see and so little time. Today I'm determined to see the Duomo, the Accademia, and the Ufizi (probably spelt that wrong) gallery. Also have to figure out how to send a package home because I'll be damned if I have to lug those stupid textbooks around with me to another city. Damn near broke my back coming here!