Lucca e Pisa

Today was fun! I woke up very very early and headed to la piaza
grumsci to meet a group and catch a bus to the Siena train station. It
was fun riding a bus through Siena. It's a much larger city than I
realized. We have primarily been in the historic part of town but
there probably 80% of the city outside the historic part. I guess the
population of Siena is actually right around 60K people! Anyway. We
got on a train and headed towards Empoli, where we switched for
another train to Lucca. I love the trains here! I wish we used trains
more in the states. It is SO the way to travel. Everyone here uses
them too. They are full! The countryside here is absolutely amazing.
It's so surreal and picturesque I can't even describe it. I feel like
I'm in a movie. I don't even think anyone could understand it without
seeing it. Just being able to pass by massive vinyards and farms that
are hundreds of years old. Cities on the hillsides. Villas on the
sides of mountains. It's gorgeous. Lucca is a really really unique
city too. I can't really describe it! There are pages I could write
about the city but I'll just have to tell y'all sometime. The history
there is amazing. Roman to medievil to Renaissance to modern. It's
insane. It's just this quaint little city nestled in the mountains. I
took lots of pictures. It was strange too because it was so clean! As
my professor said almost "unitalian" it's so clean. I liked it. After
Rome it was a good thing to see a clean city. From Lucca we went to
Pisa. Pisa was actually really cool! I wasn't even really interested
in the tower. So many people get wrapped up in the "leaning tower"
they lose out on the real story behind Pisa. I thought Pisa was really
pretty. I think it is one of my favorites and not even because of the
tower at all. I liked the feel of the city. I also love the history of
Pisa. It's amazing. To have stood and sat in the very same spots that
the young and old Galileo formed his thoughts on the universe is an
honor. I also recorded some video in the baptistry there that should
be pretty cool. The structures in the Field of Miracles really are
miraculous and I doubt people understand that. They were the best of
the time.

After Pisa we headed back to Siena. It's about a two hour train ride
so a lot of time was spent relaxing and talking in the scalding heat
of a moving train LOL. I'm really excited now to go to Venice by train
and eventually Switzerland. I'm going to love it! Tomorrow I get to
sleep in a bit (yay!) and then three of us are wandering off to
Firenze for a little fun. It will be the first of probably many trips
to Firenze as it is only about a 40 minute bus ride and only 8€
roundtrip! Ancora a domani, ciao!