Travel Days, 1-2
By Tabitha Bishop, Nikola Charouzova, Lydia Cornelius
Ciao all the way from Italy!!! The first two days of our Italy trip were dominated mostly by travel. After fitness testing and a quick training session in Chicago early the first morning, we made our way to O’Hare for our 5pm flight to London. Unfortunately, there weren’t any exciting airplane stories, but maybe an uneventful flight is the best kind of flight.
After arriving in London around 7am on the 19th, we boarded another plane and landed in Pisa around 12:30pm.
The remainder of the first day consisted of a quick lunch, our first training session in Italy (the view was okay I guess), lounging on the rooftop pool, dinner, and then exploring/getting lost in the village to find gelato. However, we all were passed out well before 11pm due to missing a night of sleep. Overall, the first two days of our international excursion were successful :)
Day 1 in Florence
By Austen Dellinger
Yesterday in Florence: Between group lunches filled with pizza, pasta and paninis and our free time to explore the streets and markets, we took a walking tour of the city. While blindly following a dull, chattering, flag-bearing leader is an amusing and perhaps often accurate trope, we were led through Florence by a guide who could only be described as part historian part entertainer, securing the two hour journey as one of the highlights of the trip.
From Angelo’s colorful descriptions of the “gangster” Medici empire, to his analysis of the effectual “good life” for those lucky Florentine who survived the plague (at least until they started having kids again), to his passionate declarations addressing the incompetence of the architects in Pisa, he kept the crowd engaged and often laughing from the Basilica of Santa Croce to Ponte Vecchio to the Duomo. There is no better testament to the talent of our guide than a glowing review by one of Uchicago Women’s Soccer’s most entertaining, Nicole Kaspi, who comments that “our tour guide was flame.”
But how could one feel any other way about a man who illustrates Florence’s sociopolitical dynamics as “a cross between Game of Thrones and The Sopranos.” A host of other great moments and lines from the “wacking” of Bernardo Baroncelli to the history of the Ninja Turtles, remain only in fond remembrance and in the streets of Florence.
But as potently as the history of the city persists, so too will the memory of this unrivaled walking tour.
By Maddie DeVoe
Yesterday after training we traveled to Florence. We wandered the city’s narrow streets, sat on the curb and ate pizzas and paninis from tiny shops, and bought hand-stitched scarves, bags, and goods from the street market. I felt pretty incompetent, but Charlotte impressed everyone by bargaining with the locals in fluent Italian. (It was awesome!!! Also she got me a shirt for cheaper which was great. -Katie)
In the evening, we went on a guided walking tour and learned about the the plague, the Catholic Church, Renaissance artists, hangings, and odd but intriguing tidbits about the Medici family. Our guide Angelo (he introduced himself as Michelangelo but without the Michel) took us to see a fake David in Piazza della Signora. The sculptures were remarkable. Angelo described David as a Calvin Klein model on steroids. I thought it was pretty accurate.
We also stopped inside Orsanmichele where Angelo discussed gothic architecture and contrasted the Medieval painting of the Virgin Mary with the more realistic Renaissance sculptures we’d just seen. He explained that Medieval artists intentionally distorted their subjects and rendered holy figures so they resembled aliens more than humans because the imagery wasn’t supposed to actually constitute the saint but just serve as a vessel its spirit could inhabit and through which the faithful could be healed in times of illness or suffering. So pretty much every religious icon is a horcrux. Christina and Katie clarified that this is not actually how Catholicism works but if religion actually is magic it’s so much cooler than I thought. We also saw Punto Vecchio, the Duomo, and San Lorenzo, and I’m so excited to explore more of the city on Friday.
Florence was an incredible center of history, art, and architecture, but eating gelato twice in the span of five hours was definitely the highlight of the day.
By Skye Davis
After an early morning practice, we began our journey to the city center of Florence. Our adventure began at the Basilica of Santa Croce where we admired the detailed artwork and paintings on the church’s facade. From there, we formed smaller groups and headed for lunch at various spots.
My group stopped by a local bakery where we chose from a delectable array of breads, pizzas and paninis. I ordered a personal pizza with hot salami and it was very delicious. Our meal concluded with a stop for gelato. I’m normally not a big fan of chocolate ice cream, but the cookies and creme gelato I ate was some of the best gelato I’ve had in my life.
We proceeded to the walking tour where we discovered the hidden secrets of Florence. As we walked, we learned about the architecture, art, politics and history of Florence.
We admired famous sites such as the Ponte Vechio and Duomo Cathedral, the fifth largest Christian church in the world. In fact, we learned that the Duomo Cathedral took 170 years to build due to a limited workforce because of the Black Death and complications in the construction of the dome.
As we strolled through the city, we appreciated sculptures and other artwork from prominent Italian artist like Rafael as well as art from local artist who lined the streets with watercolor paintings of Florence and portrait drawings. After the walking tour, we walked through a market where we haggled for purses, souvenirs, and other trinkets. We then stumbled upon a food market which offered everything from pasta to sushi. Unfortunately, after the food market, it was time to return to the bus and head back to the hotel, but we were all excited to see what the next day in Cinque Terra had to offer.
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