After our week in Rome, we headed to a little villa outside of a town named Barberino Val D'Elsa. But we took a little detour to Assisi on the way. The whole town is built on a hill, so the view from just about anywhere is fantastic. The church (or basilica or whatever) contains the tomb of St. Francis, but I was more impressed with the stained glass. For whatever reason, the churches in Rome did not use a lot of stained glass, but they sure did in Tuscany. I love stained glass, and the churches in Tuscany do not dissappoint. (except St. Catherine's Cathedral in Siena, but that's for another time)
In case you were wondering, the red and white plastic things in the pictures gallery are pictures of a "modern art" nativity scene. The figures are life size, there is a human standing in the middle of the first picture. (we didn't notice him when we took the picture)
*Ok, I have to mention Italian roads again. The good news is that, outside of the cities, there isn't much traffic. The bad news is that the roads are MUCH smaller than in America. What my map (purchased at a gas station in Tuscany) calls a "highway" I call a "backwoods country road." Case in point: on our drive from Assisi to Barberino, we took a wrong turn. We went North when we should have gone West. I was in charge of the map, so I pointed out that instead of backtracking South on the Super-Highway, the map shows a shortcut "highway" heading South-West that will take us back to where we want to be.
If this was the United States, my plan would have saved us some time. But as I mentioned before the map's conception of "highway" and my conception of "highway" are a little different. 
Needless to say, our shortcut didn't save us much time. But we managed to make it to our villa, so it all worked out in the end.
Our villa was very nice. And after being cramped and crowded in Rome, it was great to have so much space! It was a welcome relief to be able to stretch your arms without hitting a wall or another person.
4 comments:
Your diagram really illustrated the "shortcut" you took quite well. Fantastic visual, sir.
Tuscany looks absolutely gorgeous, and the place you stayed at looks pretty nice as well! A little more space to stretch out than the place in Rome. The picture with you guys playing cards...are you guys playing Toss Pot???
And you still haven't answered my question from the first Italy post...What is the deal with the picture entitled "Kevin across the river"???
Haha, thanks. I spent hours and hours making sure the maps were to scale.
That is definitely toss-pot. We played so much toss-pot that my brother and I started inventing new rules for the game. In our version, which we named "elevator" toss-pot, anytime a 2 is played or pot is tossed, the order of cards reverses (meaning that you have to play a card LOWER than the pile)
...there's not a lot of night life in Barberino is the point.
As for the sant'angelo pictures, I think my Dad just confused the titles between the two pictures.
So what was your position from where the photo was taken? Next to the picture-taker, or across the river and in the picture?
Umm...next to the picture-taker I guess. I don't think I'm actually across the river.
The titles of the photos have been corrected.
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