• Parma, Emilia-Romagna

    2022年6月18日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    Parma is one of the larger cities in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy and is particularly famous for its Prosciutto ham aka Parma Ham and Parmigiano Reggiano. With a population of roughly 190,000 the city has seen some form of inhabitation since the Bronze Age and throughout the ages has played an important role in the development of Italy.

    During the Middle Ages, Parma was ruled by the Franks and was part of the Holy Roman Empire, but during the 1200’s it became engulfed in the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. During the 1800’s, the city was annexed by France under the rule of Napoleon, and then finally became a part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Overall Parma was a very picturesque city, aka cute for a metropolitan vibe it gave off. It also had a number of shops and restaurants. It was somewhat busy given its also a university city. We spent a few days here enjoying the parks and main piazzas as well as most notable the parma ham and cheese.
    もっと詳しく

  • Parma Reggiano in Parma Italy

    2022年6月18日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    We just arrived in Parma yesterday and did a fun tour today of Caseificii Ugolotti a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese producer a little ways outside of town. It was great, we learned a thing or two about the production process and what makes this cheese so special. This facility is smaller, and these men and women work tirelessly 365 days a year to produce two wheels of cheese per day. A few facts; Parmigiano Reggiano must be from the 5 provinces of Emilia-Romagna and it must be aged a minimum of 12 months. After a year an inspector comes and taps the wheel of cheese and gives it a grade; one two or three. Grades one and two can be stamped Parmesian Reggiano on the sides. Grade 3 cannot get this stamp and instead is served as italian table cheese or grated. Grade 1 wheel sells for 1000 euro, Grade 2 for 500 euro a wheel. There are many other factors and more info here; https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&…もっと詳しく

  • Leaving Tuscany headed to Emilia-Romagna

    2022年6月17日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    From Pisa we departed in the early AM and left the region of tuscany on our way to the great little city of Parma. On our way we stopped for breakfast in a sleepy little Italian town called Pontremoli before catching a bus to Parma. The morning was enjoyable watching locals pass their time as well as gorgeous views of the Parco Nazionale dell'Appennino Tosco-Emiliano which we saw to our east.もっと詳しく

  • Leaving Pisa with a BANG

    2022年6月16日, イタリア ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

    Everyone was so happy we showed up in Pisa they decided to throw us a firework display on our last night there. ... kidding. We were lucky enough to show up on a major holy holiday in Pisa on the 17th, Saint Raineri’s Luminara. It was a light festival along with an regatta race down the river called The San Ranieri Regatta, a feast called, "Saint Rainerius’s Feast" (you see the theme) and fireworks at night. It was a blast! Beautiful watching the fireworks go off from the bridge over the river. It was unique because the same fireworks display about 10 different places along the river. Some of the videos and pictures george this. The buildings along the Arno River also had candle displays on the side. You can make it out in the videos (the buildings just seem a little too bright).

    Saint Raineri is the patron saint of Pisa. His name can be spelled multiple ways, apparently.

    You can read more about him here:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainerius
    もっと詳しく

  • Lucca, Tuscany has it all!

    2022年6月16日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    Luscany's most beloved artistic cities, an unskippable part of any tour of the region. Nicknamed the town of a hundred churches on account of its incredible number of places of worship, it is unique among city-states for having maintained its independence up until 1847.

    Historical circumstances demanded that Lucca fortify itself, and so its immense artistic and architectural heritage is ringed by a massive circuit of defensive walls.

    Lucca sits in the centre of the Lucca plain, a breathtaking landscape that was sculpted by the river Serchio and is dotted with medieval towns.

    So far it is my (Emily) favorite city. It has a small town charm throughout a medium sized city. It was incredibly beautiful and picturesque, benefiting from the Renaissance as well as an extremely clean city. It was packed with restaurants and shops as well as church's, bell towers and nature. We had a wonderful day exploring the history and beauty as well as walking on top of its famous fortified walls and taking in the nature, and mountains that surrounded it. The best part is this town want heavily touristed compared to many other cities we visited. It was a true hidden jem
    もっと詳しく

  • Cinque Terre: the 5 villages

    2022年6月15日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    The Cinque Terre represent one of the most beautiful, unique and incredible areas of the whole Mediterranean. This stretch of coast of Liguria, about 10 km long between Genoa and La Spezia, is so called because here there are five wonderful seaside villages immersed in unspoiled nature.

    The five villages, in order from West to East, are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. They are well known all over the world and it is not possible to think of one without thinking of all the others. But each of these villages has its own history, its peculiarities and its secrets. Together they represent one of the most popular Italian tourist resorts. For us Monterosso was the winner, namely due to the beach. We enjoyed a sun filled day of swimming and lounging as well as town hoping by train to check out all that Cinque Terre has to offer.

    In fact, in 1997 they were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
    もっと詳しく

  • The Leaning Tower of Pisa et al.

    2022年6月14日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    The leaning tower of Pisa, is Pisa's famous bell tower. It is known for its nearly four-degree lean, the result of an unstable foundation. The tower is one of three structures in the Pisa's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo), which includes the cathedral and Pisa Baptistry.

    In 1993, a repair effort occurred as reports were that the tower was in danger of breaking. In 2018, after self correcting for more than a decade the tower had finally stopped and gained 4 cm back in the "straight" direction.

    You can read more about that here.
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lean…
    もっと詳しく

  • Giotto's Bell Tower

    2022年6月13日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The Bell tour for the Cathedral of Florence is actually a self standing structure. It is not connected to the Cathedral in any way. It's base is just 47.41 ft in both width and depth and stands 277.9 ft tall. Emily and David purchased tickets to climb to the top via 414 narrow stairs of 2 way traffic.

    The views were amazing!

    The views were amazing. There was also an option to climb the Cathedral of Florence' s dome, but opted to see the Dome from afar instead. You should be able to see people at the top in our final two pictures.
    もっと詳しく

  • Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

    2022年6月13日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    The Cathedral of Florence is a gothic style cathedral whose construction began in 1296 and was completed in 1436.

    From the outside, it was easily the most beautiful cathedral we've seen to date. From the inside, it was a bit more plain. Many of the artifacts were moved into the Duomo museum. We'll post that later.もっと詳しく

  • Scenes of Florence

    2022年6月13日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Home of the Renaissance, Florence did not disappoint. So far it has to be Emily and David's favorite major city we've visited. A Piazza around every corner, and a matching Church along with it.

    If you ever get to go, the Piazzale Michelangelo is a must see. It did show up on our research, but we only went because we stumbled upon it by accident while doing a river walk. It's across the Arno River and offers a stunning skyline view of Florence for free. You can drive or get there by foot from the main Cathedral in maybe 40 minutes (only because its up hill).

    It's a gorgeous city.
    もっと詳しく

  • Accadrmia Gallery Florence

    2022年6月12日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    We visited the Academy museum in Florence (called Forienze by the locals). This was a very small museum but has one key statue we wanted to see which is David. It was a beautiful work of art from Miccelangelo. We also saw the "prisoners" or unfinished statues still in marble as well as some paintings and 17th century instruments.もっと詳しく

  • Uffizi Gallery

    2022年6月11日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    The Uffizi Gallery was amazing.

    Before I bury the lead, the Uffizi houses the original Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. Never thought I'd get to see that in person.

    The gallery was laid out as a journey through the Renaissance. One of the first exhibits showed the same 3 basic altar pieces of madonna and child (see the image with 3 frames). All 3 painted within a few decades around 1300.

    The leftmost was painted in the Medieval style. Pay attention to the angels, they have no depth and are stacked on top of each other. Even Mary is a bit flat.

    The middle is an improvement in Byzantine style. Depth has been added, but the stacked nature of the angels still shows a rigidity in staying with expected art practices of the time.

    The last and rightmost one is a Renaissance painting by Giotto. It shows a cluster of angles in different poses. The freedom to add depth as freeform images and exploration of human figures is what made the Renaissance what it is.

    The Uffizi Gallery showed paintings by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raffaele, and of course, Botticelli.
    もっと詳しく

  • Duomo Museum and Santa Reparata

    2022年6月11日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    The museum had artifacts from the Cathedral of Florence. These were moved for display and better preservation. It contains items from both the Cathedral and the Baptistry.

    Santa Reparata is the former cathedral of Florence. It currently lies UNDER the Cathedral of Florence as Santa Reparata was demolished during the current Cathedral's construction. It was amazing the excavations had uncovered and restored. Full mosaic floors and tombs of Cardinals were on displays in this basement.もっと詳しく

  • The Baptistery of St. John in Florence

    2022年6月11日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    The Baptistery of St. John... You know St. John the Baptist. Italians actually call him San Giovanni, not sure I ever knew they were the same person.

    The octagonal Baptistery constructed between 1059 and 1128 l, which actually predates the nearby Cathedral of Florence.もっと詳しく

  • San Gimignano, Tuscany

    2022年6月10日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    San Gimignano is an Italian hill town in Tuscany, southwest of Florence. Encircled by 13th-century walls, its old town centers on Piazza della Cisterna, a triangular square lined with medieval houses. It has a skyline of medieval towers, including the stone Torre Grossa. The Duomo di San Gimignano is a 12th-century church with frescoes by Ghirlandaio in its Santa Fina Chapel.

    Again, like Siena, San Gimignano, has Contrades and flags in their respective districts. I could not find any mention of a yearly competition.
    もっと詳しく

  • Cantina Gattavecchi

    2022年6月9日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Historic winery of Montepulciano, Gattavecchi is the name of a family engaged for four generations in wine production.
    In the late 1940s, Valente Gattavecchi rebuilt, with the help of his mother Sidonia, the wine business of his grandfather Vincenzo, tragically interrupted after the bombings of 1944. With the purchase in 1958 of the Simoneschi-Baroncelli winery, which had already belonged to the fourteenth-century convent of the Servite Fathers, the Nobile Gattavecchi is placed to mature in a unique and ideal environment.
    Selected grapes, coming from the farms of Argiano, Cervognano, Le Caggiole, are vinified to produce a high level Noble Wine. We had the pleasure of sampling a few wines along with local charcuterie from the farm. The cellar was impressive, which dated back a thousand years to the etrucean times.
    もっと詳しく

  • Montepulciano, Tuscany

    2022年6月9日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    On the ridge that divides the Val D'Orcia from the Val di Chiana, Montepulciano stands on a the hilltop. Everywhere you turn you are confronted with views made for postcards of vineyards and the beautiful Tuscan landscape. Thanks to its superb vineyards, the Montepulciano area is considered one of the finest winemaking regions in the world. Every August the contrades (burrows of the town) compete in a race to push massive wine barrels through the neighborhood. It's their version of the Palio di Siena we mentioned earlier.

    https://www.borgotrerose.it/en/bravio-delle-bot…
    もっと詳しく

  • Pienza, Tuscany

    2022年6月8日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    This charming and very tiny (population 2000) village is widely known as the "ideal city of the Renaissance", the creation of the great humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini who later became Pope Pius II. Piccolomini had the money and influence to transform his birthplace village into what he considered the Utopian city should be. It is also one of the most picturesque towns siting in the Val d'Orcia, essentially quintessential tuscan topography. Not only that but there's cheese! Every first Sunday in September, Pienza celebrates one of its main products, pecorino cheese. In fact, Pienza is considered the “capital” of pecorino cheese, because of its high quality due to the fact that the cheese is made from an especially flavoursome and aromatic milk thanks to sheep pastures in Val d'Orcia.もっと詳しく

  • Montalcino, the home of Brunello wine

    2022年6月7日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Brunello wine is a favorite of Emily's, so getting to go to Montalcino was a treat. While there, we got to do a tasting of Montalcino wines with an automatic dispenser. While mostly Brunello, we did get to also get to try Montalcino Rossa wine.

    Each tasting was individually priced for about 10% the bottle cost. For example a €25 bottle was a €2.50 per taste. The most expensive I saw was a €150 Riserva bottle for about €15 for about a 2 oz pour. Pretty steep, but if you consider the price of that bottle of it were imported to the USA, it starts to seem like an opportunity.

    Fun fact, it's named Brunello, because it was believed to be a different grape that produced a slightly brown (Bruno) color. In 1879, controlled tasting was doomed to determine the Brunello grape was actually Sangiovese. Today all Brunello wine must be 100% Sangiovese.
    もっと詳しく

  • Siena, Tuscany

    2022年6月7日, イタリア ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    This Tuscan hill town will transport you back to the Middle Ages. Siena's grand cathedral, built in the 1200s, has treasured artworks and marvelous marble floors. It is truly breathtaking and can even rival St Peters Basilica in Rome. The Piazza del Campo, the main town square shaped like a fan, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

    It's also home to the Palio di Siena, perhaps the most infamous horserace in the world. Riders representing seventeen Contrades or districts of Siena ride around the square twice a year. Think of it as NYC if Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, etc each had their own flag alliances and rivalries. Very Hufflepuff versus Slitherin. Then, twice a year they had horserace

    You can read more about the Contrades below.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrade_of_Siena

    Read about the Palio di Siena below (with pictures)
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena
    もっと詳しく

  • A pit stop in Gubbio

    2022年6月6日, イタリア ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    On monday we visited Gubbio for a few hours to walk around after our hike to the temple. The city's origins are very ancient. The hills above the town were already occupied in the Bronze Age. It was an important town of the Umbri in pre-Roman times, made famous for the discovery there in 1444 of the Iguvine Tablets,[4] a set of bronze tablets that together constitute the largest surviving text in the Umbrian language. After the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC – it kept its name as Iguvium – the city remained important, as attested by its Roman theatre, the second-largest surviving in the world. Walking through the medieval streets was rustic and charming and the view at the top was beautiful.もっと詳しく

  • Temple of Valadier

    2022年6月6日, イタリア ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Tucked away just inside the mouth of the Frasassi Cave, sits Giuseppe Valadier's neo-classical Temple. The domed roof of the octagonal Temple of Valadier enshrines a replica of the marble statue of the Madonna and Child by Antonio Canova within, while the original has been moved to the Civic Museum of Genga. Although the shrine is a recent addition, built in 1828 at the instruction of Pope Leo XII, the caves have long been a place of refuge for locals fleeing attacks. Following its establishment, the chapel came to be a place of pilgrimage for those seeking forgiveness, earning it the moniker "Refuge of Sinners". The Temple of Valadier remains a place of refuge to this day, its precise design a stark contrast to the rugged walls it shelters behind. A small hermitage sits just outside the cave.もっと詳しく

  • Assisi

    2022年6月3日, イタリア ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    Assisi is a city in the Umbria region of italy (just east of Tuscany). Assisi was first settled around 1000 BC.

    The real significance of Assisi came in 1181 when Saint Francis of Assisi was born. While born into nobility, after fighting as a soldier against Perugia, he began to renounce his wealth and live as a beggar. He would go onto found the "Order of Friars Minor" later called the Franciscan Order. He was later ordained a saint for his work and became one of the most venerated religious figures in Christianity.

    Assisi now boasts multiple cathedrals to him and his followers. The biggest being Basilica di San Francesco, but others include Santa Chiara and Cathedral of San Rufino. Santa Chiara is dedicated to Saint Clare who was a disciple of Francis, but also founded the woman's Order of Poor Clare's. Like Francis, she was born into nobility, but renounced her wealth and choose poverty.

    Both Francis and Clare are entombed in their respective churches. Emily and David were able to see both crypts, which were beautiful, but photography was not allowed.
    もっと詳しく

あなたの旅行のプロフィールを入手する

無料

QR code

FindPenguins for iOSFindPenguins for Android