June 11th

Buon giorno! The group woke up early on this day and met at the school before walking to the bus stop. The trip to San Gimignano took about an hour. On the way there we saw miles of beautiful Italian countryside, lined with vineyards and forests. It was nice to see some of the more rural parts of the country after living in a bustling city for the past week and a half. San Gimignano is perched on top of a hill and overlooks dozens of farms and small country homes. We had three hours to explore the castle town and do whatever we wanted. After some exciting purchases which included a sling shot, tiny pocket knife, a gnome, and a pair of brass knuckles, Leanne, Alizsha, Payton, and Keara propped up in a small alley way to sketch an interesting composition that the buildings created. After sketching, Keara proceeded to test out her sling shot with some chocolate candy on Payton. He has a nice bruise now.
Sketching took a little out of us so we wandered around the edges and found a path carved out of the woods. There were points where the trees parted and we could see for miles. Along the path there were parts of the wall that had fallen in and left tiny caves, which we took turns crawling into of course.
Kathryn and Carmen wondered around the town and went into some interesting shops. Kathryn bought a beautiful wallet for her bobo (boyfriend). They had a wonderful lunch of bruchette! yummmmm
Sienna came next on the trip and was equally beautiful. The group took a walking tour and saw some of the some of the nicer views of the city. A lot of the streets are at an incline, much like San Francisco. The climb made our legs very tired. Sienna has an interesting history and layout. On the tour we stopped at a church that was quite whimsical inside. It had huge columns with black and white stripes that led up to a blue ceiling dotted with gold stars. The floors were extremely intricate and covered in beautiful patterns and religious stories.
Exhausted, we walked back to the bus, which was parked by a part of the city that once had a castle built on it. The ride home rocked many of us to sleep.
That night we were too tired to go out, but did enjoy some pesto pasta leftovers with friends before drifting into a coma-like sleep.