The land of milk and honey (and wine, and olive oil)

[just ignore the telephone lines...]

Tuscany! 

After a busy long weekend of to-and-fro travels (which I'm sure you're sick.of.reading.about.), my aunt and I have arrived.

 I kind of feel like keeping it [relatively] simple, so…here are some pictures of my adventures so far:

 --Waves crashing alongside our train--

Here's another (I know it's blurry, but it's the only one that captured 

the true color outside my window)

It seems like an old village sits atop every hill in this region. Here's one near my cousin's house:

...And another, a bit closer up, called Pitigliano:

A couple of days ago, we visited one of these hilltop villages, Orvieto. 

On the way, we stopped to take pictures of this beautiful field:

I couldn't tell what my aunt was trying to tell me for a while, but I finally figured out that she was saying that the flowers are harvested for canola oil.

 [As a side note, did you know that "canola" stands for Canadian oil, low acid??]

Orvieto was neat-- we mostly just walked around the town. Here's what I managed to capture:

 (Above is a picture from partway down [looking up] the Pozzo di St. Patrizio, a 55m-deep well with two spiraling staircases for when horses were used to carry water to the surface, back in the day.)

 A main attraction of the town, much like many others in Italy, is the Duomo. It was impressive, but I wouldn't say it was my favorite. That's just me, though. You can decide for yourself:

 [I guess my attempt to create a panoramic pic didn't come out too well...]

the front= 6785+6784; intricate: 6790

 I will give them points for attention to detail. Yeesh. Talk about painstaking.

(These are the columns all along the facade)

What was especially unique about this Duomo was the strange combination of style and textures:

It was especially strange to see the church from the side, and realize that the fancy front was only a meter or so thick, haha.

 (PS- the cute little family is my mom's cousin, his wife, and their two sons, 

with whom I've been staying for the last week)

When we were driving away from our day of tourism, I turned around at one point and took this picture-- you can see the Duomo and the clocktower present in my other pictures, which I think is kind of neat.

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tuckered out.

-M