If these walls could talk...

Ciao! I am finally here and words cannot even come close to describe how amazing and beautiful this place is!  and not to mention perfect for what I am studying! It's pretty ridiculous actually and has not really hit me that I am in Italy.  The weather is perfect for now and I know that will soon change once it starts to get colder...but I still have awhile before that happens!


After we landed in Rome we took a bus to Castiglion Fiorentino.  It was a pretty long bus drive but I got to see so much of the beautiful Tuscan hillside...filled with adorable hilltop towns, other walled cities, italian cypress trees, clouds casting playful shadows on the mountains, and fields of sunflowers that unfortunately are wilting as if to say their goodbyes before the next season comes. I cannot even imagine how beautiful the hillside would have looked when the sunflowers were at their peak! Nonetheless, in every direction I looked, it provided the perfect setting for a snapshot...except I did not have my camera on hand. Womp, womp haha.  But I will definitely be ready the next time I travel that direction...which will be pretty soon I think!


After a couple of naps and some gawking at my surroundings, we finally arrived to C.F.  It is a pretty decent sized town and is made up of two parts...the walled medieval historical part and the rest of the town that is located outside of the walls.  We are living inside of the historical medieval walled part of the city! How cool is that?  There is so much history here and as a matter of fact we stumbled upon an archaeological site that people are working on...I didn't get to see much but I know that they do tours!!! They have discovered that this town dates back to Etruscan times which makes it a great location to do Archaeological digs! 


Like I already mentioned, this place has tons of history and sometimes wonder if only these walls could talk...what would they say..about the people that have lived here, what kind of changes happened during different periods of time, what happened in these city gates exactly and I could go on forever ha

There is so much more I can say about this place...but that would make this blog really long, so I'll save you from that :) Classes start next week! Right now we are doing a lot of introduction and orientation stuff and some traveling to nearby cities...on Sunday we are going to Arezzo to see a jousting tournament/festival!   Basically just know that I made it here, love this place so much already, and that I have eaten some fantastic authentic Italian food already! and here are some pics...Enjoy!

We went to the heart of the city (which is probably the oldest part of the city) located at the top of the mountain and had this amazing view of the rest of the city outside the medieval wall.

This is the courtyard of the Santa Chiara Study Center...where I will be living for the next 3 months!  

This is the  tower literally located in the heart of Castiglion Fiorentino...and I got to climb to the top of it! Kind of scary especially when the bells went off ha