Okay, so I had to give you a little Palio taste:
You can actually see one of the SPI Italy '08 kiddos in there - he's wearing a striped shirt. Mark was such a lucky dog that year. He chose l'Istriche to win (even though they hadn't won in decades) . . . think his homestay was in that contrade. With his Mediterranean background, whenever he entered a museum/church and used his best Italian (which he learned only on this trip), they assumed he was an EU citizen, and he entered on the cheap or for free! I'm so jealous!
I'll share with you about the Palio when we're there - such an incredible event!
ANYWAYS, as we approach our trip, I thought I'd share with you some of our itineraries/plans for our weekend excursions . . . just to whet your trip-petite. And, just to keep it exciting, we're going to talk through the trip BACKWARDS!
Our last weekend is designed to give you the best LAST DAY experience ever! Friday night, 9 July, is our last night in Siena. Jeremy has given us all an awesome gift of a pizza party at the cooking school! Dante Alighieri has a fully-stocked professional kitchen, where they host gastronomy classes - check out DA's website, if you're interested! The head instructor will oversee us making a pizza dinner (with desserts) in the kitchen for our last dinner in Siena. I promise, it'll be unforgettable for you! After our dinner, we might just stroll by the church of St. Agostino, where the first concert of the Chigiana's Settimana Musicale Senese will be performed - you can sit out in the park, and still hear the music! Nothing like a Mass by Beethoven under the stars to help digest fabulous food (and a fabulous trip)! Or maybe SienaJazz will be hosting a concert? Then, of course, there's always the Cinema in Fortezza, if the movie looks good . . .
On Saturday morning, we're going to meet early to catch a bus to get us back to Rome, and quickly check in at our fabulous hotel. Dress in your beach clothes, because we'll head directly to Ostia for a last day of ancient sites and beach fun!
Ostia (literally, "port" in Latin) was Rome's port town since Rome was founded in 753 BC. It alone held much prestige - it was the choice of visitors for their stays to Rome, if they were traveling by sea - we have records that Cleopatra stayed in a palatial area there, and St. Augustine recalls his stay when he was trying to return his mother from Ostia to Hippo, in north Africa, where he served as Bishop. There's a story about an obelisk being transported from Alexandria to Rome, and the barge needed to transport it was so huge that it beached outside of Ostia's shore (and made an island out there, big enough for Claudius to build a lighthouse on it). For almost a millennium, Ostia was in use, until it was hit by a plague in the 3rd C., AD, and was promptly deserted. The modern city has grown up around it, but the ancient city was left untouched, and, in spite of its proximity to Rome, generally untrampled by tourists (as opposed to other deserted ancient cities, where you eat dust the whole time). We will tour the city of Ostia in a leisurely afternoon stroll, then we'll head down to Ostia Lido until dinnertime, where we get to take in some beach time and Italian sun, before our next morning's departure.
This website about Ostia's beach cracks me up (all too true!!!): http://www.initaly.com/regions/seaside/michael.htm
We'll return to the hotel to clean up that evening, then head somewhere fun for dinner. I'm still researching spots, and happy to take suggestions! Often, our spot for our last night's dinner is driven by how many Euros we have left in our respective pockets . . . :) We will be staying at an awesome hotel, which has a roof garden and a great restaurant which offers a good deal for a fixed-price menu . . . ah, the options!
Next time: TOSCANA!!
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