It's time to do me!: Villa La Petraia

January 21, 2011

Today my roommates and I woke up early to go on this field trip through the school to Villa la Petraia – it was the place where the Medici family lived, rather where the King built a place for his mistress (not his wife). It was also publicly known that he had a mistress and the people of the town actually liked his mistress more than his wife. We met at the train station and then took a bus to this one point and just slowly started walking up this huge hill until we reached the top at their Villa. We walked in to see these beautiful gardens that were so cleanly cut and like a maze. And the view from up there was so incredible that pictures and words honestly can’t describe it!

We took a tour of the inside, but weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside. But when you walked into the building you walked into the courtyard which was enclosed and all of the walls were so beautiful painted that I stood there and gazed with my mouth open. We were led up stairs and through most of the rooms which included a music room which contained a broken piano that was supposed to be fixed, but the man who was asked to fix it died two years ago, and there isn’t anyone else they know of that has the knowledge to fix such an old instrument. We also went through a game room complete with billiards tables, the mistress’s work room, the king’s bedroom, the mistress’s bedroom, and many many other rooms which all were themed or had a purpose. The thing that I found most amusing was that each room had a different color of wallpaper with a fancy design on it and all of the furniture in the rooms were of the exact color and print as the wallpaper as if they blended right in. There were also hidden doors in many of the rooms which allowed servants to not be seen around the house. One of the craziest things I learned was that the mistress’s “toilet” was a vase in which she did her duties and then put the vase into this cupboard in the room next to her bedroom and the servants would come by and empty it!...oh how times have changed!

We finished exploring the Villa and started walking back down the hill toward the bus stop. On our way back we were told to stop at this one gate/house. Apparently the creator of Pinocchio wrote the story in that house and we were told that the author actually created the characters in the story based off of different people that he was friends with or close to throughout his lifetime. I had no clue Pinocchio was written in Italy, nor would I have ever thought I would get to see the house in which the story was written..how neat!

Once we were on the bus back to the train station I literally thought I saw my life flash before my eyes at least three times! I stood in the very front of the bus and saw the entire view/drive….let me just restate the fact that drivers in Italy are CRAZY! Our driver drove the bus like it was a small smart car or something and would stop the bus literally less than a foot away from cars! We also saw a taxi hit a guy on a vespa and his vespa was tipped over on the ground and our bus couldn’t go anywhere until the moped was picked up. Obviously I will never have any desire to get my Italian driver’s license, that’s for sure!

My roommates and I got back and were STARVING! We went toward the school to get kebabs at the same Kebab shop I had gone to before. This time I got tray that had rice, the meat, lettuce, onions, and tomato all piled up and then he put a hot ketchup and yogurt sauce on top…it was out of this world! After we scarfed down our food we set off to find the Florence For Fun office which is an organization that offers tours and trips to different places throughout Italy and Europe. My roommates and I had a couple of their flyers and wanted to sign up for their Venice Wine Tasting tour which runs every other Sunday. We were in luck because the tour is for this Sunday so we got signed up for a day full of fun!

We came back to the apartment and started planning trips and spring break plans which is a big sigh of relief now that things are booked! Marissa, one of Marissa’s friends, Danielle, Lauren, and I all booked a trip to Paris for April 1^st – April 3^rd. And then Lauren, Danielle, and I booked our spring break trip which will be: taking a train from Florence to Pisa and flying from Pisa to London on March 17^th. We will stay in London a couple days and then take a ferry from London to Dublin. We will stay in Dublin for a couple days and then fly from Dublin to Greece. We will stay in Greece for the remainder of spring break and then fly from Greece to Milan on March 27^th and take a train from Milan back to Florence! It was pretty intense booking all of these things and making everything work, but I’m so happy everything went through and like I said is a huge sigh of relief!