No journey is too great if you find what you seek

Classes ended yesterday, I was very sorry to leave Florence but we had made the commitment to start the long journey to Positano. It's not an easy place to get to but to say it was worth it even for 2 days is a serious understatement. So a 3 hour train to Napoli, another 1 hour train to Sorrento and an hour bus that hugs the cliffs which would have made my mom stop the bus and walk back (even with her boot), we were dropped off in Positano. 

When I said I loved Castiglioncello, I was premature, this has to be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. And not surprisingly only the tourists who are a bit more adventurous (or rich actually) come here because it's either take a boat, the bus or drive yourself. 

So we spent 2 nights and one day at Hotel California (where you don't want to ever leave) run by Maria. She hooked us up the first night at a restaurant where they send a car for you, not because it's ritzy but because it's on the top of the mountain and that's the only way to get there. 

It had an awesome view (in Faith's words) and when we sat down one of the family that owns it came and explained that the meal was "family style", so they started bringing food and because we were really hungry from not eating all day we started eating alot of the antipasto (we thought that was it). Then they brought the next course and then the homemade pasta, then the salad, at that point I thought that there couldn't be more but I looked over at a big guy at a big grill with 40 pounds of meat that he was starting to cook, and started to feel a little sick, but I'm glad I tried the meat because it was exceptional. Then it was dessert and coffee and lemoncello, a liquor they always bring after the meal, ugh, I thought it was just Americans who serve the large portions.

The next day was a beautiful day at the beach and more gathering of the beach glass. 

And then we had to go back to Florence to pack for the flight the next day. 

I decided we should go out to dinner one more time because there was no food in the apartment and so we went to a restaurant attached to a bakery that Faith's friend Michela works, she gives Faith cookies almost every day. I had ravioli in white truffle sauce and I'm still dreaming about it, (along with the watermelon gelato, and the crepes).

The next day we got up at 5am and took a taxi to the airport and we all wondered why we had always slept in when the city is most beautiful and quiet at this time of day. I was fighting the tears but the tears won.

A bird's eye view

One of my favorite nights was pretty much the only night that all of the class spent time together, we all got along really well but in the studio there was not much time to visit (except for the long break when we went for gelato, and I discovered the watermelon). But on Tuesday of the last week we all went over to Penny's apartment. 6 floors up and 2 story apt and then a rooftop terrace that looked over the entire city. We were supposed to go for pizza but no one wanted to leave.

The David, not your run of the mill renaissance sculpture

So there are several David's floating around the city here (well not exactly floating), and with my class last week I had the honor (with a hundred other people) of seeing the original.

The historian who gives us the tours for the Academy helped translate a book by a researcher who was studying the tools that Michelangelo used on his sculptures. Turns out he couldn't have made it any harder for himself. He grew up with a family of a Quarryman (I guess nobility sent their kids away to be raised by other families in the country) and he used to play with the quarry tools, (these are used to chip huge chunks of marble from the quarry), not to do the sculptors fine detail.

On top of that the piece of marble was a cast off piece that had been sitting behind the Duomo for 10 years or so that no one wanted because it had too much veining and it was too narrow in width, it was one that another artist had already started and so he had to design the david around what was there.

Some guy that Michelangelo, when he painted the sistine chapel he had done one other fresco in his life.

Tomorrow is our last class and we are all rushing to bring our drawings to final. I'm sad to have it end, it was a pretty amazing experience.

Seashells by the seashore

Sunday we had a family outing at the beach. We took a train to Castiglioncello (say that 3 times fast). A little resort town on the Italian riviera, it is the italian's holiday place which the tourists haven't discovered yet (except us of course). If Don won the big lottery I would buy property here, it's beautiful (could you get on that for me honey?).

There was a little stand at the top of the stairs leading from the beach where 

Faith had a hot dog on beautiful bread with ketchup that was more like 

pasta sauce. Adair and I had this thing they call a crepe but it was more like 

a doughnut sort of thing but it was lemony and melted in your mouth. I 

keep dreaming about it, it was so good.

We got back tired and sunburned so we stopped to eat "al fresco" on our 

walk from the station. There was a view directly through a little side street 

to Piazza Signoria by the Ufizzi and at the end was the David, not the 

original, but still...

We continued our walk home through that piazza and stopped to listen to

a man playing the flute. The acoustics on that particular corner are really 

amazing and every night there is someone playing there.

Once again crossing the bridge to our apartment there was another amazing 

view of the Ponte Vecchio. I don't know how each night can be so different 

but that's the magic of this place.