This past Sunday, I went on a day trip to Populonia! Giovanni, a 22 year old musician from Pistoia [a city 40 minutes away from Florence], asked my friend Noah and I if we would join him for a trip to Tuscany to explore some Etruscan ruins and soak up the sun. Sunday morning, Noah and I caught a train to Pistoia at 8:30am and met Giovanni in the city center. He picked us up in his car and we began the 2 hour trek to Populonia.
Populonia is a small town in the Tuscan region of Italy. It is especially noteworthy for its Etruscan remains, including one of the main necropolis in Italy. We arrived at the park and began our 2 hour hike through the ruins and remains. Along the way we saw:
LIZARDS
Above ground tombs
Beautiful flowers
Pretty overlooks
and underground tombs
After we finished exploring the archaeological ruins we headed to another town [i can't remember the name, sadly] that is famous for its natural springs!! 20 minutes later we pulled into the parking lot and got out, eager as ever to cool off a bit. Wellll, I guess I didn't put two and two together because these were natural HOT springs! The water was almost exactly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was more like a big bathtub than a refreshing pool. Regardless, I really enjoyed relaxing at this outdoor oasis
.We wandered around the city for a bit longer after we dried off and as the clock struck 7pm we said our goodbyes to Giovanni and thanked him for a great day.
Next Topic: Passover!
This past Monday marked the first night of Passover, as I'm sure you all well know :) I was determined to attend a Seder whilst here in Firenze so I signed myself [and my friend Justin] up for the local seder. We opted to participate in the free guided tour of the city beforehand, as it promised to point out the old and new jewish historical sites around the city. It was really great! I learned a lot and it was a nice change of pace from all of the churches and christian history that I've been learning so much about since being here! As 8:45 rolled around we began to follow the crowd and sat ourselves at the seder table. It was packed! The seder was led by Chabad and was mainly in Hebrew and was quite an experience. Highlight of the evening: Across the table from me was an Israeli woman, maybe about 29 or 30, who was visiting Florence and came to the seder by herself. In order to make space for a handicapped man, the rabbi leading the seder asked if she would mind moving down to the end of the table. She happily obliged and leaned down to pick up her belongings. That's when things took a turn for the worst. As she bent down, her luscious red curls caught on fire from the candle that was in front of her. Without even realizing it had happened, she sat back up as everyone looked on in horror as her hair quickly became engulfed in flames. Everyone began to yell and, once she finally realized what had happened, she began frantically patting her hair in hopes of putting the fire out. Luckily for her, it went out pretty quickly and didn't cause her any physical damage. But, as she reached her hand to the back of her head to assess the damage, she pulled out a HUGE chunk of hair that had been burnt off from the back. WHAT A START TO A SEDER, HUH?! After that, things went pretty smoothly thank gosh. About halfway through we realized that we were actually at the wrong seder and this was not the one that we had paid to attend, woops! Oh well - it was still really neat. Dinner was slim pickings: a quarter of a slice of a hard boiled egg, soup withOUT matzoh balls [blasphemy!], a slice of gefilte fish and then some brisket. Not bad overall but obviously didn't hold a candle to the seder feast I'm used to. We thanked the rabbi, said our goodbyes and left around 11pm to finish up some homework.
The next night, determined to make it to the correct seder, we headed back to the synagogue. After a bit of confusion and lots of down time, we finally made it into the seder and took a seat at the long tables. This was the 'youth' and 'foreign students' seder and it was great! It was filled with hebrew songs, miniature skits, italian banter and a smattering of english. It was so much fun, although still not nearly as great as my family's seder [what can I say...I'm partial]. Anyways, the food was both better and more abundant and we left very content and sated [although still no matzoh ball soup, grrr].
I'm so glad I was able to experience a seder in Italy. It was really neat being able to connect with Jews from all over the world and come together for this special holiday. I'm sure I will remember this experience for the rest of my life
Tomorrow, Devon and I leave for our last trip of the semester: the Amalfi Coast! We're staying in Sorrento but have plans to visit Capri, Possitano, Pompeii and Delphi. We're not returning until Monday due to an extended Easter vacation, so I'll be sure to update promptly upon my return. Until then, I leave you with a few photos of the arno from the past weeks here in Firenze:
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| Arno by sunset |
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