Florence to Salzburg to Cortona! What is next...

Last week we went to Florence for our last time...:( but it was all ok after we got through our class stuff from the beginning of the day.

We started in Florence at 1030 ish and kept going till 445 that afternoon. Of course with a 1 hour lunch break. What was dreadful was the 2 hour Uffizi visit that consisted of us only seeing 5 different paintings in the entire museum. Yes, I did say 5!! Which means that we spent...mostly standing! in front of each piece for 24 mins. I never knew I could possibly fall asleep standing up. haha

After all of that though it started to be a great day!! I got my leather jacket! Which is a dark brown, with a zipper and very just simple. Then we went shopping some more, but what was going to be the best thing ever that night was getting Mexican food for dinner!!!

We decided not to back to school for dinner on Wednesday but to stay in Florence for our possible last trip...which we are planning a day trip for ourselves to do the very last shopping and get Mexican food one last time! It was so good!! We had margaritas, cheese dip that was more like fondue...and great Mexican food!! Over all we had a wonderful Wednesday!

This past weekend was amazing!!! We went to Salzburg Austria for easter weekend. It was such a beautiful weekend! We saw so much of Austria, I didn't get to go to a concentration camp or salt mines but what I did get to see was just as awesome if not better!

We went to

- Salzburg Zoo

- Mozart's Residence

- Mozart's Birthplace

- Fortress

- History of Natural Science Museum

- Toy Museum

- Musical Instrument Museum

- Stiegl Beer Tour/Museum

- Dom for Church

- The Sound of Music Tour

I am pretty sure that is everything...I am probably missing something we did. It was all so amazing though, plus we had great weather all weekend...it got a little cloudy on Monday but we were leaving so it was ok.

The zoo was so much fun!!! I am wanting now to go to every single zoo in every country we go to but I am seeing that as not a possibility. So you know though...when you go to a zoo in a different country, well at least Austria they don't believe in a barrier between you and the animals. At home you always have like a fence and 10 feet of space between you and the animal. In Salzburg most of the animals were in betting range. Even the Rinos, and I could stick my camera through the fence for the Leopards.

Mozart's locations were so interesting and completely different in what they had information wise. Science Museum was so cool, it was also like a little aquarium at the same time.

The toy museum was very interesting, it was basically a look back in time at all the different toys that were invented for child entertainment, as well as puppets. The musical instrument were connected to the toy museum which was very interesting because it had a collection of some of the very first built pianos. Along with all the different forms of how a piano worked. Then all the different musical instruments basically that Austria has gone through in its history.

The fortress was not that all of amazingness, it had a great panoramic view but besides that it was nothing too special.

The beer tour was so cool!! Of course seeing how it all is made is cool, but with the tour...which part of going to Salzburg we bought a Salzburg card for three days, that included everything we saw as free entry, plus free public transportation. It paid for its self by the second day. Well we got into the beer tour for free, plus you get 3 free samples of beer and a free gift with the tour.

The beer was very good, we had their house beer, there Easter beer which they only have for like 4 weeks, and then their blonde. All three were very good, plus I had a few more because what is nice about a big group of people not everyone likes beer. So I tried their strongest beer, and the light wheat beer. All very good! The gift was cool, it was a cup the holds .33 L. Very nice gift! Plus I bought a few other things of course!

Church on Sunday was interesting...we missed the high mass because they thought the arch bishop was speaking at the high mass which was at 12...well it turned out to be at 10. but o well

we went anyways...very interesting. I spent the entire time looking at the church walls and organs. Which they had 5 total organs inside. 4 small ones and then their 5th was like a whale!! It was so beautiful though when played! I have decided that I don't like organs at home, but you play a organ anywhere in a church in Europe/Italy/Austria and it is freakin amazing!!

The sound of music tour was really cool, very nice tour to use to not just see the places they filmed stuff but also see more of Austria. I would defiantly recommend doing a private tour if possible though. Because Danielle and I got split from the group because they couldn't all transport us to the place to meet the bus for the tour. Well they ran out of seats on the bus and we and 6 other people got a private tour and it was so much better!!

We saw more things then the big bus and got more information about the movie and had more time to see everything. Our tour guide of course was so amazing, so that helped a lot in making it more enjoyable!

Also, the sausage here is so good!!! We had sausage for lunch every day and it was so good!!! Plus the pretzels are awesome as well! Along with every is so nice...I don't know if it was because it is such a tourist town...which defiantly go in April to Salzburg because it was not crowded at all...or at least go Easter weekend.

Overall Salzburg was an amazing trip and if I could I would stay there for a very long time! haha

This Wednesday we went to Cortona which is a little town just 30 min away by bus. or 15 min if you walk half the distance back like we did.

We got to see the church in Cortona as well as S. Francesco's church as well as monastery. Cortona is defiantly a beautiful place...kind of glad they didn't decided to put the school in Cortona because I would die with all the hills in Cortona. You think the hills are bad in Castiglion...you would have to see Cortona and then you would cry! haha I will say it has a beautiful country side and lots of olive tress!

Next blog will be about Barcelona!!!

Ciao!!