Art History Field Trips: Arezzo, Monterchi and Sansepolcro

I am currently eating a frozen yogurt. Not an actual frozen yogurt which slithers out of the tap and piles up in lovely layers of marshmallow like goo, but a cup of yogurt I put in the fridge. My inspiration came from Molly, who puts literally everything in the fridge from bananas to spinach cakes. 

Its one of those days where the weather is sunny and happy (a nice break from the rain) and all I want to do is sit and memorize what sunshine and warmness looks like. So, I'm currently in my dining area while my apartment-mate Fiona watches a movie, feeling quite relaxed and in a blog posting mood. 

The last art history trip in terms of art work was not as exciting as the previous ones. Probably because for two of the major stops, the class was spilt into two groups (one waited while the other went in with Professor Waterson and vice versa). So there was a lot of waiting going on and our class was kicked out of a couple buildings because there were religious ceremonies occurring inside of them. Oh, and almost every place we went to prohibited pictures (I got yelled at by a security guard to prove the fact).

But in terms of entertainment, it definitely was exciting at times. The most exciting event occurred in Arezzo where all the high school students were going crazy by running around with huge water bottles and throwing water at each other. Apparently it is a tradition throughout Italy for water fights to occur after high school ends. 

First stop: morning pastry and coffee. My friend Julia was saying how she hasn't had a bad coffee in Italy yet. (Arezzo)

my lovely swirly cappuccino (Arezzo)

Walking down the street. There were once again so many cute stores I wanted to check out, but didn't get to. (Arezzo)

High school kids filling up their water bottles. (Arezzo)

Boys throwing water balloons on top of the wall at the people below. My friend wanted to open up her umbrella for protection, but didn't want to cause any unintentional provoking. (Arezzo)

A wedding ceremony occurring in one of the churches we visited. I thought it was a hilarious mix of old and new because the same time this couple was getting married in a beautiful and ancient church, they had a soundtrack system playing and video camera man literally standing right next to the priest filming the whole thing. (Arezzo)

Popular cross of the Renaissance which is all over Italy (Arezzo)

In the country side for lunch! It was absolutely stunning and peaceful making me want to walk around for hours.

 And the answer to if I paid 22 euros for lunch at the ghost castle is....

Appetizer: bread smeared with a mushroom meat sauce and the other an onion cream over salami and prosciutto 

Yup I did! It turns out everyone in the art history trip signed up as well otherwise would've had to bring a lunch with them. 

Even though I am eating a ton of prosciutto here, I just cannot stomach the salami. I have a strange memory back in my elementary school days of my fellow peers eating salami which still grosses me out to this day.

Second Appetizer: warm tomato sauce on bread. Seriously, anything thats bready and hot is my type of yummy.

First pasta dish: gnocchi 

Second pasta dish: spaghetti

Main entree: duck, sausage, and potatoes. I was pretty full already so I did not eat much of this even though it was very good and my first time tasting duck.

Potatoes. I am trying to figure out ways to cook octopus (I might buy one next week for my photography project) and my professor recommended cooking the octopus with potatoes. Sounds yummy.

Julia and Jordan have a problem: theres no more wine!


And for dessert....

Handsome man on pretty horse (Monterchi)

 Actually for dessert Professor Waterson flipped out a bit because lunch took about three hours and therefore made the entire class behind her schedule to see other art pieces. So, the dessert wine, expresso, and very dry pieces of sweet cake were bought out and ate in a rush. I would have been more upset with how it ended but everyone (okay just the girls) were too worked up about the pretty horses with handsome men outside the restaurant to give a damn about how the lunch ended. 

Sara petting handsome man's horse. Some of the girls were offered to ride some of the horses. (Monterchi)

Italian bro meet up

Country side of Monterchi

Me. Not sure why I look cold because I wasn't. 

One of my favorite pieces of the trip we were allowed to photograph. It depicts the body of Christ being carried and clung to with some rather strange elements included. Some of these strange elements include a monkey in the background to represent a Roman solider and Christ's chest is bigger than normal size. Christ is also shown naked which makes this painting quite controversial.


So that concludes the art history trips. I will be going to Venice this weekend so expect a nice long post about my time there.