Under the Tuscan Sun

My last 12 days in Tuscany, Florence and Pisa was an eye-opener. For once, we really had the chance to mingle with the locals, to experience speaking Italian to locals who do not know English and to practice hand-signals. The whole trip was refreshing yet exhausting. The whole site was so big, we met so many parties and our client, we struggled over choosing a site, walked 14km around the site and we experienced a bus strike. However, it is an experience of a lifetime and all the Italians who helped us, they're simply wonderful. Monte di Fo (Mountain of Fire),14km from Barberino
The villa that we stayed in at Camp Il Sergente
Expecting sunny Italy? Think again. The bus ride down and a view of the Tuscan Landscape
Little town of Barberino di Mugello, where everybody knows your name. We were the only foreigners there.

My favourite.

Typical Italian-Tuscan landscape A handy way to travel around a small town
The roundabout. A nice play of faces from different angles
The cemetary near the lake. It evokes an eerie feeling

The Lago di Bilancino. It's massive and beautiful.This is my first and last steak. It was 90% raw, oozing with bloody gravy, but lovely anyway. Bistecchia Florentine. Wished I had red wine with this

How beautiful our Youth is
That’s always flying by us!
Who’d be happy, let him be so:
Nothing’s sure about tomorrow.

Lorenzo De Medici (1449-1492) ~A Song For Bacchus~

Giant Frog

Thought I added some diversity to this blog of mine. I'm slowly getting lazier and lazier to put up the pics of the other 6 cities. Truth is, I'm getting busier and busier. Typical archi student isn't it? Well, I've had a long holiday already, will be having another one next week. I'm just so busy running about, you can't blame me. Let me justify my trip to Florence next week. I'm currently doing a module called Special Design ( I still have the normal design module as well). It's called live project. If you're interested, you can check out more on www.liveprojects.org. Anyway, I was fortunate enough to get the one in Florence, and hence, I'm on my way to Firenze! We'll be flying to Pisa from Sheff. Part of our itenary would be to visit Turin and Venice for the biennale (which I missed earlier this month). So, it's actually school work, just that it's in some exotic location which many people don't get to go to. And the best/worse part is we have to learn Italian. The picture below is the artificial lake that our project is focused on. It's a rather open ended project, so basically, we can choose what we want to do. Sounds cool eh?

Had some gathering with the Malaysians and Singaporeans here. Really friendly bunch of people here. Now I have a few places to bunk at when I need to stay back late or when they have outings. Thanks guys!

We do not what we ought,

What we ought not, we do,

And lean upon the thought

That Chance will bring us through.

-Matthew Arnold, Empedocles on Etna

Around the Peak

Because Ms. TWJ asked for a pic of me, here it is. One and only one. Behind me is the Village of Edale. It's really beautiful out here. It's also the time of the year when the shadows are longer.......................
Random pictures when I went for a walk around the area where I'm currently staying at
Signs that autumn is here. At sunset, everything is simply beautiful.



Made Bakewell Tart. Bakewell's another village in the Peak District. I'm soooo free... but not anymore.
On a drive around the Peak District. Went to explore Castleton, and Rushop Edge.

Took a walk along the ridge. Walks here are very popular with locals and tourists alike.
Edale...




Magic mushrooms. I wish!

Hail Don Quixote- Toledo, 26/8/06

Toledo, a UNESCO World Heritage City. I'm too busy now to elaborate. Go do your research. I have work to do also you know. It's not 1 semester of holidays you know. Maybe it's something like 2 months of work and 3 months holiday?


Oh, this cool escalator's at the side of a hill. The climb up to the medieval city is quite steep, so the smart engineers/architect built this.
Toledo is known for its swords and weapons. hmm... could've bought a gun
The cathedral in Toledo. I've been chasing cathedrals.






My hero.

Royal Madrid

Football craze over here eh? Even the lamposts are shaped like footballs... That's the Royal Palace



Plaza Mayor by night. It's a huge gathering space for the Spaniards. Life starts after 9pm


The Royal Botanical Gardens. Lovely place with beautiful sculptures





Another Palacio de Cristal (Crystal Palace), this one used for an expo in the late 19th century.




And finally, the railway station with a rainforest in it

As you can see, I didn't take many pictures in Madrid city. Partly because of certain incident that dampened our mood and also because we found Madrid lacking in the excitement and glamour of the likes of Barcelona or Granada. Still, I managed to get some nice shots. Madrid is better known for its entertainment and night life, definitely shopping. There are other places that we visited as well. We spent a day at the Museo Nacional del Prado (Prado Museum), one of the biggest museums in the world. Many Renaissance and Classical works by famous Spanish artists such as Goya, El Greco, Velasquez, and Murillo. Shall spare you all the rest of the details.

Actually I think there's a lot to see in Madrid. It does have an interesting history and culture. Probably the history's not as romantic as Barcelona's or Granada's. It's a more developed place for commercial institutions and a city planned along the Gran Via. Anyway, we took a day trip to Toledo which is 1/2hour by train. Pictures shall be up later.

*I'm currently starting on a Live Project conducted by my university and the project I got is in...Florence! One week in Pisa/Florence/Tuscany. The best part is, the accomodation is paid for, just need to pay for our transport there! Geez, I'm getting excited about it. Luckily we didn't backpack to Florence earlier on.