Montepulciano - Tuscany

After going to Frankfurt, Germany my program had a day trip set up to go to Montepulciano. Montepulciano is a town in the southern Toscana region of Italy. It is a small hill town with a rich medieval and Renaissance history. Montepulciano is know for it's underground wine cellars, olive oil, and fantastic cheeses. On this day trip we toured a wine cellar, had a wine tasting, and visited natural thermal baths. I didn't take very many pictures because it was a quick day trip but here is what I got! 


As with most of Italy the views are incredible! So here are a few more incredible views for all of you lovely people to be incredibly jealous of! 

I have friends??

Now this picture is not the best quality but I had to snap a picture because these exact steps were used in the making of New Moon. Yeah, that's right...me and Edward Cullen have walked on the same ground.

Then we partook in a wine tasting. The employees taught us the correct way to smell the wine, the correct way to sip the wine, and the correct way to look at the wine. It was incredible interesting, I learned quite a lot. For example, when you look at the color of your wine and see brownish tints that indicates that the wine is an older wine.  Some of the best wine and cheeses I have ever had, so I purchased some as gifts of course. Will you be the lucky recipient of truly Tuscan wine, cheese, or olive oil?? I'll never tell.

These are examples of where wine in stored to age. It is far under ground in cellars made of limestone. The limestone helps keep the temperature perfect for the aging of wine. The green glass pieces on the top of the barrels are there to prevent the wine from every being oxidized. Wine...another thing I would not mine to learn more about.

I didn't bring my camera when we went to the thermal baths. They were just like a swimming pool but had all these amazing benefits for your body. They were naturally warm which was a nice change from the cool air that day and extremely relaxing. 

Until next time, 

Emily :)  

Frankfurt, Germany

I know I know, Frankfurt was so long ago but all sorts of craziness has happened since then preventing me from blogging. That whole Pope thing happened (more to come on that later). Also I moved... again. So that's fun. And finally, I leave for spring break on Thursday. CRAZY. So let's get right into Frankfurt, Germany :)

The first day Jaime, Lauren and I went galavanting around with no plan! 

Frankfurt was much more metropolitan then I expected, but of course as much of Europe sits amongst historic buildings. This was the view from the Old Opera House which we tried to enter but got very confused and left... oops!

Here is the Old Opera House!

 After being defeated by the sites in Frankfurt we stumbled upon a Häagen-Dazs restaurant. That's right. There was a menu, and servers who took your order. Needless to say we needed it. 

So we got it.

And devoured it. :)

We then went on and saw this very small, very intricate church nuzzled in the bustling city. 

We then found the Birkenstock's store where my roommate purchased some sandals (spoiler alert: I immediately regretted not buying a pair, we went back the next day). After much walking around and stopping in small shops we stopped for lunch at the nearest cafe. We had the most amazing traditional potato soup and a very refreshing wheat beer. With all the delicious beer I've tasted abroad thoughts of studying beer have arisen in my mind. I don't know, just a possibility but I am very interested. 

The next day we started our day off in the Hostel with a free breakfast took a wonderful quick nap and then straight on to lunch. In every restaurant we found in Frankfurt was of course, schnitzel. All different kinds of it as well. I've always thought of schnitzel as a sausage time of dish but in fact is a breaded cutlet made of veil or pork. Traditionally served with a slice of lemon but can be found with many different toppings...including bacon. Obviously I had to give that one a try and of course another wheat beer. 

After lunch we wandered some more and found ourselves by another Häagen-Dazs, weird. So we stopped again :) I got the same thing as I did before...It was heaven. NO REGRETS! 

All in all, my trip to Germany was a little less educational then my trip to Sweden but I ate delicious food, drank heavenly beer, and had pleasant conversations. I'm a world traveler now, WATCH OUT. Next stop spring break.. Manchester, Brussels, and Dublin :) 

Until next time, 

Emily :) 

Stockholm, Sweden

Busy busy month of March! As you know I went to Stockholm, Sweden the first weekend of March. It was beautiful and I saw some of the most interesting things. But I know why you come here.. so lets get to the pictures! 

On the first day we went to the Royal Palace of Sweden. 

 This was the view from the Royal Palace. Although I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the Palace I learned a ton about the Royal system in Sweden. We were able to purchase a ticket for 75 Kronas which is about $11 which gave us the ability to tour the many different rooms in the Palace. My roommates and I ended up staying there for probably 4 hours. Our favorite part was learning about the newest Princess of Sweden Estelle :) and her gorgeous family. Obviously not a picture I took but look how CUTE they are!!

On many of the bridges people have put locks on them. Although I don't know the origin of this I like to think people make a promise or a secret and then lock it away on the bridge. And the hopeless romantic in me hopes couples go down and put a lock to symbolize their relationship :) 

Three of my lovely roommates who went to Sweden with me!  

We obviously found an Irish pub because they are every where and stopped to have a drink. This is Jaime and Lauren. 

Sweden was also beautiful at night. 

In the morning we found this little cafe near out hostel and I got this delicious raspberry pie with some traditional cream that was AMAZING! 

It snowed. For the record, I don't miss the snow.  

On Saturday we ventured out to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is the larger ship below. It was suppose to be a glorious Swedish war ship but on it's first journey in 1628 it sinks after about 25 minuets. The Vasa stayed 32 meters (105 feet) under polluted water for 333 years. 

This is a small scale model to show how the Vasa was raised in 1961. 

It turns out the pollution in the water actually helped preserve most of the ship and even the passengers who were found still on the ship. 

As you can see here this passenger was found with his shoes still on and what sits in the museum now is the remains of what was once his shoes. 

This is the back of the ship. As you can see it was far too narrow. The Vasa had a sister ship that was built exactly the same but just 1 meter wider and didn't sink as the Vasa did. If only they knew...

Stockholm was absolutely incredible and I'm so very grateful to have the opportunity to go to these places! I went to Frankfurt, Germany this past weekend and will hopefully be uploading a post about that trip someone this week. Thank you all for your continued support! 

Until next time, 

Emily :)