Fiesole

We took a trip to The hilltop town of Fiesole today. It was originally settled by Etruscans thousand of years ago before Florence. Today it has an amazing view of Florence and one of the best preserved Roman theaters in Italy. 

The view away from Florence....

The theater....

The theater was designed so that the actors could stand in the middle and talk at a normal speaking level, even whisper and it would be heard by everyone in the theater, even in the back, before microphones or speakers. It was an ingenious design and really cool to experience. It was the Etruscans not the Romans who designed this theater.

There were other ruins such as some Roman baths and an Etruscan temple to Jupiter...

Along with the ruins there was an archaeology museum displaying some of the findings in the ruins. I really enjoyed the Etruscan ceramics and Glass! Here are some photos.....

They also had these ones......

Lots of really neat ceramics. They are much neater in person than in the art history slides. It made me want to do ceramics. I kinda miss Alfred! All of these pots are good examples of pottery done right! Excellent neat-O designs! After the museum we all got a first course pasta at this little restaurant and after pretty much all the class left, Willow, Ali and I stayed to explored Fiesole a bit more. We went up this big hill and came across an awesome view of Florence. Florence is much bigger than we though!!!!!!!

There appear to be other hill towns similar to Fiesole around Florence which is in the valley with the Arno river running through it. From this view we could see the Duomo clearly but it was finally starting to become small. We could see skyscrapers and the soccer stadium and many other things you wouldn't see in the guide books. I would like to go to some of the other places. I will most likely have to take a bus though. It looks WAAAY far! I learned Florence goes WAY beyond the all the maps I have seen.