Bracciano, Montefiascone, Civita di Bagnoreggio

Yesterday, we first visited Bracciano. It's a cute little town that holds the castle where TomKat (Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes) got married. Francesco came with us (which was a big deal because apparently he only goes on field trips with groups that he likes.)

Next, we visited Montefiascone. Montefiascone has a famous wine called Est! Est! Est! It gets its name from a legend that this man used to go around writing "Est" on different places that had great wine. So if it's repeated three times it's the best. We ate lunch here at a restaurant with homemade pasta. I had the ravioli. mmm. And I tried some Est! Est! Est! wine. (It's white... and although I'm not the best judge... it didn't taste much different to me than any other... but it was worth trying.)

Also in Montefiascone is the church of Saint Margheritta and underneath the church of Saint Lucia Fillipini. It was very beautiful. Francesco climbs on the altars to get good views of paintings. He is so funny. (He is a very intelligent art historian if you don't remember that from my first post. He's kind of a big deal.)

We went down underneath the church where there is a glass coffin holding the mummified body of Saint Lucia Fillipini. (check the pictures!) Crazy.

Next we went to Civita di Bagnoreggio. In my pictures it's the town on the huge hill. We had to hike up the bridge. This town is endangered and decaying, which explains why it only holds 10 residents. It was a neat place to explore.

Then it was back to Ariccia.

This morning we had class with Marco, Mary Lou and Jessica. We are about to go back for class with Rosella and Maurizio. A long day of class today... but it's all enjoyable.