Friday January 22: Today we took a train to Bologna. The train was very hot inside. I mentioned that to Claudio and he said that sometimes it is very cold, the Italian trains have problems finding a good temperature. The weather was a little overcast today. We heard Stairway to heaven on the radio on the bus ride to our third hotel.

We went to the Maserati factory and got a tour. Maserati is in Modena, this is where Claudio lives. It was a lot of fun to see their manufacturing processes and to see that they use lean manufacturing techniques. They even let us sit in the Maseratis!!!

After the Maserati factory tour we had our farewell dinner. It was delicious and we presented Claudio with a gift. He truly has been so much help on this trip, I am not sue what we would have done without him. For dinner we had tortellini and broth, and some different types of bread with meats and cheese and different spreads.

Saturday January 23: Today we went to the Ducati factory and museum. The first Ducati bike was a kit you had to assemble to a bicyle that was not provided by Ducati. This was also a very neat place to see the manufacturing processes. They also use lean manufacturing techniques. It was nice to see this place and Maserati that are exclusively Italian vehicles. After the tour we went to the train station again to head for Roma. For the majority of the day we were on a train.

I guess this is the last time I will be writing to you. I hope you enjoyed following us on our trip. It was fun and it is a very bittersweet to come back home. I believe we all enjoyed the trip and learned a lot. We learned a lot about different engineering techniques the ancient Romans used. We learned about Italian culture and even a little bit about ourselves.

We are now in a hotel by the airport. We have to leave at 4:30 AM to be ready for our flight at 6:10AM. We will arrive in Minneapolis at 12:30 PM tomorrow. See you there!!! My picture with the mayor of Roma and our group did not turn our so here is John Walker's copy:

Phrase of the day: Come si arriva alla stazione ferroviaria? pronounced kohmeh see ahr-reevah ahl-lah stahtzee-ohneh fehr-rohvee-ahree-ah. This means How do I get to the train station?

Today was cloudy as usual. We went to Michelangelo’s marble quarry. It has been raining a lot lately so we weren’t able to go down to the quarry, but we learned a lot about how they cut it and carve it. It was fascinating to see how big these marble blocks were that they were cutting. When we saw where they were carving the marble it was filled with dust and no one was wearing masks to protect their mouths and noses, we thought this was a little odd because they could do some damage to their lungs. The guy who was giving us a tour explained that they do not need masks because it is calcium carbonate and so it is safe to ingest. He said that old people used to go there to help their osteoporosis.

There was a lot of engineering involved at the marble quarry. We saw the tools they used to cut the marble and they had a liquid running on it for cooling purposes. The cooling liquid they use is also filtered and recycled which was really interesting to me. They let us take some marble home with us too!!

We drove up the mountain a ways and into a quarry. It was very muddy here and the guy who owned it came down and talked to us about it. He explained that three people work in this quarry, including him and his son. He showed us the tools they use to get the marble out of the side of the mountain.

For lunch we drove up the mountain further and searched for a place that served lard. The lard is their specialty in this town. It was a very small town and everyplace was closed for some reason, but one restaurant opened for us so that we could try the lard. It wasn’t bad, it had an interesting texture to it.

The leaning tower of Pisa is still leaning, we saw it today. Some of us even climbed to the top of it. It is actually shaped like a banana. In the baptistery by the leaning tower of Pisa there are two domes and the echo is very interesting so everyday they have demonstrations of the sound. You can hear the sound bouncing off the two domes and the lady who was singing made a chord by singing the different notes at different times. It was neat to hear. You are not allowed to make loud noises like she did, only the person who is working can do it. The baptistery is for people to be baptized in. This is a separate building because you were not allowed to enter the church if you were not baptized. Pisa is where Galileo was born. There were street vendors trying to sell us watches and purses and you name it. This was interesting because they were persistent in trying to get us to buy something. Some people bargained for watches to try and talk them down for the price.

For dinner we ate at the same place that we ate at last night. It is an interesting little restaurant that is below the ground. You have to walk down stairs to get to it. Rice and peas were served for the first course and the main course was pork with spinach and potatoes. Our dessert was tiramisu. It was good and tasted like coffee. This was very different from the meal that we had last night.

Phrase of the day: E troppo caro which means “that’s too expensive” pronounced eh trohp-poh kahroh.

Following the museum, we went to Santa Maria del Fiore, a cathedral in Florence. The marble of this church is stripped with the colors of the Italian flag, red, white, and green Inside this church there is a liturgical clock that is still working today, with the help of some electricity and instead of moving clockwise it actually moves counterclockwise. In the front of the church above the altar there is a huge dome by Brunelleschi which was the largest of its time to be built without scaffolding. The last judgment frescoes are on the inside of the dome by Vasari.

They have a copy of the David where it used to stand in the Piazza we went to called Piazzale Michelangelo, however it was under restoration so I don’t have any pictures of that either. We did see a neat looking sculpture called Perseus, by Cellini. This sculpture depicts Perseus beheading Medusa.

Tonight we are all going out for dinner together so tomorrow I will have to tell you all about that tomorrow. The phrase of the day is Dov’è il bagno? Which means “Where is the bathroom?” and is pronounced dohveh eel bahnyoh.

Today was a big travel day for us, the weather was not bad a little cloudy, but it did rain again. We left our lovely hotel Alimandi and got on a train to Siena When we arrived in Siena we got a tour of the town The tour guide who is from Siena told us all about their horse races they have in the main square. There are 17 districts of the town that compete. Only 10 can race every year. The next year the seven that didn’t race will race and they will draw between the other 10 to see what three will go again that year. Some how they bring in a bunch of sand for the horses to race on so that they do not hurt their hooves. On the corners of buildings you can see shields of the different districts to show where one district ends and another begins. We went to church Santa Maria Assunta, this church is different from the other churches we have seen in the past because it’s marble has layers of black and white. Another church we went to was called St. Catherine’s church. It was a little eerie because St. Catherine’s head and thumb are inside. We saw her preserved head and thumb, but we were not allowed to take pictures. She died in Rome so her body is there and her feet went to different places than the rest of her body.

After Siena we stopped to get a good view of a castle that is still standing today. Our tour coordinator, Claudio took us on a path through the mud and over a little ditch we had to jump over. Everyone’s shoes and pants got muddy. When we were done taking pictures, we went a different way that wasn’t as muddy and we joked around that we shouldn’t follow Claudio anywhere anymore. The next stop after this short pit stop was at San Gimignano. This town is fascinating because it’s a medieval town.

On the outskirts of San Gimignano we had our last adventure of the night. We ventured to a vineyard where they taught us how to taste wine and fed us dinner. The guy who owns the vineyard is very animated and made us all laugh. When we arrived he told us that wine is not only to drink, but wine is poetry, wine is fantasy, and wine is love. I believe most of the group learned a lot about how you are supposed to taste wine, instead of just drink it. The meal was delicious and below you can see pictures of the food we ate. There are so many things he taught us that it would take forever to write them all down. One of the things that was the most interesting to me was at the beginning before we had our main dinner we had plates in front of us with bread, cheese, meat and chips on it. After he told us how to drink the wine he told us to taste each of the different foods with the wines and see which food we like to eat best with which wine. He did this to prove that what I might like to eat with wine, the next person may not, it is up to you and your body, not about what is the best type of food with what type of wine.

Now I am typing from the bus ride, we will take this bus to Florence where our next hotel is We will spend a couple nights there. Word of the day: Vino which means wine. (pronounced vee noh).

Yesterday was our last day with Gino and Luciano, our tour guide and our bus driver. It is sad because we had a lot of fun with them. You can see a picture with Luciano below. Because it was our last day to tour around Rome, we went to see an Aqueduct, some tombs that are preserved, and some preserved private baths. We saw some parrots today, I didn’t know that parrots lived in Italy. Another interesting thing about Italy is that palm trees can grow here. The aqueducts were an interesting aspect of Roman Engineering. We enjoyed relaxing in the park and looking at these breath taking structures.

Photos in this blog are by Tony Bombardo. Phrase of the day: Allora (pronouced Ahl-loh-rah). This means "then" but also next, or and then, or moving on, etc.