Castles and Opera's

Let's start with Castles: That's right. Castles. I've seen a few while I've been here, but nothing like this. I mean this one....this one doesn't even look like a castle!!! HA!!!!! It's great. Well, I guess it does, sorta. This is called Sassocorvaro:


















It looks more like a fortress. But I still love it. We didn't get to go inside because we got there right after it closed to the public for the day, but I took a couple pictures from the outside. This castle is really special because the design is called the 'turtle' design. This is what it looks like from above:






I think it's really cute. :)












BACK UP: just before the castle we drove to this lookout.







Beautiful, isn't it? Almost every time we see something like this I have to remind myself out loud that this is real, I'm really in Italy.









Because so many of the things I've seen, especially scenes like this, seem just like a painting. They are so picture perfect, so surreal, that I can hardly believe that I'm not looking at a painting.




After we saw the castle, we went home and had lunch, then we went to Sestino (a neighborhood town) and saw the local museum.

That was amazing. Here's me in front of a...not statue...strange metal picture...of sorts...across from the museum.
















NOTE: everything in this museum was found in Sestino, just 6 miles away from Belforte. These are statues from the Roman era!!! So, a couple thousand years old! Some of them were dated to the 1st and 2nd centuries.




























This pavillion-like thing is used for funerals. They would display a statue of whoever died and then hold a ceremony something or other. It's beautiful. ANOTHER NOTE: The Roman town that used to be here was a very important town, with very important people.

























This guy led us around the museum and church here. In this picture he's reading the LATIN inscriptions on those big rocks. HE READS LATIN!!!!!!! How cool is that?!! Anyhoo.









































































I find this amazing. The back part of this church, the grey stone dome like part that surrounds the cross is part of a Byzantine building that is still standing. The rest of the building was destroyed in an earthquake.





It's amazing how the people who came here after that empire was destroyed (actually, this happens everywhere in Italy) could look at the ruins and say, "Let's just add to what is already here, and use everything else to build new buildings. Seriously! It doesn't matter where you go, you'll see buildings that have Roman or Byzantine stones in the wall, or they're built on a Roman foundation.



Anyhoo, on our way back to Belforte, we stopped at this sign to take a picture. It means that I have just left Toscana (or Tuscany) behind and I am now entering the Marche. Something that most people don't know: Tuscany isn't a city here. It's like a State. Toscany is a 'state', Marche is a 'state', and in each state there are what we call counties. Anyhoo, cool fact.


















End with a High Note: Back at home we ate dinner which was again delicious, my compliments to Uncle Larry, and then me, Grandma, and Grandpa headed to Urbino to see an Opera demonstration. There's an opera school there where people from all over come to study. A lot of students from the U.S. It wasn't a full-on opera, though I wish it was. They had a group of students that each performed solos from different operas.






It was amazing!!! I wish I could sing like that. The best part about it was the expression. Everything was in Italian so I didn't understand what they were saying, but most of them played the part so well that I was about to cry during some pieces and I laughed during others, and I felt scared or angry during some. And I didn't even know what any of the songs were about!!!! It was soooo cool. And it ended on a perfect note. Literally.