Locked in Love across Italy. Literally.
Lover's Locks chained to a light post in Verona
being in Italy?
Being in Italy, in love.
And who knows love better than the people who love life, I ask you? No one. Well, maybe them and that guy from The Notebook.
This is a post dedicated to good old-fashioned love being shown in a not so old-fashioned way. None of that Italian Stallion crap, but the kind of genuine romance that reminds you of your first love or your first kiss. The kind of love that makes you want to read all Nicholas Sparks’ novels over and over and cry every time.
Think of your average lock. The kind you put on your locker at school or the gym. A totally mundane object that you have likely bought a hundred times in your life and then thrown away once you forgot the combination or lost the key. Now imagine that same lock with two people’s names written on it and imagine it hanging off the bar of a quiet bridge in some little town in Italy. Suddenly, it’s something special. Suddenly, all its qualities of “security,” “safety,” “permanence”, and “lock-abilty” take on a new meaning. Now imagine 50 of those same locks all with different people’s names scribbled on them, all locked to the same place. That is a whole lot of love proclaimed in a beautifully subtle and sweet way that just makes me want to cry. Continue Reading…
With the 83rd annual Academy Awards ceremony just a few days away, it is a prime time to look back on the fascinating history that Italian films share with the coveted golden boy himself – Oscar.
People have been thinking about, talking about, and writing about Italy for a long time. We think you’ll understand why when you go there. If you’ve already been, then you already get it. There is just something about the place. Tourists have been making the journey there since the Middle Ages, when the earliest form of tourism was pilgrimage. Now granted, Italy was the home of the Pope (at least most of the time!), but I don’t think anyone was “twisting their arms” to go there (ahem, except maybe God I guess, we are talking about pilgrims here). I digress. Italy. It’s just amazing. Here are some fun, funny, beautiful, and just plain memorable quotes about the place that Select Study Abroad holds so dear.
Buon San Valentino!
It was Florentine Cultural heritage week this past Novemebr (12th-20th) and people weren’t messing around. The star of the show was a replica of Michelangelo’s David (made of a mixture of fiberglass and marble dust) which was placed on top of the Duomo (see photo) to recreate the statue’s originally intended home. That’s right. When Michelangelo first put chisel to marble he thought he was making a work that would be one of many to adorn the base of the domes of Florence’s (already very well-decorated) cathedral. However, when Mike was finally done, the finished product was so beautiful they simply could not relocate it to that hard-to-see spot so far off the ground. So they got a group of important Florentines together –including Leonardo da Vinci– to discuss where the statue should be placed. 