Well, for those of you dying to read the guest blog post (I know, there's are probably hundreds just biting at the bit ready to read)--- he's a little behind deadline, so you'll have to wait a little while longer.
As for this past weekend... What an incredibly pleasant one it was! UNC students were given two trips to choose from that are included in our tuition bill. My first one was Rome, where I chose it because I felt the need to go---it ended up being better than expected.) My second was "Hiking in the Alps (and Lake Garda and Verona). How many people could say they hung out in the Alps? Choosing the trip as my first choice, I was off to Verona at 6 o' clock in the morning on Saturday. Of course I hadn't already finished packing, so I got up a bit earlier than that...
Needless to day, when we finally arrived in Verona after a 3 hour sleepy bus ride, I was kind of in a daze and the itinerary sort of just passed on by without me even noticing. It wasn't until afterwards, when I finally woke up, that everything came back to me. We stopped off at a beautiful look out of the city (it rivals Piazzale Michelangelo) to take a few pictures and wake up a bit before our walking tour. The walking tour was comprised of mainly Juliet's (feaux?)house and the Arena, the third largest existing roman ruin in Italy. As many have said, the house was pretty underwhelming, and was fit with an even cheesier gift shop. However, its cool that we got to see it, in all of it's graffiti-ed glory. Afterwards we checked out the tombs of the Scala family(?), a very influential and wealthy family of Verona. After a quick lunch and pictures of the Arena, we were on the bus to Lake Garda.
Lake Garda did not disappoint. At times I would look up and see the Alps, then look down and there was water as clear as the Mediterranean, to the right, I'd find green grass and cyprus trees like Tuscany, look straight the cliffs and stone peeking out of the water resembled the dolomitic rock we saw in Sardegna. Beautiful is an understatement. The lake is incredibly close to the Austrian border, so while we were there, I saw more eastern Europeans than Italians. We went to a small town on the peninsula that was composed of old city walls and ruins. There was a lot of wildlife too. Swans elegantly cruised across the water (and then fought with each other..... some even came to say hi (or tell us to back off). We followed the latter. There were ducks and interesting birds with mohawk like feathers. I immensely enjoyed our time at Lake Garda and wished we could stay longer. We walked and talked, took pictures, and just stared at the incredible scenery. We even tried to hike up to a cliff overlook, but the "trail" was instead a dirt path leading to a closed gate (that was too high to climb over). Too quickly were we back on the bus to head to where we were staying that night, a little "mountain city" called Trento. Our hotel? It was called Hotel America, of course. However the majority of the signs and words were in German (I think? maybe Austrian...) But the food was pretty good and the breakfast was even better-- filled with everything you can think of! (And enough to steal to make a good, free lunch). That night, all of the north carolinians went out to a bar and chatted for a bit before heading back.
The next day, we were welcomed with cold(ish), rainy weather. But luckily, nothing was rained out. However, the trail we were going to take was apparently too snowy for us to hike (I would have hopped right off that bus, just to be able to walk in the snow... but we kept on moving "down the mountain under the snow line". Nooooo. A minus to being on a school trip, rather than with just friends is that they must cater to the minimum-- so many might not want to trudge around in snow. Pinzolo did not disappoint however. We headed first to a beautiful church on a cliff (of course out hike starts out with a church-- no trip is complete without a church visit!). Then we headed back down and walked by the river for a couple of miles. (The hike ended up being more of a nature walk, but with the incredible green surrounding us, I didn't mind too much). And the incredible waterfall at the end made the whole experience worth it. The fog cascading over the mountain hid the top of the waterfall creating an even more magical view. Little trails that snuck out from the main road left me curious for more. Someday, I'd love to go back to Italy (with a car) and venture more in depth through the different national parks that have left me speechless. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful trip and it was great to just be able to walk in the rain without any care in the world. 
As you may have noticed, we did a lot of driving. But even on the bus, the views were worth every penny. The small mountain towns meandered through the Dolomites and Alps, rivers sliding through. The fog in the distance allowed the peaks to appear slightly above. Apple orchards sprouted up every other turn. (The trentino region is famous for their apples-- its where Florence get's most of the ones they have!) So I created a short (anti-climatic) video of the roads, countrysides, and mountainsides we saw through the rainy windows of our bus, Fleet Foxes is playing in the background so I can make things a little more stereotypical and a little more exciting. Enjoy!
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