Eight Boots Abroad

August 2024

August 6 🇮🇹 

I am at the nicest campground in the world!!

     This campground has kid bathrooms that are forest themed with mushroom sinks and gnomes that lead you around the bathroom (super cool) the campground also has a pool that’s amazing for when it gets super hot here in Italy. The campground also comes with a amazing playground with an in ground trampoline!! To start next the play has a foosball table with glass over it so nobody will break the mini Soccer players. Ohh and did I mention that this part of the campground is underground, so cool 😎. Yesterday did a hike down from an amazing hut that was super cozy and had the best food. 

August 13 🇮🇹🤌

     We had our second meetup with people who we know. Their names are Ewen and Keri and their little kid Cedar. We did a very short walk with them and we also saw a beautiful view point from the top of a cable car. Then we went down to another refugío hut and spent 2 nights there. One of those days my parents did a very long via Ferrata with Ewen and Ewen’s sister. We stayed in the refugío. Also something concerning happened in Morocco I ate something bad and now I have that is still with me today. It’s some kind of weird worm that eats some of the stuff that I eat and now I’m on medication to treat it. The next day we went to see Josh and Justin and so a pretty long hike. Through many huts. We had a delicious cake and iced tea!

Aug 18 Sunday 

    We met up with our Italian cousins here they live in trieste; which is a city here in Italy, they have 4, kids 2 old kids around 6 and they just had 2 buityful twins we were so delighted to meet them. We had a amazing real Italian dinner cooked by our cousins at their vacation house. We did a hike with our oldest cousin and his dad and mom (Benji and Clara). We did a to a hut and stayed a night there and  our cgini (Cousin in Italian) and clara left, and we started scaling up a glacier to a via firata route that was very long and very exposed. People kept on asking questions like how old I am. The other youngest person we saw was 17 years old! Wow my parents are really crazy 🤪. I can say that they won’t read this 🤫🤐🙉

We did a short 3 kilometer hike from that hut to another hut that was very expensive and then we came back after being spoiled by Benji. The next day we woke up at 6 am to escape from a massive storm that was coming in. After that we ate breakfast and ran down in a full on rain storm that was buityful and soaking. There was this one amazing foggy section that we exited a short cave into a little flooded cravas that looked stunning. We then finished and got to the hut hut that we are in right now! 🤣

Homework in Italy – Compare and Contrast Two Pieces of Artwork

 Florence is a bustling city full of culture, food, architecture and most importantly art. I went to 2 1/2 art museums today and noticed different styles and techniques for many different pieces, the two ones that stood out from the others were “The Madonna and Child” by Giotto and “The Annunciation” by Leanardo de Vinci 

“The Madonna”

“The Annunciation”

 In both time periods the individual churches commissioned pieces of art. The money was donated and collected by the churches, that money was used to pay artists and to get supplies. The church commissioned both to try to tell a story and teach religious beliefs. The artwork was  displayed in different churches until being put in the Uffizi gallery where they live today; and where I visited them. Both pieces have geometry such as the chair in “The Madonna and Child” or the wall in “The Annunciation”. “The Madonna and Child” pioneered a new style of realism that looked like a glimpse into the renaissance, “The Annunciation” perfected this style. 

       The time periods were all very different in art and in thought process. For example “The Annunciation” was in the renaissance were the Medici family were trying To focus on the Beauty of the scene not just the story. So they hired none other than Leandro de Vinci. If you look at his work you can see nature and small details compared to Giotto’s work where you can see a straight point of telling a story. 

          The poses of Leonardo’s work are way more human looking and natural. But in “The Madonna” everyone is just staring at the viewer in very stiff and unnatural       positions with strange lighting. The reason “The Madonna” has some characteristics like looking flat and people’s faces being a little wonky is because it was meant to look more symbolic than realistic. Throughout the Byzantine period artists were trying to explain a story unlike how the renaissance period was focused on humanism. 

       In the background in “The Annunciation” one can see mountains, this is important because the mountains are not part of the story they are just there to be beautiful. “The Madonna with Child” was made roughly in the year 1310 and “The Annunciation” was made around 1473 which is around 150 years later. That is like comparing a Van Gogh self portrait with a Keith Haring painting; two very different times and styles.