Italy Tour 2016

Hey guys! I am writing this post an hour before it goes live and I'm still in my pyjamas. I honestly don't think I have ever been as exhausted in my life. Last night (or should I say early this morning) I arrived home from Italy, where I spent a week with the Cork Youth Orchestra. It was such an incredible week, although it was crazily busy and there were many meltdowns, it was full of memories that will stick with me for the rest of my life. 

Instead of putting all of the photos I took on the trip on Facebook in an album labeled 'Summer 2016' like every teen does these days I decided to make this post sharing with ye all of my favourite photos from my trip and share some of my incredible adventure. I spent a week travelling with my closest friends and played three concerts during this trip in Florence, Perugia and Montecatini. 

As it was an orchestra trip I didn't bring my camera with me as I knew I wouldn't have loads of time to stop and take photos as we explored, so these photos were taken on my phone so I hope ye don't mind the decrease in quality. 

Our first day was made up of 17 hours of travelling. We had to take a bus selfie because Bus 2 was the best bus. 

The view from our hotel room was fabulous.

We strolled into the town that evening to get gelato of course. 

 Wednesday was our first concert day. We set off in the afternoon to get to Florence. Florence is full of gorgeous buildings and sculptures that were honestly breathtaking.  We played in the main square, Piazza deal Signoria that evening to over a thousand people. 

The Duomo. 

The reason we were in Italy was because we participated in the Festival of Youth Orchestras. 

Me and my oboes.

 Thursday started with yet another bus journey. This time it was a 3 hour ride to the city of Perugia. This town was an old Italian town on the very top of a hill, so there some insane views from the top. 

On Thursday I finally had my first Italian pizza.

To get to our concert venue we walked through winding cobble stone streets and we played outside the Church of San Francesco.

We then took a day trip to Pisa as we were very close to the town and had to act like tourists at some stage!

 That evening was the over 18's night out. We had the most incredible pizza and sipped on wine in a traditional restaurant in Montecatini. 

 The next morning we took the funicolare cable car to Montecatini Alto. The views from the top were breathtaking. 

 The last concert we played was in the Terme Di Monecatini Spa. It was so beautiful. To top it all off we got 3 standing ovations, it was such a great end to our tour. 

As I finished school this was my last ever concert with the orchestra. It was such an amazing way to end an era.

Our soloist Flaithrí Neff who played the uilleann pipes with us. 

The hotel and pool were just glorious, we spent most of our mornings in the pool before we drove to a city to perform in the afternoon. 

You can see Motecatini Alto up on the hill from the main street of Montecatini Terme.

 We spent our last night taking pictures, packing and dipping our feet in the pool. 

 En route to the airport we stopped in Parma, which is again a gorgeous Italian city, with incredible architecture.

 To get we home we spent 18 hours travelling (as you can tell from the photo we weren't too happy about it!). Even though there was a thunder storm while we were waiting for our flight, the sky looked incredible once we got up into the air. 

To everyone in CYO I want to say thank you for a great five years and and incredible week to finish it all off. And to everyone else, thank you for putting up with not hearing from me for a week on Snapchat because of the horrendous wifi! 

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my adventure and please let me know what you thought of this style of blogpost,

Ailbhe x