Monday, September 27

Venezia and Padova




This past weekend we went to Venezia, or Venice. We stayed about thirty minutes by train outside of the city (because it was cheaper) in this super nice hotel. It's the biggest one we've stayed in so far and is about the size of an american hotel but it typically has twin beds. I have yet to see a double bed here. I don't think they exist except in America. I digress, though.

Venezia was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. It was supposed to rain but the weather was actually quite beautiful. There are no roads but there are canals everywhere. The Grand Canal is the big one that cuts through the middle of the city in a backward S shape but there are several smaller canals that trail off the Grand Canal. Since the only traffic is either by foot or boats, the sidewalks and streets are very small. Why do you need cars when you can either walk the whole island and take a boat? And since there aren't any cars, the main public transportation system are the vaporetto, which are kind of like really big houseboats. There were people reading the newspaper on these things too, like they saw Venezia everyday and just couldn't bothered to be impressed by it. I was astounded! How can you not continue to be awe-struck by that city constantly? I guess if you live there you get over it, but come on!

We went to San Marco's and tried our hardest to find the way in, but I'm pretty sure you just need to strap on some plastic boots and wade through the foot of water flooding the piazza. No kidding, this place had water in the shops while they were closed for siesta. And not like a couple of inches of water, more like a foot. They were selling these plastic boots for ten euros that went up to your knee so you could wade through the water. Since I'm cheap and I didn't want to catch some kind of nastiness from the water, I didn't jump in like most of the people. Call me crazy. It was really neat though.

We took a bus tour of Padova on Friday and learned a whole slew of information. We were also able to go inside the Church of St. Anthony during Friday night mass. I'll just say, most beautiful chuch I've ever seen. They had his tomb there and so many relics. They even had his teeth and tongue on display! Ugh! And as strange as this sounds, the relics and all that were really well organized so that everything flowed together really well. It wasn't super dark like some churches are either. Very nicely lit and overall tastefully done. I know it sounds strange to say that, but it just flowed easily and led the crowd where they needed to go. We also saw the "Grassless Meadow" which is the largest piazza in all of Europe. It's a tiny island surrounded by a moat. A MOAT. Surrounding the island are also seventy-eight statues and four bridges leading into the "island."

Overall, this trip was very interesting and educational. It just goes to show the adaptation abilities of mankind. Pretty impressive when you think about it.

Tuesday, September 21

Cinque Terre and My Birthday Weekend



This past weekend we went to Cinque Terre for a free weekend. It's five fishing villages on the coast of Northern Italy and it is absolutely beautiful. Even in the rain it was gorgeous. We left Montepulciano on Thursday afternoon and didn't get there until about ten or so at night, so it was a fairly long trip by bus and train. We stayed in a cute hotel in Forte dei Marmi, about thirty minutes from Cinque Terre. Friday we took the train to the first village and bought two day passes. The view from the train was incredible. You could see blue sea and the quaint shops built on the edge of cliffs. I've never seen such blue water before in my life. And this was on a crappy weather day, it wasn't even sunny! Friday the boats weren't running because of the bad weather but we still managed to walk the first path, which was paved, known as the Via Dell'Amore, or the Road of Love. It was really amazing, there were locks around the railing all over the place. What you're supposed to do is write the couple's names on the lock, lock it around the railing and throw the key into the Mediterranean Sea, and this ensures that your love will last forever.

On Saturday the weather cleared up for the first half of the day, so we were able to take a boat ride over from the last village, Monterosso, to the fourth village, Vernazza. It was really neat to see the villages from a different view. We had lunch and gelato and later that day we hiked the path from Vernazza back to Monterosso. Apparently this was the most difficult path and the most time consuming. It took us about two and a half hours to make it to Monterossa. Since it had rained the day before, it was still pretty muddy but what really made it worse is that it started raining again about the first hour we were hiking. This used to be the main way people would get from village to village if they couldn't sail between them, but that was years ago. The path is actually pretty scary, because for a good majority of it there is no railing and the path is about a foot wide, if not less. So I spent my 23rd birthday on the side of mountain climbing over, down and around slippery rocks and muddy paths. It was a pretty exciting birthday, but I'm not sure I have the nerves of steel to do it again. It ended up taking a lot out of me, so I was very glad to sit down afterwards and concentrate on not moving. I slept like a baby that night! Sunday I was ready to come back to Montepulciano, even though I really wanted to see Pisa. Hopefully on one of our free weekends I can take a day trip up to Milan and Pisa and walk around for a bit.

Tuesday, September 14

When in Roma...


This is a picture of the Trevi Fountain at night. We went to Rome this weekend and saw probably more than most people get to see in a week, and we were only there for 3 days. The most interesting thing we saw was the San Callisto Catacombs. They were intense. There were four levels but we only went down to the second, which was apparently fourteen meters down. There are sixteen popes buried there along with a boatload of martyrs and other christians because at the time, there was no land to be had for a cemetery, especially a Christian cemetery, so everyone who was Christian wanted to be buried in the Catacombs. We learned that there are over 500,000 thousand people buried there. Half a million, that's a whole bunch of bodies. Thankfully we didn't see anything too creepy while we were down there, but we did see a mummified boy and a mummified woman, as well as tombs that had been opened up. It was really interesting and super informative. The Catacombs are actually located a little outside of Rome, so we decided the most effective way to get there was to take a bus tour where we could get off at whatever attraction we wished and get back on whenever we were finished. It was pretty cheap and very educational because they tell you all about each place as you pass it or stop at it. We even got to see the Appian Way, which I was pretty excited about.

We saw so much that it is kind of difficult to remember everything. We took a class trip to the Pantheon, which I think is now a church and it's also where Raphael is buried. I took a picture with a "gladiator" and then we walked to the Trevi Fountain and saw a massive amount of people gathered around. I took a bunch of pictures and threw a penny in to assure that I would find my way back to Rome. Such a good scheme, I think. What better way to keep the tourist revenue alive? We had dinner in the area and by the time we finished we had the chance to see what the Trevi looks like at night. As you can see above it's gorgeous! We did some more walking around before heading back to the hotel and stumbled upon the Spanish Steps. I don't know what the meaning is of these but I'm not sure it's that important.

Friday we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica. I didn't know this before, but St. Peter's is the second largest church in the world. There was so much to see in the museum that it took us a solid five hours to go through, and that was fast. We saw the School of Athens, which was amazing and then we finally found the Sistine Chapel. It was incredible and packed. So many things to look at that my neck finally just started hurting too much to look straight up and back. After that we went into St. Peter's Basilica. Absolutely amazing. It was beautiful and HUGE. I took a really neat picture of a dove mosaic behind the altar. I also met a real live Swiss Guard!

The next day, Saturday, we took another class trip to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. The Colosseum was ridiculously big and it was so cool to see where such epic events took place, like Commodus flooding it for a real naval battle. There was still marble in some places and you could see where the emperor would sit during the performances. They also had gladiator costumes and information on display. I didn't realize how much effort went in to each performance. The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are really close so we walked over there. Right behind Palatine Hill is what I think is Emmanuel's Palace. It was all so ridiculously cool. After that we took the bus tour and ended up crashing hard. I'm on a search for boots so I think I'm going to have to go back to Rome to find them. Hopefully I can see more stuff once I go back.

Saturday, September 4

Firenze!


We went to Florence, or Firenze, as it is known locally, for the weekend. Very interesting experience. We had an option to stay overnight and come back before Monday morning or we could ride the bus back to Montepulciano at the end of the trip. Surprisingly enough, about half the class decided to go back on the bus. I was pretty shocked, I thought everyone would be aching to get out and cause mayhem in a bigger town. I guess most of us are watching the pursestrings though. It was strange to discover that Firenze is not the cleanest city. There is actually graffiti everywhere you look. Some of it is pretty artistic, but most of it is trash and makes everything look awful.

We went to the Uffizi museum and had a guided tour through the whole gallery. Well, maybe not the whole museum; we looked at selected pieces, but it was pretty amazing. We saw Cimabue, Giotta, Fillipo Lippi, Michaelangelo, Raphael, and a lot of others. The most exciting part of the exhibit was the fact that I was able to see Artemisia Gentileschi's work. She's my favorite artist from this time and I never thought I would be able to see it in person. Most exciting part of the trip! We had a lot of fun and had a very relaxing night. We ate dinner at a cute little ristorante and walked around some and took pictures off the Ponte Vecchio. We had gelato for dessert and met some strange street performers. I passed out probably by 10:30 and woke up around 9. In the morning, we went through the market and haggled some but I didn't buy anything. I think we're going back in October and maybe I'll buy something then. We'll see what my money looks like and if I can find something I absolutely need to have. Once we got back to Montepulciano I was exhausted. I had a very relaxing Sunday and got some reading done for classes. Now it's time for the new week!