Friday morning we woke up and met with our guide to head to a few more museums. I felt much better, but by this time I was sick of going to random museum with random tour guides. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand what an amazing opportunity I have and I want to learn as much as possible, but our schedule was pretty packed and a girl can only absorb so much. It’s also hard to travel in a big group and to not have the freedom to choose how to spend your time in a city. That being said, I am glad we went to Italy as a group, because there were certain monuments in Rome that would have been very difficult to see without waiting in line for hours had we not had a group pass.
Anyway, we went to a couple of just ok museums Friday morning that I am going to spare you the details about. We had a break for lunch and then we met to go to yet another museum, the Uffizi. Had it been my call, I would have skipped the two boring museums and spent all day there, because the Uffizi was marvelous. It was full of famous paintings and I could have stayed there for hours. In case you have not yet noticed, I love art museums. I really feel relaxed and at peace when I am in them. Unfortunately, my time was limited, but for a good reason: we had made plans to go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and I was not about to miss it.
The train to Pisa was about an hour and a half, not far at all, but it was the first time a group of us had navigated the trains on our own (our travel guide was not with us, and I went with two other girls). Thankfully we figured everything out and had no trouble getting to Pisa at all. It had been sprinkling a little off and on all day, but when we arrived the skies were clear and beautiful. Encouraged, we decided to walk to the leaning tower instead of paying a Euro for the bus. Less than ten minutes into our walk, the heavens descended down upon us. Literally. I have never been as rain-soaked in my life. I was wearing a cotton skirt (mistake number one) that kept flying up in the wind, so Leah held it down for me while we walked and I help the umbrella over us. The whole thing was ridiculous. We walked that way for about twenty minutes, partly because we didn’t know the city well enough to find a bus and we figured we might as well just find the tower.
The rain slacked off a little by the time we reached the tower. The Leaning Tower is really leaning. Really leaning. I would not have been surprised if it had fallen then and there. For some reason the pictures do not do its tilted angle sufficient justice. It is not a huge tower, but worth seeing. It’s a touristy thing to do, but everyone who goes to Italy should do it anyway.
After we saw the tower, which honestly didn’t take very long, we ate dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant. I had my first cup of real Italian hot chocolate. Italian hot chocolate come in two types: the kind that has the consistency of Hershey’s syrup and the kind that has the consistency of a thin chocolate pudding. So basically you have thick and thicker. I love that stuff. It really sticks to your ribs- one cup of that and you are good to go for hours.
By the time we got back to Florence, it was after ten. Our train was delayed, a common occurrence in Italy, so we spent a lot of time traveling. It was totally worth it though. I mean, there is only one Leaning Tower, right?
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Italia Day Five
On Thursday we headed from Rome to Florence. The train ride was less than two hours (Courtenay you will be so close to Rome next semester!) and we made it to Florence in time for lunch. Unfortunately I woke up with a bad cold and felt horrible all day- I think our travel schedule combined with a lack of sleep really got to me. We ate some Florence-style pizza, which is quite different from Roman-style. Florence pizza is similar to what we eat in America, while Rome pizza always has a thin crust and not much sauce or cheese, especially when compared to Papa John’s. Both types are great in different ways. After lunch we went shopping in the market. The markets in Florence are WONDERFUL. I have never been so motivated to shop, with the exception of when I walk into an H&M. Leather jackets, beautiful scarves, jewelry, and cameos abound. I will not talk more about this, first of all because it’s probably boring and second of all because I don’t want anyone to know what I bought. But I will say I had a great time.
We met our tour guide, named Christopher, who was very energetic and eager to show us the city. He took us first to the museum where Michelangelo’s David lives. I loved David. He is huge, much bigger than I thought. My head barely reached the pedestal he stood on. I can tell why he is so famous- the statue really does have a life of its own, and David’s eyes have an expression in them that looks uncannily realistic.
After the museum we walked around the city and saw some more statues and a few more works by Michelangelo. I honestly don’t remember a whole lot other than the fact that I felt terrible. We went shopping again in the afternoon (shameful, I know) and then ate dinner together as a group. I must say that I love Florence. It is a manageable size, it is beautiful, it is safe, and it is overall a comfortable place to live. Rome would be hard to navigate logistically over a long period of time, but I think I could live in Florence (I would probably be broke, however). The Duomo, a famous church built of pink, white, and green marble, is my favorite site in the city. I didn’t ever go inside, and I greatly regret that. Had I been more in my right mind I would have. I loved the church, though, with its huge dome designed by the famous architect Brunelleschi; the church alone makes Florence worth a visit.
We met our tour guide, named Christopher, who was very energetic and eager to show us the city. He took us first to the museum where Michelangelo’s David lives. I loved David. He is huge, much bigger than I thought. My head barely reached the pedestal he stood on. I can tell why he is so famous- the statue really does have a life of its own, and David’s eyes have an expression in them that looks uncannily realistic.
After the museum we walked around the city and saw some more statues and a few more works by Michelangelo. I honestly don’t remember a whole lot other than the fact that I felt terrible. We went shopping again in the afternoon (shameful, I know) and then ate dinner together as a group. I must say that I love Florence. It is a manageable size, it is beautiful, it is safe, and it is overall a comfortable place to live. Rome would be hard to navigate logistically over a long period of time, but I think I could live in Florence (I would probably be broke, however). The Duomo, a famous church built of pink, white, and green marble, is my favorite site in the city. I didn’t ever go inside, and I greatly regret that. Had I been more in my right mind I would have. I loved the church, though, with its huge dome designed by the famous architect Brunelleschi; the church alone makes Florence worth a visit.
Italia Day Four
In the past whenever I thought about Italy, two places always came to mind: Pompeii and Pisa. I knew that if I left Italy without seeing Pompeii I would have a hard time living with myself. So when I found out that Pompeii could be reached pretty easily from Rome, I decided to try to take a day trip. Everyone else on the trip seemed to feel the same way, so we talked to our travel agent and he said he would take us. We met our group in the hotel lobby at 6:30 a.m. (talk about a grumpy group of people), and we got on a sketchy graffiti train headed to Naples. The train ride wasn’t very long, I think about two hours or so. I only saw Naples from the train, but I can tell you right now it looked SKETCHY, sketchier than the train. Our guide then directed us to yet another dirty, graffiti-covered train which was supposed to be headed for Pompeii. After that hour and a half train ride, we found ourselves not in Pompeii, but in Salerno. I am not sure how that happened, since we were being directed by a professional tour guide, but anyone can make a mistake and this mistake turned out to be a good one. Salerno is a beautiful town on the coast of the Mediterranean, and we spent our hour layover walking around the harbor and enjoying the ocean view. It was breath-taking, with mountains rising above the coastline and the harbor full of sailboats. We finally made it to Pompeii by about 2 in the afternoon, just in time for a guided tour.
Our guide was a native of the Pompeii region, and he was adorable. He was very old and had a very thick accent, and it turns out is the very man who gave Bill Clinton a tour in the nineties. For some unknown reason, I did not expect the ruins of Pompeii to be very big. I was so wrong. Pompeii is HUGE. MASSIVE. It is a legitimate city that has been dug out of the ash, and you can walk around in it for hours just like you can any other city. The walls and streets are still intact; you can see original water pipes running down the sides of the alleys. There are frescoes in some of the houses and political campaign slogans on the walls of the buildings. There was a large plaza with the remains of a huge temple and other sacred buildings. There were restaurants where you could see the holes they served food out of. We went to the brothel, complete with stone beds for hygienic purposes and very explicit frescoes on the walls. I just didn’t realize that it would be possible to walk around the city for blocks and blocks, just like the volcano had never erupted.
I thought the whole experience would be sadder than it was, and honestly I don’t know why I wasn’t more moved at the thought of a city full of people dying. Maybe the brothel helped me feel better about it, sort of a Sodom and Gomorrah thing, I don’t know. At any rate, we saw the plaster casts of the bodies of people and animals who were killed; when Pompeii was excavated, they discovered holes in the ash which were the shape of bodies long ago decayed, and so they poured plaster in them in order to study the forms. The plaster casts were sad, but not horrifying.
We went back to Naples and then caught a train to Rome, where we ate dinner at a restaurant run by nuns from all over the world. I LOVE nuns. I kind of want to be one. I don’t know why, but that is the fact. There were nuns from Africa, nuns from Asia, nuns from Italy, and their food was great. Part of the proceeds went to mission efforts across the world, another factor in the restaurant’s favor. The nuns sang a version of “Ave Maria” for us, which I loved, and then we left to visit the Trevy fountain one last time. I don’t remember the last time I felt as exhausted as I did that night…. Needless to say I slept great once again. One very good part about traveling is good sleep.
Our guide was a native of the Pompeii region, and he was adorable. He was very old and had a very thick accent, and it turns out is the very man who gave Bill Clinton a tour in the nineties. For some unknown reason, I did not expect the ruins of Pompeii to be very big. I was so wrong. Pompeii is HUGE. MASSIVE. It is a legitimate city that has been dug out of the ash, and you can walk around in it for hours just like you can any other city. The walls and streets are still intact; you can see original water pipes running down the sides of the alleys. There are frescoes in some of the houses and political campaign slogans on the walls of the buildings. There was a large plaza with the remains of a huge temple and other sacred buildings. There were restaurants where you could see the holes they served food out of. We went to the brothel, complete with stone beds for hygienic purposes and very explicit frescoes on the walls. I just didn’t realize that it would be possible to walk around the city for blocks and blocks, just like the volcano had never erupted.
I thought the whole experience would be sadder than it was, and honestly I don’t know why I wasn’t more moved at the thought of a city full of people dying. Maybe the brothel helped me feel better about it, sort of a Sodom and Gomorrah thing, I don’t know. At any rate, we saw the plaster casts of the bodies of people and animals who were killed; when Pompeii was excavated, they discovered holes in the ash which were the shape of bodies long ago decayed, and so they poured plaster in them in order to study the forms. The plaster casts were sad, but not horrifying.
We went back to Naples and then caught a train to Rome, where we ate dinner at a restaurant run by nuns from all over the world. I LOVE nuns. I kind of want to be one. I don’t know why, but that is the fact. There were nuns from Africa, nuns from Asia, nuns from Italy, and their food was great. Part of the proceeds went to mission efforts across the world, another factor in the restaurant’s favor. The nuns sang a version of “Ave Maria” for us, which I loved, and then we left to visit the Trevy fountain one last time. I don’t remember the last time I felt as exhausted as I did that night…. Needless to say I slept great once again. One very good part about traveling is good sleep.
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