Southern Italy Trip: Days 1 and 2

This past week (11/5-11/9) we went on our planned "Southern Italy Trip," where we spent five days in the region of Campania: home to Naples, many historical sites, and beautiful tourists destinations. Since we packed a lot into our five days, we thought we'd split them up into two blog posts. This post will cover Tuesday and Wednesday, when we investigated the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii and traveled down the picturesque Amalfi coast. 

Tuesday began our adventure in Southern Italy. After an early three hour bus ride, we arrived in Herculaneum, the "little brother" of Pompeii in regards to actual size and amount of artifacts. Most of ancient Herculaneum is still under the modern city and not excavated; only a little cut-out portion of the city has been dug out of the lava rock. Here, the lava from the same eruption of Vesuvius (in 79AD) hardened differently, leaving it at the consistency of cement. In order to find this lost city, archaeologists had to drill underground tunnels. When we were there, we could see where the excavating had stopped and some entrances to the original tunnels. 

Herculaneum from above.

At Herculaneum we were able to see some impressive town houses to get an idea of how citizens of this ancient town lived and how they coveted the idea of status in their homes through decorations and peristyle (columned) gardens. 

The House of Neptune and Amphitrite (Katie gave a presentation about this house for her Archaeology class!)

Mosaic in the House of Neptune and Amphitrite. 

The College of the Augustales. 

Next was the ancient city of all ancient cities: Pompeii. As Mt. Vesuvius loomed in the background, we focused on touring more opulent houses and villas as well as public buildings. One of the most interesting artifacts we saw were lava casts of human bodies archeologists found while excavating the ancient baths. As we walked the streets of the city in the late afternoon, we found it to be the ultimate ghost town, once filled with the lives of thousands of people. At one point a loud siren went off, and of course our entire group's immediate thoughts were "That's the volcano warning, Mt Vesuvius is going to erupt!" Our professor didn't seemed phased by the siren so we continued our tour regardless of our apocalyptic thoughts (we later found out it was actually the closing siren). We unfortunately didn't get to spend as much time as we would've liked at Pompeii, but that just gives us an excuse to come back! Our hotel for the entire week was located in the modern city of Pompeii, right next door to the ancient city, and we were treated to wonderful five course meals each night! 

Pompeii!

The Large Theater of Pompeii.

The Roman Forum with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

The first "Welcome" mat!

The House of the Faun.

Wednesday was one of our "fun days," or in other words, "not educational" days. We began our drive down the Amalfi coast at Sorrento and continued to the beautiful town of Amalfi. While the drive itself was full of gorgeous views of the coastline and the Bay of Naples, we didn't enjoy all of the windy roads on the edge of the cliffs as one of our professors repeatedly reminded us how dangerous this drive was because of the sharp turns and small roads. 

Enjoying a view of Sorrento. 

Driving along the Amalfi Coast. 

When we reached Amalfi we were free to explore the beach town by ourselves, and we spent the day going into numerous ceramic shops, of which the area is famous, and walking down streets full of boutiques. We also visited the cathedral of Amalfi dedicated to St. Andrew, where his body is buried. 

We of course spent some time on the pier as the sun set, eating some gelato flavored "Amalfi Sky" and gazing back up into the city that rests on the mountainside. It was a wonderful and relaxing day, and we could begin to sense the cultural differences between northern, central, and southern Italy, and the different atmospheres that come with each.

An Abbreviated Jaunt through Tuscany

This weekend (11/2-11/3) we had our first overnight trip on our own. And of course with every trip there are some bumps along the way, and this one was no different. Our plan for the weekend was to enjoy Saturday morning/early afternoon in the small, quiet town of Lucca, spend the evening and the night in Florence (where we were meeting up with some friends), and travel to Pisa as a quick stop before heading back home to Rome early Sunday evening. But of course, plans can change quickly and very easily, but we'll get there soon enough. 

We got up early Saturday morning to travel to Lucca on a 7am train that stopped in Pisa, where we would have to take a separate train to Lucca. We had no problems getting to the station and taking the first train, and we were pretty pleased with our success thus far. We were on time and ready for our train to Lucca, but as we got off the train in Pisa, we were bombarded with lots of students walking around the station. First we thought, "well, that's understandable, Pisa is a college town,  so they're probably going home for the holiday weekend," but as we continued to walk around, more and more of these college-aged Italians were dressed up in costumes. We then thought to ourselves, "Ok, this is kind of weird, Halloween was a couple of days ago, was there a really big party that everyone is just now going home from?" A little weirded out by the number of people wearing costumes and feeling very aware that we were pretty much the only ones not in costumes, we kept walking towards our train because as long as we got to our next train, all would be fine. But of course as we got closer to our train to Lucca, the density of people in costumes became larger and larger, until we arrived at our platform to a train filled to the brim with costumed people, so many that the police were kicking some people off! Now we had a problem. For a couple of minutes we stood dumbfounded at the platform, unsure of what was going on and what we were going to do. We still had no idea why there were all of these people in costumes and where they could possibly be going. What we did know was there was absolutely no way we were getting on our train. As we were deciding what to do, we went to check the board stating departures and arrivals to see if we could figure out what was going on. As we glanced at the various notices on the board, we saw a sign saying (in Italian), "from Oct. 31st to Nov. 3rd: Comics and Games Festival: Lucca 2013." Ohhhh, it was all starting to make sense now. But honestly, in all of the places in Italy, this massive comics festival had to be in Lucca, and it had to be this weekend! We thought nothing big happens in Lucca, and that's exactly why we wanted to go there! As we saw the masses of people waiting to get onto the next trains to Lucca, we figured we weren't getting there anytime soon. Unfortunately, we gave up on going to Lucca because we knew it was going to take us too long to get there, and it wasn't going to be what we had wanted to visit it for: a small, quiet, out of the way, non-touristy town. So we cut our losses (only about 10€ each) and moved on to Florence in hopes that we would find another time to visit Lucca. Luckily, we caught a break by easily getting from Pisa to Florence and walking out of the station right up to Santa Maria Novella  immediately lifted our spirits. 

Although we didn't see a lot of what Florence has to offer, our "preview" to our weeklong stay at New Year's went perfectly. As we walked onto piazza Santa Maria Novella we quickly felt how Florence gives off a totally different vibe than Rome. Rome is bigger and more chaotic than Florence, and Florence gives off this unique and indescribable charm. It never seemed too difficult to get around and the streets are lined with shops and venders, all selling leather products. And we saw how the Duomo is indeed the one and only Duomo! It is massive and majestic, and it looks just as astonishing at night as during the day! There were tons of tourists around to prove its popularity. It took 10 minutes to find our friends who were already there and we were literally 50ft from each other! We walked around the Duomo and explored the many streets of shops that also held some hidden jewels of sculpture we recognized from high school Art History. 

One cultural tradition that differs between Florence and Rome pertains to how they run dinner. In Rome, restaurants are open pretty much all day to cater to its thousands of tourists. On the other hand, we learned that many restaurants in Florence close after lunch and don't open until 7pm for dinner. We usually abide by this unspoken rule and eat dinner between 7 and 7:30pm, but on this day all of us were so tired and hungry that we just wanted something to eat, but we couldn't find anyplace open. Finally we saw a little bar with a couple of families inside so we thought it would be a perfect rest stop. When we sat down we soon realized something was wrong when they didn't give us menus. The waiter came over and told us they didn't serve any food until 7pm (we hadn't realized it was only 6:20!), while the families already in the bar were staring at us. This was probably the first time we felt like real tourists in an awkward situation. Thankfully, the bar had some lasagna ready to serve and they let us have some early (partially we think because they felt bad for us). After dinner, we walked around a little more and stopped for some gelato because, after all, Florence claims to be the birthplace of gelato, so we couldn't not have any! 

Our four hour pit stop in Pisa was the perfect amount of time to see everything we wanted to see (mainly the Field of Miracles, which houses the basilica, the baptistery and, of course, the famous leaning tower). We spent lots of time taking clever pictures with the tower (which is actually harder than you would think), and we went to an Italian mass at the basilica before grabbing lunch and hopping back on the train for our last ride back to Rome. In all of its craziness, this weekend was a wonderful trip, and we hope we got all of our bad luck out of the way before our future travels! 

 

Final "Field Trip Saturday" Weekend

**Due to internet problems and midterms weeks, we have gotten a little behind on our posts. We will hopefully catch up in the next couple of days with posts for the past three weekends, starting with the following post for 10/26-10/27.

For our last day trip with "Lectures and Tours," we traveled through three different time periods: the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, and the Early Roman Republic. We spent the morning strolling through the remnants of Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. While it's called a villa, it should somewhat be considered a city because it was big enough to hold over 1,000 people! In its heyday, the villa was full of temples, gardens, baths, residences, and various other buildings whose use is still unknown to us. Our favorite area of the villa was a pond surrounded by statues where at one end was a spot for sunbathing and dining. Hadrian and the rest of the emperors sure knew how to live a life of luxury! 

We then visited Villa D'Este, a Renaissance estate terraced on a hill which was owned by one of the local bishops. While we didn't really see the house itself, we walked its gardens that lined the hillside and were absolutely astonishing and beautiful. Every terrace had at least a couple of fountains and scenic gardens that look like they could be from a movie (and we actually think they have been!) We decided we wouldn't mind living there and getting to meander through the gardens everyday!

Our last stop of a very long day was at Palestrina, where we toured an old sanctuary dating back to the 2nd century BC. A great last stop with wonderful views, but unfortunately the fog came in quickly so we didn't have much time to take pictures! 

When we got back from a long day of visits we went straight to bed to prepare for an early morning visit to the Vatican Museums because it was another free entrance Sunday. We were able to see some of the exhibits we didn't have a chance to visit before, such as Raphael's frescoes, including one of his most famous works "School of Athens." Again, we never failed to be entertained by the amount of people who try to take pictures of the Sistene Chapel's ceiling. This time we even saw a family whose young son was holding their iPad low and facing downwards (so as to take a picture) while the rest of the family was trying to hide him from the guards (They of course were caught). 

We rewarded ourselves from having a productive morning with some pizza from a place called Alice Pizza, which is by the Vatican and was recommended to us by a friend (Thanks, Cindy!). The pizza was  cheap and delicious; everything you could want! We will definitely be eating there again! 

A Day In the Life...

As we are now in the full swing of the 'study' part of 'study abroad,' we thought we would share with you a typical school day in the Saint Mary's College Rome Program. 

We usually wake up to the bustling of the street traffic as the city awakens. Leaving our hotel, we head over to Pascucci's, the local bar where we eat our breakfast and lunch during the week. 

On our walk to school from our hotel.

The street on which resides our classrooms, library, and bar Pascucci.

Pascucci's is a famliy-run bar and has been the breakfast/lunch place of the Saint Mary's Rome Program for over twenty years (in other words, they're used to us and our confusing Italian). While eating a cornetto (Italian version of a croissant) and sipping on a cappuccino, we attempt to chat in Italian with one of the members of the family: either Signor Bruno or Signor Antonio (the elder generation) or Signor Bruno's nephews, Stefano and Patrizio. They try to speak as much Italian with us as possible and are generous and helpful as we struggle through a conversation with them, though they occasionally give confused looks and laugh when we accidentally make up our own words and phrases!

The cappuccinos at Pascucci's are the best we've tried yet!

A typical breakfast: a cappuccino and a cornetto di cioccolatto. 

We're then off to class or to the library to spend some hours catching up on homework, but hopefully not too many! When we're back at Pascucci's for lunch, we eat one of their many delicious panini (our favorite is the simple tomato and mozzarella!) and sometimes order a frulatto too (a fruit milkshake/smoothie for which Pascucci's is famous). After lunch we either have more classes or are free to explore our neighborhood. Some of our favorite places to roam during the week are the areas around the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Campo di Fiori, or Trastevere, a neighborhood across the river. 

The very inconspicuous door leading to our classrooms.

One of the classrooms (Megan has her Italian class here)

Another big classroom where most of our classes are held. In the classroom building there are also some more classrooms as well as some study rooms.  

We usually try to get a little bit of homework done before dinner; Mondays-Wednesdays we eat with our entire group, but Thursdays-Sundays we're on our own. When we're with the group our meal consists of three to four courses: an antipasto, a pasta and/or primo piatto, a dessert, and, of course, lots of bread! Our favorite dinner place with the group so far is il Grotto del Teatro Pompeo, which is conveniently right next to our hotel. The waiters and owner are very nice and accommodating, but you have to make sure to eat all of your food or else they will give you funny looks! When we don't eat with the group we usually explore and find a delicious but cheaper option than the previous nights. Some of our favorite places are right off of Campo di Fiori where one dish of pasta is more than enough for two people!

This door opens to a complex with our library. 

Katie is hard at work!

After dinner we usually take a little walk around one of the same places as mentioned above (though one of our favorite places to go at night is the Vatican) and sometimes stop for gelato (we try to save this treat for only the weekends!). Once we have completed our "passeggiata"around some of the most beautiful sights of Rome we head back to our room to finish up some homework or relax with friends on one of our hotels many terraces... Just another day in the wonderful city of Rome!

One of the beautiful terraces at our hotel.