Volterra

March 21, 2010

Day Trip to Volterra

Victoria, Sera, Ali and I decided to put our massive amounts of work aside for the day and head to the hill-top town of Volterra for the day. After a short hour-ish train ride, one large bus to a deserted lot, and one tiny bus up to the town we finally made it. Like all Italian cities, every street was cobble stoned and uphill. I’m always amazed by the amount of uphill streets you can find in one Italian town. Unknown to us before out arrival Volterra is known for its alabaster and is therefore sold in about every other store. I do not think I have ever seen so many stone products in one place, but if you are in the market for a stone sweater I know the perfect place for you. Also unknown to us was that there was a truffle festival in the main Piazza- which the smell of them could knock you over they were so strong - and another food festival in another part of the town which had very delicious cheeses and olives. Needless to say it was a very good day to come.

In the town itself, there is a old roman theatre ruins, which are amazingly intact. This was the first one that I have seen with the columns still standing on top of one another which I thought was really incredible that after all this time they are still perfectly balanced on one another. It makes you think about how amazing they must have been when fully intact. The Duomo in Volterra is about .0009 times the size of here in Florence but still very pretty, and so different. One of my favorite things in the town however was that in about every windowsill there were flowers. Each sill squeezed in between the shutters were potted flowers of every kind and color.

Two of the best things of the day had to have been at the end. While we were exploring a park that we found, and naturally swinging on the dinosaur shaped playground equipment we started to hear drumming. Normally this would seem weird, but we were in Italy so it just kinda seemed routine. While trying to find the source of the intensive drumming, we also found the seemingly only downhill street in town. Here we encountered an Italian family of a mom, dad, aunt and uncle also trying to place the drumming. While skipping down the hill (how little kids always manage to run, jump, skip and hop down very steep things without tripping and breaking every bone in their body is still beyond me) the little boy ahead of us started picking flowers from in between the cobble stones. First he turns to his mom and gives here one, then continues to pick some more flowers. He then turns to me and hands me a tinnnny little daisy like flower and says “here, for you” (but in Italian) and continues to skip away. He returns one minute later to tell me to make sure not the throw it away, to which I assure him that I will not. It is still in my wallet.

 

Finally the Italian family, and the four of us find the source of the drumming, a renaissance parade, of course! It was complete with a full orchestra, matching outfits and flag throwers. They continued to put on a show in the main piazza with synchronized flag throwing, flag juggling, and music to match. It was the perfect ending to a pretty wonderful day. 

Carnivale

February 13, 2010

      Venice – Carnivale

Stepping off the train into Venice during Carnivale was like stepping into a different world. With the number of people that were in the city that day, it very well could have been its own world. For all I knew the train from Florence had in fact transported me to a dream town, were dressing in costumes, face paint, and glitter were normal. I was immediately enthralled by it all. Everywhere we turned there was someone in a ridiculous costume, in another direction people in the classic Venetian masks in gowns with long trains, all of who were spectacular. The entire day was a eyesight overload of color, fantasy and creativity. We wandered through the city, passing thousands of glittering masks only to turn a corner to find some more. The canals of the city glistened with their costumed inhabitants as if they too were dressed up for the occasion. Everyone seemed to be in the spirit – what ever it was – but it was a good one. The whole city seemed to buzz. For once it wasn’t weird to take pictures of people you didn’t know, in fact it was encouraged.
 It was particularly interesting because it was acqua alta – or the high water season – which meant that basically everywhere you went, was flooded. Normally I am not one for dodging puddles, and get sick of the rain about 8 minutes after it starts, but it added to the magic of the day. When we got to Piazza San Marco (after several misleading signs – literally one pointed left and right on the same sign) it was heavily flooded and closed for the first part of the morning. Finally after a while, the water returned to its proper place, and it became flooded with people instead. The basilica was hardly visible over the sea of heads, but I will take my art history professors and friends words of advice that it is beautiful.  It was as if the city, like most of the people there, could not contain its excitement. I am positive that not one person was in a bad mood. I don’t think you could be. We adventured through the city, moving with the rest of the seemingly millions of people soaking up every thing we could. Street performers lined the confetti covered cobblestone streets and in order to really fit in we felt that face painting was a must. Another must was buying a mask – glitter, feathers, the whole shaw-bang. Dazed, colored, and in awe we made it back to Florence, but Carnivale is something that I will never forget.

Saying good-bye to the electric yellow flower-filled ruins.

February 6, 2010

We woke up to the sad realization that today was our last day in Sicily. Being so we had to pack a lot into one day. We left very early for Taormina. Taormina is a small city on top of a very curvy hill (it reminded me of home a lot - the curvy hill with a ocean view). The city looked over what seemed to be all of Sicily’s mountains and ocean (top), and you could actually see main-land Italy. We first went to the Greek theatre at the top of the town, which had spectacular views of everything below in the town, the ocean and the surrounding mountainside. Like the ruins in Segresta, electric yellow flowers overran the theatre growing out of the stone seats now cracked with time.


After taking in the views at the theatre for a long while, we went to adventure in the town for a little while. It seemed as if every other store was a ceramic store selling more or less the same things with different designs - huge vases, tiny espresso cups, every size plate you would ever need, turtle figurines, etc. It makes you wonder how much ceramics one person can have in their house. Apparently a lot. Sadly our day was cut short because we had to drive to the airport to catch our flight back to Florence. Exhausted later that night we arrived back at our host families, both happy to be home but sad to leave Sicily. 

Echo from the past

February 5, 2010

Today we had a visit to the archeological park in Siracusa. Like the many others the site was huge. At one point the entire site had a stone roof, which has since fallen down and the site had been taken over by trees and greenery. There is a huge cave-like alcove (right) that once entered only reverberates one strong echo, which is highly unusual, which might add to the strong acoustics to the theatre (left) that is situated directly above it. On the other side of the site there is an ampatheatre (below) that reflects somewhat like the inside of the Coliseum with its oval structure (it does not have the walls like the Coliseum but just the same basic ground level), and was perhaps used for some of the same purposes.

After exploring the archeological site we were free to wander around Siracusa for a few hours. We went into the duomo (right), which may be one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. It was built on the site of a roman temple, which had been destroyed during a earthquake. When building the duomo, the architect used the columns of the ancient temple, which were the only things that reminded and incorporated them into the walls and structure of the building.

Later in the afternoon after exploring the city for a while, we departed again for another nearby barocco town called Noto. The town itself was very small and everything seemed to be on one main street. The main cathedral (left) had been rebuilt sometime back because the original had been destroyed in an earthquake (apparently there are a lot of those here, I had no idea).  While the cathedral itself was still beautiful you didn’t get that overwhelming sense that it had been there for centuries (granted it hadn’t) and it seemed a little out of place in a town that you knew that everything else had been there since its founding. We headed back to Siracusa and had our last dinner all together later that night. Everyone was in a bittersweet mood, everyone loving the week that we had had so far and sad that it would have to come to a close the following day. 

Valle dei Templi

February 4, 2010

We left bright and early this morning for the Valle dei Templi, or the Valley of Temples for a guided tour around one of the most well-preserved archeological ruin sites. The site has seven temples all together all of which are immaculately preserved. All dedicated to different ancient roman gods they vary in size but for the most part retain the same basic overall structure. While walking from temple to temple the road on one side was lined with almond trees which had just begun to bloom and on the other was lined with a type of necropolis were they would have buried people. Now these necropolis, which for the most part look like walls with giant holes in them are open and look out over the valley. The site seemed to go on forever with monumental building following the next. I was continually amazed by the magnitude of the buildings that people in ancient times were able to build without the use of any modern machinery, but simple tools and manpower.

After gawking at all the temples at the Valle dei Templi we went started our journey for Siracusa which would be the last city that would visit while in Sicily. On the way to Siracusa, we stopped at the beach for a few hours. Basking in the sun, hearing the crashing of the waves and the strong smell of the salt water, while walking on the sand made me think I was in California. Walking along the untouched beach, I collected way to many shells which I as convinced would make my luggage overweight on the way home – happy to report it did not- (and for all of you Ireland sea-shell collectors I quadruple checked all my shells so no “incidents” would occur. I can safely say that all of my shells made it back safely, and without any sea-stench). After a little while we headed out and finally arrived in Siracusa.

After arriving we wandered around the city for a while, stumbling upon beautiful cathedrals, fountains, churches, and ponds with ducks. Eventually we started searching for a open place for dinner, which proved harder than it originally seemed and after dinner headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. 

Sacred Sites Starting with S

February 3, 2010

Today we headed out from Palermo for a final destination of Argrigento. Before we made it there however we stopped first at Segesta. At Segresta we explored the roman theatre and temple ruins. The site was flooded with sunlight and electric yellow flowers. I was amazed at how well preserved everything was throughout the entire site after so many thousands of years, exposed to every sort of weather. Walking around places like always makes me amazed at the things people were able to accomplish so many thousands of years ago. It always makes me amazed that they are still around today, and for the most part well preserved. I always wonder what people throughout the centuries must have thought about them, and what possessed them to keep it around. (don’t get me wrong I’m pretty happy that they did).  At the site there two temple ruins and one theatre ruin spread out over what seemed like acres of land (first and smaller temple = top left hand photo, theatre = top right photo, larger, second temple bottom left photo). Surrounding each archeological ruin were green cascading mountains, and trees as far as the eye could see. We even encountered a large flock of sheep grazing right next to the larger of the two temples. When we got to the theatre, we decided to test out the flawless acoustics by singing Spice Girls “Wannabe” together. I have a feeling it was not like anything that used to be san or preformed when the theatre was originally built. 

 

After wandering around for a while we headed out for yet another ruin site at Selinunte.  Here too was an archeological ruin site with a large temple, which was being restored while we were there, surrounded by ruins of smaller buildings and homes. Plants and wildlife mostly overran the site but the overall plan of the site was still apparent and was interesting to see the design of the huge site. This site unlike the previous overlooked the beach, and with much effort and climbing we ventured down to the sand for a while. After frolicking in the sun at on the beach for a while we headed out from Selinute for out hotel in Agrigento, a tinny little beach town.

Mosaic Masters and Tiny Towns

February 2, 2010

Once again bright and early we wandered out into the Sicilian world, this time to explore the city of Palermo. We met up with the professor we had met yesterday who would be our tour guide for the day. Our first stop would be the Cappella Palatina in the Palazzo dei Normanni. If I thought that the Cathedral at Monreale was covered in gold mosaic, it was nothing compared to this. Gold reflected off of every surface while every vibrant color possible exploded in between. Even after almost 900 years after its construction the Cappella looks as if someone had come yesterday with the newest, most vibrant Bic dye and re-colored all the mosaic pieces. The wooden ceiling looked as if all the bee’s in Italy had just left because of the honeycomb patterns so intricately woven throughout.

Dragging me away, mouth still hanging open we wandered to the Palermo Cathedral. The Cathedral itself is a monster of a building highly decorated in baroque architecture (ie its has a lot goin on all over it). For as impressive as a façade as the Cathedral has, the inside was a little disappointing inside. Stark white with very little details, it looks like it was a house just built and the owners are still waiting for the painters to come. The contrast was almost startling.

We wandered throughout the city going in and out of a few more churches (non of which I ever say a name for…) all of which were beautiful. I was amazed that on every corner it seemed there could be yet another something to see. Like always in Italy I have come to realize. After a few churches, we ended up at one of the major art galleries in Palermo.

After meandering through the gallery for a while, we all decided that because it was such a nice day we would take a quick trip to a nearby seaside town called Cefalu. Once there we explored the tiny town, seeing the duomo, winding streets and buildings that seemed to blend into one another. The streets all seemed to go uphill no matter what direction you were walking in, and there never seemed to be one that led in a straight line. When wandering we saw many signs for supposed Roman ruins, but once follows you ended up at someones bright red front door. Since we got there late in the afternoon, around siesta, most everything was closed, and looked as if it was going to remain closed for the rest of the day, if not year. This lead us to aimlessly wander up and down the ever uphill streets until we stumbled upon an alleyway that led to the beach and took in the familiar smells and sounds that I miss so much.

cathedrals and crypts

February 1, 2010  

On our first day on this beautiful island of Sicily we headed out bright and early to city of Monreale. Hiking up the cobbled streets to the town center, we arrived at the Cathedral in the center. Once again I had arrived at one of the million monuments that I had seen in art history classes and books and finally was coming to life in front of me. I walked into the cathedral and all the walls glistened with gold mosaics. White marble and deep blue, green and reds surrounded ever inch of the cathedral.  There was not one surface left without at least one tiny detail. 

Over the altar, in a huge dome, sat all the saints and the trinity in perfect mosaic gold overlooking the entire cathedral. We went up onto a somewhat terrace that wrapped around the upper part of the cathedral. After walking up the narrow staircase we arrived at a point that overlooked not only the courtyard of the cathedral but what seemed like all of Sicily. After exiting the cathedral we wandered around the little town for a while finding beautiful mountain and ocean views and winding streets with colorful doors and mosaic house fronts.

After leaving Monreale, we all headed to the University of Palermo to meet up with some Italian students there. All the students were in a translation Italian/English course. While there Giovanna gave a talk and tips about translation work.

We left the university, we headed to the Capuchini Crypt of Palermo. The crypt’s have about 6000 bodies visible and over 8000 in its holdings. The walls are lined with row after row of bodies now decayed after centuries of time. Some still with hair and beards, teeth, all still in clothing, however ripped and disheveled. One little girl, about 3 years old was perfectly preserved, with all of her skin, hair, and perfectly dressed still after about 100 years, and looked as if she was sleeping. The crypt itself so silent you could hear every step you took, you were afraid to whisper to disturb everything around you, both out of respect and in fear that a louder voice might cause bodies to cascade down the hall. (understandably since it was a religious site there were no pictures allowed, and I felt weird at the idea of snapping illegal photos of copses, but I do encourage a google at lease..) 

That night the entire group, all 22 of us, went out to dinner together. Eating, laughing and reminiscing on a wonderful day we all looked forward to the following day. 

Sicilian Sunshine and Mafia Men

January 31, 2010

Today marked our first official day in Sicily. We left cold dreary cloudy Florence in afternoon and landed in bright sunny Sicily about two hours later (after most likely the bumpiest flight I have ever experienced- I do not think anyone thought we were going to make it to Sicily, but at least we were going to die happy.) Seeing sun, and having it stay in the sky for more that 10 minutes was so refreshing that within 10 minuets of being in Sicily I knew it was going to be a fabulous trip. I think everyone’s mood improved about 99.9% once getting off the plane and walking into the sunlight and realizing we would not have to open a school book, Word, or a dictionary for at least a week. We met up with our driver for the week, Gianni, who we would soon find out is completely crazy, and left the Catania airport to drive three-ish hours to Palermo, passing beautiful country sides of mountain (see picture), green hills, and orange tree groves,  where we would e staying for the next three nights. 

After checking into our hotel, Lenora, Olivia, Sera and I headed out to find some dinner. Being Sunday, and Italy naturally everything was closed. We stopped to ask a two (seemingly) policemen where there would be a place open to eat and after some deliberation, one of the men who we had thought was a policeman but we then noticed only one of them was in uniform, decided to walk us down the street to his favorite restaurant. Thinking this was only slightly shady, we walked down the block convinced that he was part of the Mafia. Once arriving at the restaurant, which was in fact only down the block, the man (who we found out was named Jonh – his spelling) ate at the table next to us interjecting things into our conversation in a weird mix of English and Italian, we were further convinced of his Mafia connection. But at least we have a friend inside now, and will be protected we figured. After a very strange dinner we stoled around Palermo for a little while ( picture above is the theatre across from our hotel) , and after a while we headed back to the hotel and passed out after a long day, to rest up for our next exciting day. 

ps - if you want to see more of my pictures you can go to my photobucket page at
http://s36.photobucket.com/home/breanal/allalbums
the password is florenceitaly

Old Italian bones and gemstones.

January 30, 2010

We had yet another day exploring the city. This time we headed to the Museum of Paleontology and Geology, after having a very difficult time finding it because apparently no one in Florence has heard of the museum or the street that it is located on, we finally found the museum and it was well worth the hour and a half (maybe more) that we searched fro it. Sera and I meandered through room after room of prehistoric dinosaur and mammoth bones and fossilized rocks and shells. It was amazing to see how well preserved all the bones were after so many thousands of years. It was also pretty cool to see that most of them were not in glass cases, yet wide open to the public, like most things in Italian museums, which is very different from most American museums. The only thing keeping people from reaching out and touching everything is general consciousness and respect. Even if it might be a little naive of me, for some reason I never pictured dinosaurs or mammoths roaming around Italy. Over in the geology part of the museum, there were rocks of ever color you could imagine and then some, including radioactive, and neon.

 

After the museum, we headed home to pack for our weeklong trip to Sicily that we would be leaving for the next day! 

Florentine Exploring

January 29, 2010

 After getting the exploring bug the day before, Sera and I headed out again to discover more of the city we call home yet know so little of on Friday and I think we did more “sight seeing” in one day than we have the whole semester.

First we headed to the Museum of the History of Science. Unfortunately we found out when we arrived that most of the museum is under restoration so only one floor was open. But we happily saw everything on that floor anyway and saw many sciency gadgets, most of which we had no idea what their use was for but looked cool.

Next, we headed to the Museum of the History of Photography. It was pretty neat to see so many photos from the start of photography, and see how little the outcome and the prints themselves have changed even thought the technology has changed so drastically. The exhibit of the range of cameras from the first to present day showed how amazing the technology has changed from not so long ago.

After, we wandered to the Medici Palace by San Lorenzo. In here we got to see the private quarters, including a private chapel, government quarters, some of which are still in use, and a marble museum. All of which were beautiful. Sera and I both agreed that we wouldn’t mind having one of the couple hundred chandeliers in our house one day.

After our full day of museums, we headed to a literary apparativo with some other girls from school that Giovanna had invited us to. The talk was about immigrant writers and other authors that have written about immigrant authors, and little did we know that Giovanna would be one of the authors that they would speak about. After listening to the discussion, some of us headed out to dinner all together and after out long day of Florentine exploring we headed home. 

And back to the facts and artifacts.

From the time I last wrote you to January 28, 2010

Where to begin… its seems like centuries since I have last written. I’m not so good at the upkeep on this I see. Since we last spoke a few things have happened I’d say. As the winter portion of our program wrapped up the work kept pilling up never ceasing fury. Finally the end was in sight and Friday, December 18 rolled around and I was booked on a flight home to sunny Malibu, California, leaving the work (yeah right – the four 10 page papers and 2 books all in Italian all came with me) and bad weather behind. Well actually that’s what I thought until it started snowing, yes snowing, in Florence the night before my flight in both Florence and Pairs and therefore canceling all flights leaving through Florence through Paris for the following morning. I would try again the next day so Saturday morning bright and early at 4am I started my travels yet again in the snow, only to find at 6:30 am at the Florence airport that it was once again closed due to weather and we would have to be bussed to Pisa and try from there. Too bad the storm heard that and came along for the ride. 9 hours later we took of from Pisa to Paris (if you ever need suggestions of where to eat or sit in the Pisa airport gimme a holla). Unfortunately all flights to Los Angeles had already departed for the day, so I would have to stay in Paris for the night. At 10 am the Sunday morning I finally was on a flight to Los Angeles, that actually left the ground and 12 hours later landed in Los Angeles. It might have taken me three days to get there but I finally got home. Being home was very nice and relaxing but there was a weird thing going on around me all the time – everyone spoke English all the time. Everywhere. Kinda weird …just saying. After three(ish) weeks of California I bitter sweetly came back here to Florence (I know too bad for me right?)

           

The first the weeks of being back launched us into end of the semester crunch time. There was hardly a moment where I was not on my computer where Word was not open, my fingers not furiously typing out Botticelli, Italian folk music, fashion advertising campaigns, or a popular Italian book. 40 written pages later, 3 written exams and 2 oral exams finally I made it to the end of the semester, and alive somehow.

 Last Thursday, following the end of exams, Sera, Claire and I decided to celebrate and go explore the “ Vintage Selection”, the vintage part of the fashion weeks that have been happening all over the city recently. It took place in an old abandoned station, and most likely every vintage clothing store in Italy had a booth set up showcasing everything from retro Chanel bags, to planters made from children’s books, to sunglasses Elton John wished he had. It was hard to know where to begin, where to look next and how to take it all in, yet somehow we managed.

Sera and I then bought a pick-nick for ourselves to eat in Piazza Maria Novella and were promptly attacked by all of the pigeons that call Florence home. After lunch I headed out for a giro (walk/stroll) to kill some time before heading home by myself and ended up accidentally finding the Archeological Museum.  It was always on my long list of museums and things to see in the city, and had come strongly recommended (thanks Matthew!) but like most things I had not gotten around to it yet like most other things thanks to the obscene amount of work that we have had this past semester. I entered the museum only to find a surplus of hidden treasures in a building that seemed as if it was about to fall in on you at any second. Luckily for me it did not, and instead it lead me through a maze Roman treasures and Egyptian artifacts (yes that is a real mummy to the right, and if the picture was better you could see the actual bones), for the most part perfectly preserved. Being the only person in the museum I might have sneaked a few illegal photos of about everything, but without flash so not hurting anyone or anything right?