are you from "I" taly?

italy

On April 23^rd, 2007, i left Edinburgh Scotland for Verona. My friend Francesca had signed her “X” on the dotted line and agreed to pick me up from Bergamot Milano, an airport about 2 hours outside of Milano but only 45 minutes from Verona. So at about midnight my plane landed in a hot sticky climate, not relatable for someone who had been living in wet climates for the last 10 ½ months. it was amazing to see Francesca, after not seeing her for 6 months. You have an idea of how people look the last time you saw them, it is not always an accurate photograph of how you remember them.

After catching up for about 3 hours we were both tired so we went to bed. i saw many churches in Verona, i believe i listed them in previous blogs but here we go: Basilica di St Zeno, Chiesa di St Lorenzo, Duomo, Chiesa di St Anastasia, Chiesa di St Fermo. All of which i don’t remember, that’s why i wrote copious notes already about them. i must have already written about Venice as well, so let’s just skip ahead to Rome!

On May 3^rd 2007, i took a train from Verona to Rome, it was about a 5 hour train ride, but that’s alright, i better get used to this now right? The hostel i stayed in was about a 10 minute walk from Termini train station, which is the main train station in Rome. First stop that evening was Fontana di Trevi, maybe it was all the tourists, maybe it was too hot, but hey Trevi fountain, kind of wavering on thumbs up to thumbs down, in fact that kind of sums up how i felt about a lot of things in rome, not super impressed, not what you want to hear i know, it is still an absolutely must to visit, i’m just sayin’ all that art history kind of deflates the balloon a little bit when you see it in real life, and you imagined it bigger or what have you. The following morning, it was pouring outside and me with no trousers or an umbrella, talk about ill prepared! So i haggled with a man on the street for an umbrella and got him down to 4 euro for the super cheap umbrella, better then 10 euro! First stop the Vatican, it was about a 2 hour wait to get into the st peters basilica, but the bernini statues of the 4 saints i can’t remember and the pieta by michaelangelo and the personification of some pope as Constantine by bernini all worth it. i studied this stuff and bernini was definitely a master of the sculpture, is blow-y garment things are absolutely like nothing you can describe. After that i went and stood in the line for the cistine chapel to see some Raphael. The Musei Vaticini has so much art you wouldn’t believe me if i told you, including Egyptian and Etruscan stuff. i stayed in the Musei Vaticini until it closed at about 6…i think. After that i headed towards castle st angelo, it was very beautiful but didn’t go inside. i then wandered along the river looking at some of the ruins. i met some very nice Canadians, an Australian, and some other Americans at the hostel, so we all chipped in for some wine and tapas at the hostel.

The next day i set my sights on villa borghese, another deceased pope who had an amazing collection of masterpieces. i got a little bit lost and somehow ended up on a highway walking, or running for my life into a parking ramp with no path on the side! i was disappointed when i arrived at the villa and found that the next available day for the villa was Tuesday and i was there on Saturday and i was leaving on Monday. So instead i went and found the Museo del Arte Moderna. But my heart was just not set on looking at modern art. You just don’t come all that way to look at modern art in italy. i found a few artists that i enjoyed including Alberto Burri who melted plastic wrap on canvas frames. There was also a contemporary photography exhibition by Paolo Ventura and Maria Ricci who created en exhibition entitled “a journey of remembrance” Ricci inserted herself in photos from her mother’s life and Ventura created cold war painting/photos with mannequins. The park was lovely by the villa, there was even a zoo! i then hopped on the Metro and met Cheope in the Termini station. Cheope is an italian boy i met through Francesca in Dublin. i emailed him out of the blue to tell him i was in rome and he gave me a ring on my mobile, super happy.

My guide around Rome with a real Roman, included such fun things as Colosseo (The Colosseum), Arco di Constantino (the Arch of Constantine), and then to the Pantheon, but it was closed due to a religious ceremony. After Cheope took me to the river and we went to see the eternal flame and Julius Caesar’s burial site in this weird modern building with lots of windows. They wanted to create a building that would protect the burial site after they restored it so they erected this really ugly modern building around the grave, bad choice italy! The Roman’s don’t even like it according to Cheope. Later on we hopped on the B line which took us to Cheope’s University. i have to say if you ever got to Rome, you will want to ride the A line as much as possible. The B line is super sketchy with tons of graffiti and people playing instruments for money inside the trams-an experience in and un itself. i was also informed by Cheope that the best thing about Rome were the drinking fountains! So free water for all! We then proceeded to point out all the drinking fountain. The evening was pretty uneventful but that was okay.

Sunday morning i got up about 7.15AM to catch the fast train to Florence. The train ride was about 3 hours so super quick. On the train i met this super nice woman who was from Morrocco, living in italy. She told me all these amazing places i had to see and wrote some cities down. Super cool. Upon arrival in Florence i found out there were 4 train stations in Florence, and i was definitely not in downtown Florence, so i went back to the train station to catch a different train into town, and lucky for me, the train to the city had just arrived. Upon exit of the train station, and entrance into the city centre there were Romanians on the left and Albanians on the right (here i am babe, stuck in the middle with you…remind you of a certain bob dylan song?). These are 2 groups that are a strain on the state. i wandered into a square where there were people selling things like a flea market it was packed and i was just trying to find the Uffizi Museum. On consultation of my navigational system (map) i realized i was in the north of the city and i was supposed to be in the south of the city to the museum. On my way south i passed the duomo-made of many pieces of marble, one of the largest catholic churches on earth. The cue time at Uffizi was the longest out of anything, anywhere, about 2 hours. But it wasn’t a problem as I brought a book (“the unbearable lightness of being” super good by a Czech author about living in Czechoslovakia) and it started raining an hour after I got in line and rained (for about 4 hours) until I left the museum (perfect timing my globally warmed weather). So masters I saw: Bottecili, Caravaggio, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Titian, Carracci but overall I am frustrated that they shove everything into a museum and then you can not wander back and forth once you go forward you can NOT I repeat NOT go back from whence you came! After, everything was pretty much closing as it was about 5/6 at night so I wandered to the west part of the city over the river and then to a few piazzas. I also stopped for some pizza at a restaurant for some pizza with buffalo cheese, the buffalo cheese was excellent. Once I got to the train station I found out that the last train to rome was the super slow train and would take about 4 hours and would arrive in Roma about 1 in the morning. Also, I found out they do not dim the lights on this train, at all, so super hard to sleep. The other really fun thing about this train was that the brake stuck so every time the train stopped and restarted it would jerk forward then stop then start again.

The following morning was my last day in roma and then back to Francesca time. I wanted to sleep in but someone’s’ alarm went off promptly at 7. So I was out of the hostel by 10 and off sightseeing. I headed south on the east side where I was to see santa maria maggiore, giardini piazza Vittario where there was a villa with 2 statues of the God of Pregnant Women, then on to Colle Oppio, I also got some great shots of Colosseo and Arco di Tito, I saw the other side of the Colosseum which is what the Colosseo is called. I saw some other random things that I took some photos of but I think the notes in my journal were more for me trying to label the photos more when they came out because my last day kind of turned into a “see everything else you haven’t seen quick but with no thought”. So I list some stuff in the journal and that I bought this amazing scarf with a large paisley in the center, even though I knew it wasn’t Italian I still bought it because it was beautiful. I also made it back to the Pantheon, which for Italians is for all religions and someone really famous and important is buried there but I can’t remember who. It also has a large circular hole in the ceiling probably to let sunlight in to light the kind of church like thing since it has no windows. I attempted a visit to Temio Adriano but they were under construct and being restored, but the Italians were nice enough to blow up a photo on a big tarp so I could see what they looked like. I also made it to the Spanish Steps, and up to the top of the steps. And that was about the end of Rome, I made it to the train and back to Verona in about 5-6 hours and when I arrived there Francesca was running around like a crazy woman getting things ready for her arrival to Dublin, to work for Cultivate for another summer festival. We had Italian ice cream for the last time for a while and then back to her house to pack our bags, talk about our days apart and when I will arrive in Dublin for a visit.

xoxo,

christie