Adventuring Outside of Viterbo

A lot of updates coming up…

Let's start by telling you about my first week or so of classes:

I'm taking Italian Renaissance Arts where we discuss art, literature, and so on. We've taken a couple field trips to museums, which are always interesting, and our professor knows just about everything there is to know about the Renaissance.

I am also taking Travel Photography, where we learn how to best convey why the viewer should visit a certain place. Our first assignment was to take photos on one of our field trips with 2 categories in mind; my categories were Architecture and Faithful, since our field trip was to Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis. This class is interesting and I'm learning a lot about my camera so far. 

Now I'll tell you about our field trip to Assisi and Perugia:

We arrived in Assisi in the morning by bus and were given some free time to get breakfast or a drink (I got a healthy snack: water and cannoli). Then we met in one of the piazzas to get a guided tour of the town. After our tour, we were encouraged to get some interesting photos for our class, eat lunch, and buy souvenirs, which we did of course. When we went back to the established meeting place, we were transported to Perugia where a jazz festival was being held. A group of us could not go on the guided tour because we had to catch our train to Venice and there were timing issues. Instead we walked around the town for a bit and had the chance to hear some of the jazz festival, which sounded awesome and we all wish we could have stayed there longer. But we had to get to Venice!

Our train to Venice was pretty smooth, despite having two transfers to make. We got to Venice late and found a van taxi that could take us all to our camping hostel (Camping Jolly!); once we got there, we were greeted by a huge poolside party with music, drinks, and a huge crowd of people. Instead of joining in the fun, we all went straight to bed because we had had a very long day. We got to our cabin and it was awesome! Two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Huge showers (very small compared to American showers, but huge here).

The next day we went in to the city to see St. Mark's (San Marco) basilica, which had a huge line and we decided not to go in. We saw the Rialto bridge as well. We mostly just walked around and explored the city, which I think is the best way to experience a city and its culture. After our necessary gondola ride, we ended the day by watching the sunset from a park far from the city. The next day we started by visiting the Guggenheim museum, which houses Picassos, Kandinskys, and Dalis. I was in awe. Then we continued our day the same way we had the previous day: wandering around and getting lost.

We had to catch a midnight train back to Viterbo, so we just went straight to the station to wait for the train. There were some complications on the train and we ended up arriving a little later than expected, but we made it! Venice was beautiful and probably my favorite city I have visited so far. 

Just a couple day later, we went on our first Rome adventure! We had a tour of the Forum/ruins, the Musei Capitolini, and the Colosseum. It was amazing and I cannot wait to go back for a whole weekend. 

Now for the fun part: here are some pictures!

Getting Here

I'm finally in Italy!

I left Cincinnati to head to the Dayton airport to catch my flight to Chicago then straight to Rome. There were some delay issues, but nothing that couldn't be sorted out with ease! Upon arrival, we were given a small orientation where we met our USAC team leaders and had a city tour of Viterbo. I'm so excited about getting to know this town. The city is set inside walls and is from Medieval times. 

It is gorgeous; my apartment is in an old palace with a bright blue front door. 

This is not the side with the bright blue door, obviously

After we saw our apartments and met the town, we left for 5 days in the south of Italy, staying in Sorrento. 

The first day we went to Naples (Napoli) and explored the city and its underground water systems and theatres. We also visited the amazing Archeological Museum. It seemed like a really great city, but I wish we would have had more time to explore it in depth. We had pizza, a Napoli classic, which was amazing and a nice welcome to the city. Walking through the streets filled with vendors reminded me a bit of New York City and New Orleans combined, but there were many more languages to hear and better smelling food.

Next up was the most interesting day so far, perhaps: Pompeii! We walked through the ruins for a few hours and saw a couple of the plaster cast bodies. I really regret not seeing the traveling Pompeii exhibit now! I learned so much on our tour of the ruins from one of the USAC professors. For example, Pompeii was more affected by the ashes of the eruption than the lava itself. Also during the time of Pompeii, rather than reading tarot cards or palms, people would study the flight of birds or the innards of dead animals for fortune and knowledge. Salt was a form of wealth and power during this time as well, causing wars and conflicts. I could go on like this for a while...

The next day was a free day for us and we had several options to choose from for our day trip; my group chose Capri! We had to take a ferry to the island and when we arrived we were approached by someone asking if we wanted to rent a private boat to take us around the island. We took them up on this offer and it was the best decision thus far! Our driver took us around the island, including to the Blue Grotto, a major attraction on Capri. He played music for us and told us facts about the island, and made the day super fun. Then he let us off at a beach to swim, which was interesting because the beach was all rocks instead of sand. Painful, but so worth it. A great day.

Day four was on the Amalfi coast. An interesting fact we learned about Amalfi is that they make their own paper! I bought some local paper and it feels amazingly beautiful. We visited a beautiful duomo (cathedral) here named for St. Andrew. There was an amazing courtyard area called Chiostro del Paradiso (cloister of paradise). After our tour here, we were on our own, so we went to the beach again. The beach was SO HOT because the rocks had been soaking in the sun's heat all day, but once we reached the water we were in heaven! After some gelato here, we made our way back to Sorrento for the night.

On our way back to Viterbo, we stopped in at Caserta's palace. This thing was huge and gorgeous! It was built in 1751/2 and took 22 years to complete. There were so many rooms to see and we only visited a small corner of them. There were no hallways included in architecture at this time, so everything was very much walking through rooms to get to another room, requiring a very strategic flow. I loved the super gorgeous ceilings and paintings throughout this palace! After lunch, we were free to roam the 3+ km long park in the back of the building, where the high-class ranked people of the town would gather. Awesome day.

Once we came back to Viterbo, we have just been exploring the town to get to know our home for the next 5 weeks. Tomorrow is our school orientation and first day of classes! I am very interested to see how everything goes! I'll keep you posted!