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| I had a GREAT time with my family last week. After staying in Venice for Monday and Tuesday, they took a train over to Florence to spend a few days with me. They stayed in a hostel in a private room, which actually turned out to be very clean and nice! I was very skeptical when my Dad told me that they were staying in a youth hostel, because most hostels are not very family friendly...dirty, single beds, no room for luggage, etc. It turned out to be a nice, cheap place to stay. On Wednesday we walked around Florence to see all of the local attractions...my apartment and neighborhood, our "pizza guy" (Pizza a Taglio on Via de Servi - best pizza in Firenze!), the school, and Piazza Signorina (statues, copy of Michelanglo's David). I had already made a reservation at the Uffizi Gallery for 4pm, so we took an espresso/gelato break then toured the museum. I have to say that I was not incredibly impressed with the Uffizi. There was definitely a large amount of artwork, but there were only a few that I recognized. I think that it would have been more impressive to me if I hadn't already gone through the Louvre and the National Gallery in the past couple of months! I think it's safe to say that I'll be "museum-ed out" by the time I leave Italy  . After the Uffizi we took a break at the hostel and went for an early (7:00!) dinner at one of my favorite restaurants here, the Yellow Bar. It has a very friendly atmosphere, which you don't get at most of the other Florence restaurants. They have a big menu and their prices are moderate, which means that you can get dessert!
Thursday was our optional day to go to Sienna, but we decided that we hadn't seen enough of Florence to justify spending a day in Sienna. I hear Sienna is a must-see because the setting is so pretty, but the weather was dark and rainy all week anyway. Also, Laura started to feel sick (flu, we think). In the morning Mom, Laura, and I went to the Boboli Gardens and Kurt and Dad went to the Florence Science Museum. The gardens weren't incredibly exciting since all of the flowers were gone, but Laura had studied it in college so we got to hear some interesting history while walking around. It sounds like we didn't miss much at the science museum...Kurt and Dad enjoyed it but that's more of their kind of subject. Laura felt much worse so she went back to the hostel for the day to sleep. The rest of us went grocery shopping at my little Conad grocery and went back to my apartment to make a YUMMY lunch (broiled pesto-tomato-mozzerella-salami sandwiches). Kurt, Dad, and I climbed up to the Duomo Cupola (463 steps, if I remember correctly) and Mom took a break. The climb was horrendous but the view made it all worth it! After that we went back to the hostel to check on Laura and just layed around for a while. Kurt, Dad, and I made a quick shopping trip to the leather market for scarves and gifts. The family (minus Laura) had another "early" dinner at ZaZa's Trattoria. I had the traditional Florentine dish, Ribbolita, or bread-vegetable soup. Dad had a meat dish, and Kurt had rabbit...different. It was all very good though...Mom even got their cookbook!
Friday we got up and caught an early train to Pisa, La Spezia, then to the Cinque Terre. We stopped for a few hours in Pisa to check out the leaning tower and the church. The church was more impressive than the leaning tower! It's always fun to watch everyone take pictures in front of the tower, though. Cinque Terre simply means "five lands". It's an area along the northwestern coast of Italy, which is extremely hilly and rocky. The five towns are right off of the sea coast, built into the hills. There are terraced gardens and vineyards cut into the rest of the hills. The area is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! We stayed in another private room in a hostel in the small town of Manarola. The weather was still rainy and gross, so we stayed in that night to have dinner at the hostel. The owner of the hostel cooked amazing food! I had eggplant parmesan, Laura had [homemade] pesto pizza, Mom had a BIG salad (unusual for Italy!), and Dad and Kurt had prawn pasta. It was GREAT and cheap!
Saturday we woke up to another rainy day, but we managed to get around to a few towns and walk two small trails. The towns were practically dead since it isn't high-season, but we still found enough interesting places to explore that we didn't get bored. That night was our last meal together so we went to a local seafood restaurant. I ate my first "whole" fish...my family was surprised that I could handle it...I told them that Barcelona changed my opinion of seafood . Mom and Laura had the same...sea bass with vegetables. Dad had some kind of pesto-salmon ravioli, and Kurt had "fish soup", which really wasn't soup at all but rather a giant mass of any kind of seafood they caught. It wasn't very attractive to look at , but he ate it all!
The next morning we got up, took a train to the La Spezia train station, then took a train to Rome. I changed at Pisa and went to Florence, and the rest of the family was spending the night in Rome because their flights left Monday morning.
I come home in exactly two weeks! I will miss Florence, but I'm definitely ready to come back to the States. Right now I'm barely sleeping each night to get a big final drawing project done, but after next Wednesday I'm free to have fun! Most of our class here is taking a bus to Interlaken, Switzerland next Thursday so that should be great fun...skiing in the alps!
Mom and Dad:
The Siblings:
The Sea:
The harbor at Manarola:
Views of Manarola:
Pretty flowers along a trail:
The Walk of Love- one of the trails in Cinque Terre...the locks symbolize unity (all Cinque Terre towns were closed off before the trails were built, so this trail allowed courtship between towns!):
The remains of Kurt's "fish soup":
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| Our Study Tour group had a short day trip to Milan last Thursday. The bus ride was a bit longer than expected (4.5 hours!), but I'm still glad we went. Milan is a LOT different than Florence...more new than old. Most of the city was bombed in WWII so besides the Duomo (Milan's version) and a few other historical monuments, all other buildings are fairly new. It has the feel of Rome, minus a few thousand people, I suppose.
We split up into two groups for the day. My group first went to a shop called Muji, a Japanese retail and lifestyle brand shop. It was kind of like a "green" Ikea with clothing...very cool. They had a lot of fun knick-knacks for stocking stuffers, but everything was definitely overpriced (byproduct of using "green" materials and production techniques). Next we checked the garmento ingrosso, or wholesale district, which was completely closed down for some reason. It would have been a neat street to shop because I saw several tessuto, or fabric wholesale shops packed with fabric and decorator fabrics. We stopped into the Giorgio Armani Superstore, which was the biggest designer store I've seen so far. Normally designer stores are very small and personal. I can't say I was incredibly impressed with the level of production in the women's wear. I saw a lot of serging (an ugly and cheap way to finish raw edges) and the fabric quality wasn't what I expected. The men's department was much better...they had much nicer fabrics and sewing techniques, which were reflected on the price tag...eek! A lot of my classmates loved the store because they also had a bookstore and a food section...everything with "Armani" written on it. I'm not too into designer labels so it wasn't too exciting for me.
The street we followed back to the Duomo was full of more designer stores. I'd have to say that my favorite was Ralph Lauren. The store was set up with a 1940s American hunting lodge feel. They had Christmas trees up and clothes were folded and stacked into mahogany shelving set into the walls. Again, the clothing was made with nice fabrics and the design details were great, but I still just can't justify the price tag. It's interesting to see what kind of money people spend on their wardrobes.
The entire group met back up to go through a Vivienne Westwood exhibit by the Duomo. It was a really great exhibit. I hadn't learned much about Vivienne before this exhibit, so it was quite a surprise to see all that she has designed! Vivienne actually started the "punk" genre with her first husband, Malcom. They managed (and created) the band the Sex Pistols, which was one of the first punk bands. She has always had a shop in New York City, where punk kids hung out and the fad/style of punk was created. Her clothes displayed politically incorrect statements and were torn, with sexual symbolism everywhere. I think her whole purpose of fashion design is to just shock or bother the public...to promote being a "radical". I really do enjoy her later work though, apart from her shop called "Sex" in NYC. Her work continued to be radical, but more through her patterns and methods of constructing her garments. She looked a lot into history for inspiration, re-designing the bustle, Incroyables and Merveilleuses, wigs, and pompus court dress. She also went through a phase of playing with tailored suits...her work in that line was amazing because she pushed the limits of "normal" tailored patterns. It was also very cool to see some of Prudence's hats (see the London entry...she is Vivienne's only milliner) including a hat made out of a stuffed pheasant.
I walked through Milan's Duomo after the exhibit. It really is a very beautiful church...much more decorated than our Duomo in Firenze. Since it had been so damaged in the past, it has been built up over the years. Now the exterior is covered in sharp spines, sort of in a gothic style. The inside is filled with beautiful stained glass windows.
Our last stop was in a shop called Corso Como 10, owned by the sister of the current Vogue Italia editor. It was set back from the street surrounding a twinkle-lit courtyard...very pretty! I loved looking at the small designer collections because for once, the sales associates weren't breathing down my neck. They had a really neat "stuffed" clothing collection by Comme des Garcons. They also had a brilliant book section with book after book of fashion, illustration, and textile design. I normally am not a big reader, but I had to resist the urge to buy every book in that store! I was so inspired by the different artists and textile designers...I've never seen books like that anywhere before.
Overall Milan was a good trip. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see all of the places I wanted to go, but we only had an afternoon and early evening to spend in Milan. I'm also a fan of historical touring with museums and exhibits as opposed to shopping, so Milan was not as interesting as I hoped it to be.
Milan's Duomo:
My family flew into Rome on Friday morning, so I took an early train down there on Saturday morning. Mom and Dad had a pretty bad flight experiences with over 12 hours of delays and transfers because of "wind". Their first day in Rome was very rainy, but Saturday and Sunday were beautiful (but cold)! We took a train down to Pompeii on Saturday to visit the ruins from the volcano. The amount of preservation is INCREDIBLE! I took two years of Latin in high school so I had to study the pompeii and Roman ruins as a part of Latin culture. It was so neat to finally see the mosaics, artwork, and architecture in person. I'd highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Italy...the ruins span such a large area! It truly is a beautiful area, too, with Mt. Vesuvius in perfect view. We arrived back in Rome late in the evening, had dinner, then cramped into our hotel room (Mom, Laura, and I all in one full bed!!). Sunday we woke up and took a tour bus around Rome to get to all of the sights without wearing ourselves out. We spent a while in the Roman Forum, which was very impressive. It is also preserved very well, especially on the Palatine Hill. We also went into the Colosseum, which is one of my favorite sights even though I had already seen it. The tour took us to the Piazza Venezia, where we stopped and had a picnic lunch. We rode to St. Peter's Basilica to see the Piazza and church. The Basilica is the largest church in the world. It's BEAUTIFUL...very lavishly decorated with giant artwork. There's a sculpture (Pieta) by Michelangelo and a giant pilllared structure over the alter by Bernini. It's one of my favorite churches I've been in so far in Europe. Laura, Kurt, and Dad headed to see the Trevi fountain and Mom and I headed back to the hotel room. We had an early dinner at an Irish pub (figure that!), then I took a train back to Firenze at 8:30. Now they are in Venice for two days and will join me in Florence for Wednesday and Thursday. Included on the rest of the itinerary are a possible day trip to Sienna, Pisa, and two days at Cinque Terre. They leave for the States on Monday morning. I'll update later on during the week!
In front of the Forum:
View of new and old Rome:
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| Paris was EXHAUSTING. Overall, it was a beautiful city! The city transit workers went on strike the day we arrived, and instead of lasting one day, it lasted the whole week. The Metro was working at 30% capacity so the taxi stands were crowded, taxis were charging double, sometimes triple the fare, and of the city rent-a-bikes were used. We attempted to use the Metro a few times but since the Rugby World Cup finals were also in Paris that weekend, there were people PACKED onto the cars. I'm clausterphobic so that didn't work too well, as you can imagine. I got to see most of the things I wanted to see though, so everything went about as well as it could.
Wednesday:
After we arrived in Paris and checked into the hotel, a group of us walked to the Louvre since it's opened late on Wednesday. Our hotel was in the southeastern corner of paris, and the Louvre is north of the Seine river, so it was a 2 hour walk. The city was so cold but it really is pretty. The eastern side of Paris is old, with buildings dating from the Rennaisance. The western side is newer, with flats from the early 1900s. Most streets are very wide and are lined with trees. The Louvre was awesome! I have always wanted to come to the Louvre but never realized how massive it is. You actually enter through the famous glass pyramids in the courtyard. The museum radiates underground from the middle of the courtyard into four wings of different collections. We started at the Mona Lisa and then tried to cover all of the paintings, but I think barely scratched the surface. I really like how the museum is set up...I could probably spend weeks in there looking at everything!
We stopped at a restaurant on the way home and I got a REAL chicken salad. Paris seems to always use some weird kind of mustard flavored vinagrette, which is very tasty. You can't really get a good "normal" salad in Italy...they never have anything but lettuce and never come with dressing.
Thursday:
We had a sightseeing tour for the first half of the day, which was nice because we didn't have to walk anywhere. We saw the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, and many other monuments I don't remember. We also stopped at the Notre Dame church and walked around on the inside. Its rose windows are VERY impressive. The entire church is giant and is lavishly decorated inside. Our tour guide was so nice and was very knowledgable about every monument we passed. Our appointment/tour at the Gobelins Tapestry Factory was cancelled due to the strike, so we had the rest of the evening free. We ate at a small cafe and I tried one of France's well known sandwiches, a croque. It's like a toasted ham and cheese sandwich but the cheese is on the outside of the bread. A croque monseur is plain, like I described, and a croque madame has a sunny-side up egg on top. It tastes very good, but can get pretty greasy. Next we walked up the Champs Elysees, which is a wide mile-long street connecting the obelisk by the Eiffel Tower with the Arc de Triumph. It is lined with shops on one side and restaurants on the other. After stopping at the Arc de Triumph and realizing that it was closed (due to the Metro strike- other places started to close and strike in support of the transit strike), we had a lovely 2.5 hour walk home. Really though, it wouldn't have been so frustrating if we at least had access to busses or bikes.
Friday:
Our school group walked to the Foundation Cartier and saw an exhiition about Rock'n'Roll from 1939-59. It had a lot of memoribilia from Elvis, Buddy Holly, and others. The best part was the movie they played in one of the rooms, which is interesting to me since it seems like all museum movies are usually short and boring. This one lasted maybe an hour, and had such interesting music and information that it was actually worth watching.
After making a Starbucks stop (we are SUCH Americans!) we arrived at the Galleries Lafayette, one of the biggest and oldest department stores in Paris. We had an appointment to see a fashion show, which turned out to be a small setting with a few models showign clothing already displayed on the floor. It was quite amusing to see the "regulars" at the show, though. Old, rich women decked out in their designer duds and fur were seated in the first row, while the poor, underdressed college students were seated in the back . We headed up to the rooftop for a really nice view of Paris, then headed out to walk to our next appointment.
We had a boat tour on the Seine at 5:30, while the sun was setting. It was SO COLD! It was neat to see everything from the river, though. We found our way back on some Metro lines that weren't as crowded to warm up before we left the hotel again.
We had a 10:30 reservation at the restaurant "World Place" which Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, and John Malkovitch own. It was probably the nicest, most expensive restaurant I'd ever been to! It had mood lighting, couches to sit on while you ate, giant glass chandeliers, and light displays everywhere. I ordered vegetable penne, a side salad (on a ten inch plate!) and creme brulee', which cost 42 Euro. I was surprised...I thought it would have been more expensive. The restaurant turned into a night club around midnight when we were finished up with our meals. We tried to catch the Metro before it closed at 2am, but we had somehow missed it. We all split up and tried to take taxis but apparently everyone else in Paris had the same idea also. We didn't get back until 3am.
Saturday:
We slept in and missed the group trip to Versailles, but decided to do it on our own. It was a little tricky to take the Metros out of town, but we eventually figured it out. Versailles was GIANT and BEAUTIFUL. The grounds covered acres of land, with gardens, ponds, and woods. The actual palace was incredible. It was so different than Windsor Castle, which we had just seen two weeks ago. Versailles was decorated with gilded reliefs and marble...it had such a different aesthetic than any other typical "palace". The walls in some rooms were covered in beautiful french fabric. They had a two-story chapel covered in gold and statues. The king and queen's chambers had 10 foot high canopy beds with a fence in front so that their court could come in and partake in the "ceremonial dressing" every morning. I am so glad that I was able to come and see this. It somehow made seeing the movie "Marie Antoinette" not quite so painful and worthless .
We tried to take a metro to the Père Lachaise Cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried but it had just closed. So we took a Metro to Printemps, another famous Paris department store. I wasn't terrible interested because the price point was way over what I can afford. It's interesting to be a young adult and try to casually look in department stores like Printemps, Harrod's, and any other expensive store in Europe...it seems that you get a worker who will "babysit" you the entire time, and if you show any interest in any particular item, employees are rude to you because they can just tell you can't afford it anyway. I'm sure it's the same in America...maybe I just don't shop in places like that at home.
We took another Metro to the Eiffel Tower...this was the worse overcrowded train yet and I had a panic attack on the way over. Embarrassing. At least we got there safely. We had almost no wait for the Tower which I hear is quite unusual. I think it's because everyone else was a few blocks over at the massive Rugby tournament party. The Tower has a light show every hour which was very pretty to see while we were on the second floor. The view was beautiful...I'm so glad we got to go up since we didn't get to go up onto the Arc de Triumph. Again, it was bitter cold and even snowing a little, but the view made up for it. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and did some drawing by the HEATED pool .
Sunday:
We woke up early and headed over to Père Lachaise, which was the most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen! Each gravesite had a tall, skinny stone structure with a door and a pointed roof. There were many sculptures and art pieces on some gravesites and inbetween crypts. Jim Morrison's grave was packed in the middle of a block and was pretty boring. We also saw Chopin's grave , Raspail, and Gericault, whose "Raft of the Medusa" is engraved on his grave.
Next, we took another (semi-crowded...nice!) Metro to Montmartre, to see the Moulin Rouge. We had heard that Monmartre had a lot of open markets, but really only found the tourist shops. I was thrilled to recognize areas in the film "Amelie" (my favorite movie)! The area by the Sacre Cour was absolutely beautiful...it is a domed church on top of a steep grassy hill with long stone ramps leading to the top of the hill. There is a cute area with a carousel at the foot of the hill. After walking around for a while a group of us ate at a cafe and had the classic French onion soup with Quiche Lorrain. We headed back to the hotel and took a bus back to the airport to fly home.
Conclusion:
Definitely not as attractive as London, in my eyes. The city was very beautiful but the language barrier proved more difficult than any other country I have visited, since I know absolutely NO french. The Metro strike made things more difficult, but I still feel that I saw most of what I wanted to see. I would definitely come back some day to try and see other parts of the city...it's far too big to cover in 5 days.
I will post a few slideshows when I start to upload my pictures. School has been very rough this week with one all-nighter and a midterm test. My cousin Stephen is coming in on Saturday morning with his friend Meredith to tour around for 5 days. Kendra's boyfriend Mike is here for 10 days, and Emily's parents come tomorrow for a few days too! Our apartment will be crowded. Check back in a few days for the pictures, and I'll update when I take some pictures around Florence this weekend. | | |
| I traveled to Venice with my roommates and Kendra's parents on Saturday. It was a really quick trip, but it was still worth it! The train ride, even though it was a Eurostar train, was still 3 hours long. We didn't prepare much so we didn't do much sight seeing. We mostly just walked around and shopped. Venice's claim to fame is its Murano glass, which seems like it features little circles of patterned glass. It reminds me of the technique of making clay beads when you roll a design into a very skinny rope, cut it up into many little disks, and then use those disks as a design.
In the afternoon we took a gondola ride (or "gongola", as Deanna would call it)! Walking Venice was frustrating at times because the walkways were so narrow and there were so many tourists that you could barely find your way around. Being on the waterway was so much better...it was easier to see buildings and it was much more open, at least in the Grand Canal. Our gondelier was SO funny and made our half an hour trip seem longer. He knew a lot about Venice history, which made it more interesting. We passed by Marco Polo's house and the oldest house still standing in Venice (over 900 years old!). Every building's front door opens into the canals, even though some were almost underwater. Our gondelier explained that as the city sinks, the water rises, so each building must have a new ground floor installed every few years or so. Because of this, you see doors with stairs leading into the bottom of the canal. The whole city seemed to be falling apart, but was even more beautiful because of it.
After the gondola ride we had supper by one of the canals, and then headed home.
In other news, I'm just starting to get well. I'd say at least half of our class here has gotten sick in some way in the past month. One girl had strep, and another had a bronchial infection. At least I know that mine was just a minor sinus infection. The good news? Italy's pharmacy policies are so lax that I was able to get a full round of antibiotics over the counter for only 10 Euro. Amazing.
Here is another slide show...enjoy!
We leave for Paris tomorrow morning. I'll update in a week or so with pictures and stories! | | |
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