One Last Time to Tuscany

One of my big travel goals for the semester was to do something from every chapter of Rick Steves' Italy. With that goal in mind I went to Tuscany one last time Saturday the 18th to visit San Gimignano and watch the sunset over Florence, from Fiesole.

I left for Florence bright and early, got there around 9:30 and immediately got on a bus to Poggibonsi, where I then transfered to a bus to San Gimignano. San Gimignano is a quintessential Tuscan hill town, with much (all?) of its medieval wall still in tact, 14 of its 72 medieval towers (which were essentially all part of a pissing match between the rich families of the town) still standing and rampant tourism everywhere. It was a pretty charming little place but the tourism really got on my nerves; it cheapened the whole experience of the visit. Of course I was also a tourist, so I sense the hypocrisy, but still. Don't sell out, Italy. You're too mainstream. #hipstertourist

I took Rick Steves' walking tour of the town and got some amazing gelato in the center of town. I ran out of things to do pretty quickly, but I was happy to have seen the town. So I got on a bus back to Florence and took another stroll around the town. I had already spent a bunch of time in the city (both in 2007 and just three months before) so I had pretty much done all the big things. I wandered around the city, saw more of the Oltrarno district (across from the main city, where the Duomo and such are) and then made my way up to Piazza di San Marco (not the famous one, that's in Rome) to grab the bus to Fiesole, an old Etruscan town looking down on the valley Florence sits in. Kammeron had suggested to me to go up here with a bottle of wine and watch the sunset, but since I was on my own I decided not to be an alcoholic and just picnic up on the bluff overlooking the valley. I stayed for as long as I could. Until the last feasible bus I could take back down to the city ran back, but I still didn't get to see the sunset. The view was still pretty incredible, but I saw Deanna's pictures of the sunset and they are mindblowing. Almost better than the sunset in Santorini. Almost. So I didn't get to see the sunset but I still had a pretty productive day in Tuscany, and finally finished Rick Steves. Pretty successful I'd say.

Snowless Ski Resorts

Valle d'Aosta is the mountainous paradise of Northern Italy. It borders both France and Switzerland, and most of the residents speak both Italian and French. Aosta is a beautiful place. It also takes Three hours and three trains to get anywhere good from Milan, but that's alright. Our first stop in Aosta was the eponymous capital, Aosta! A tiny town (at least relative to Milan. Or Cleveland.) in the middle of the Alps, Aosta is still surrounded by much of its medieval walls and at least four of the original guard towers are still standing. Deanna and I took walk around the town to see all the sights highlighted in the map we got at the Tourist Info office where the guy spoke surprisingly good english, and everywhere we turned we saw the snow-capped peaks of the Alps:

Always with the snow blowing off, majestically

We also saw a few of the ancient guard towers,

The sky is SO BLUE

An old Roman Amphitheater,

Really well preserved ruins!

This really cool poster,

Like Toulouse-Lautrec

And a bunch of other stuff (old arches, old buildings, old roads, old churches. And the inspiration for the title of this post, a Ski Resort, snowless. Right outside of the city. We couldn't take the ski lift up the mountain, however. Closed for the week.) but that's boring. And not the point. The point is Aosta is the epitome of Alpian beauty, and there was still snow on mountains in mid-June.

After our grand tour of Aosta we hopped on a bus to our real destination, Cogne. Cogne is another, smaller town south of Aosta which has a ton of trails leading from it out in to the Alpy wilderness. We chose to take the trail to the Cascate di Lilliaz, a set of three thunderously loud waterfalls. Along the way I mingled with some livestock,

Right after it licked me

Hopped on some rocks to the middle of a fast-flowing river,

Such vibrant colors

And was amazed by natural beauty,

You can't see me in this picture but I was definitely amazed

After about an hour we finally arrived at le Cascate di Lilliaz and were greeted with a thunderous roar, courtesy of this waterfall (and its two friends)

The waterfall above is the highest of the three (they are a succession of falls) and has those really inviting rocks right next to the pool the falls cascade in to. Deanna and I were very tempted to get to those rocks to have our lunch, so we took off our shoes and tried to make our way through the pool up to them. The water was freezing (numbing) but we kept on trying. I got face to face with the rocks but couldn't find a way to get around and up on top of them, so I headed back to our HQ rock. Deanna tried her own way and got up on them while I wasn't looking. I turned around, was like "WHATT" for a bit and then made my way over as well. We opened up our cheese and crackers and feasted. Then all of a sudden it was 4:30 and we had to book it out of there if we wanted to get to the bus in time which would get us to the train in time which would get us to the second train in time. So we gathered up our stuff, trudged back through the freezing water and got our shoes back on. On the hike back to the town we stopped at a little grocery store along the way and went in to a real life wine cellar to get our customary wine for the trip back,

All Valle D'Aosta wine. We got the cheapest one

and then hopped on the bus back to Aosta. Then hopped on the train, then hopped on the second train, finished our wine, then were back in Milan. Pretty much the polar opposite of all the nature we had just relished in. 

Bullet Points Again

After I got back from Rome not a lot happened. So I'm presenting it in bullet point form
Here goes:

• finished my exams
• passed my exams
• said goodbyes
• made more travel plans
• pondered being hostel-less in Paris
• went to Varenna with Deanna
• stayed for like 2 hours there then peaced out
• (should have done the castle)
• sneaked a peek at the botanical gardens
• relaxed
• ate gelato
• slept
• cleaned
• got my internet shut off
• paid my 4 month late internet bill
• internet back!
• looked for jobs back in the states (unlikely)
• realized job prospects in the states are little to none due to me being home for only a month
• looked at bank account
• deprived myself of actual meals due to horribleness of bank account
• went out anyway
• got gelato
• got more gelato
• ate gelato for breakfast
• ate gelato for dinner
• ate gelato as the only meal in the day
• wandered around my neighborhood, saw the only attractive modern architecture in Milan
• enjoyed my last aperitivo
• relished every moment
• got all nostalgic writing this blog

The End.

High School Reunions in Foreign Countries IV

Hallie and I rendezvoused at St. Peter's Square, I gave her a bottle of wine as payment for housing me, and we promptly went to Old Bridge to get some gelato (the same gelateria Deanna and I went to two weeks before. It was still just as good. Thanks Allie!!). In the process I crossed an international border twice; it's weird thinking about the Vatican City as a different country. Anyway we got gelato, enjoyed it and then headed over to Piazza Campo de' Fiori for drinks. We decided to go to a bar called Sloppy's and got a 14€ pitcher and, because of how insanely overpriced the beer was, stole the two glasses it came in. We walked over to Piazza Navona (which is across the street) and saw the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi at night, talked about how proud Signorina Fini (our Italian teacher in high school) would be of us for actually going abroad and doing something with the Italian we learned, then made our way back to Hallie's apartment (from which you can see the dome of St. Peter's!) and slept nice and late (10).

The next day we wandered around the city. Both of us had seen all we wanted to see there already, so we were pretty aimless. We ended up at the Trevi Fountain, where I saw Jorge and his family (who were visiting Rome that day on their grand European adventure) and the world seemed incredibly small. (Speaking of, I completely forgot to mention this before but I saw my Italian professor from Miami at my bus stop outside of school one day in June. It's not as crazy as it sounds: she was teaching a class of kids from Miami in Milan for the first summer session, but it was still pretty crazy. So we took the bus together and spoke in Italian the whole time, she wished me luck on my exams and seemed genuinely impressed with my grades, even though I got them mostly because I am foreign not because I was a good student, and then we said ciao. When I see her again in the fall my Italian will not be nearly as good as it was then.) We spent some time at the fountain then said bye to Jorge and the rest of the Serrano clan, and started wandering again. We made it to the Quattro Fontane, an intersection with a fountain at each corner (which was a little underwhelming). The fountains, respectively, are carved statues of the River-Gods of the Tiber and the Arno, and the Goddesses Juno and Diana. The fountains were nice enough, but nowhere near Trevi or Quattro Fiumi (I'm spoiled) and they were also pretty dirty. I guess that's to be expected when they're right on a busy Roman intersection. After that disappointment we walked around some more, saw all the same stuff we had already seen and bought delicious grapes from a market in Rome. They were huge, had seeds and were three times the size of normal, American grapes. And were so juicy!

My day in Rome wandering around with Hallie made me realize just how much I love the city. I could wander there forever. Of course I've never spent more than 20 hours consecutively there, but I would like to think that doesn't make a difference. Anyway, my weekend of aimless Italian wandering came to an end that night when I got on the Frecciarossa back to Milan and finally slept in my own bed again. See you tomorrow with one final bullet pointed post!

5 Cities, 36 Hours

Warning: There are no pictures from this trip. My camera was still broken (still is, actually). Be prepared for a bunch of me just talking and talking and talking. I apologize in advance.

In the midst of studying for finals I booked a hostel for one night on Lake Trasimeno, to give myself a light at the end of the incredibly long tunnel that was studying in a foreign language. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do when I go there, but I knew I was going.

I originally planned on going down to Florence, catching the sunset in Fiesole and then making my way to the hostel (which was a quick train ride east from Florence). This didn't happen. The night before my train to Florence I went to Boscovich (my home away from home in Milan, my friends' apartment 5 minutes away from Milano Centrale) and six of us had a really great night. I slept a little bit longer than I planned and the inevitable happened. So I thought, I guess I'll just go get on the next train leaving Milan to see where it takes me, planning on missing my reservation in Umbria. I ended up in Bologna, which was, in a word, "blah".

I went down on my own and had only the vaguest idea of what to do in the city. I saw the two towers leaning in towards one another (not as good as Pisa), saw the unfinished Duomo (not as good as any other church ever), a few parks (not as good as Parco Sempione) and got some gelato (not as good as Milanese gelato, and even more expensive). I was just not particularly charmed by the city. On top of all this I had a bacterial infection in my toe which led to an ingrown toenail, but I won't terrify you with the details. Oversharing is no one's friend. Seeing as I was bored I got on the train to Magione, the city nearest my hostel booked on a whim. I got there around 7 then got picked up by one of the hosteliers, whose english was impeccable. I was amazed when we got to the hostel. It is by far the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in, and it only cost 15 euro/night. The rooms were huge, it was beautifully decorated, they serve breakfast and dinner every day, included in the cost, and were just incredibly friendly. If you ever go to Lake Trasimeno (which is the largest lake in the state of Umbria, by the way. Apparently a very popular vacation destination) stay at Ostello La Casa sul Lago.

Anyway, I went to bed and got up nice and early to make my way to Assisi and Perugia, two cities famous for very different reasons. My first stop was in Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis. St. Francis is famous mostly for the bunches of miracles associated with him, such his Sermon to the Birds (exactly what it sounds like) and being the first Saint to be given (have forced upon him?) the Stigmata, the marks Christ received from the nails used in his crucifixion (not sure of a better/less graphic way to describe that...). The way the stigmata works, as far as I can tell, is a six-winged Jesus angel flies down from heaven and presents himself to whoever is deserving of these five scars on their hands, feet and side and then shoots them with Jesus lasers to so bestow those scars upon them. And this is exactly what is shown in a fresco in the Basilica di San Francesco, the huge, very famous, very pretty (mostly because it was actually a little different from most of the churches I'd seen)  basilica dedicated to this hometown saint.

Other than learning about San Francesco and then blaspheming, I also took a walking tour of the city, as given by Rick Steves. I saw a bunch more churches, an ancient roman temple (which is now a church), a few nice piazze and a singing group composed of 50-70 year old american women who I somehow followed all the way around the city, and who I always saw performing their songs. I really enjoyed my walk around the town, but I ran out of things to do fairly quickly and so headed back down to the train station to make my way to Perugia.

I got on the train and then got off at the first "Perugia" stop I saw. It was not where I wanted to get off. So I panicked a little because I had no idea where I was (and it was Sunday so of course everything was closed), then got on another train, hoping it would take me in to Perugia's city center. It almost did. I had gotten on an Umbrian commuter train, so it stopped outside the historic center but at least I was much closer than I had been 10 minutes before. I climbed some stairs, saw a sign pointing to the historic center and so headed in that direction. I came to a huge escalator and hopped on, and eventually came out in the middle of an ancient fortress full of shops selling all manner of things. I kept climbing and eventually emerged in to the Perugian city center and quickly realized I had no idea what to do in the city. I wandered around and found a tourist info place, but it was closed (Sunday!). So I walked around and admired the architecture, (which has a much more rustic/rocky feel to it than any other city I had seen in Italy. Loved it) got some gelato, and found an incredible view of the Umbrian countryside, which I could not take a picture of because of my woeful lack of camera.

I sat down to give my aching feet a break (they did a lot of walking this trip, such troopers) and then decided I would be going to Rome that day. Luckily I had contacted my friend Hallie the night before seeing if she could house me and she had texted me that she could (even though she had just signed the lease for her apartment that day. literally 5 hours before I got to Rome). So I headed down to the train station and grabbed the regional train to Rome. And that's how I did 5 cities in a span of 36 hours. But I'll give you all a break from my incessant rambling for a bit. Rome Take Two will be up tomorrow!

Turning 21 abroad is pointless. I'm so old.

And that was when I realized that being legal actually does make drinking less exciting. I turned 21, did what all Americans do on their 21st birthdays and then got some overpriced food that is delicious while drunk. Went home, passed out, woke up and kept living my life. Nothing changed.

The End.

The Days are Just Packed

Rome is a huge city. I saw all of it in 24 hours. It was exhausting. Luckily, Rome is also an AMAZING city, so walking around it from 12 to 3 in the morning was more than breathtaking. We left our bags at the hostel and ripped a couple pages out of Rick Steves and followed his "Rome at Night" guided walk. Truly incredible. We saw the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and more, completely empty. I didn't truly appreciate Trevi Fountain until I saw it at 2 am and could hear the thundering fountains from 2 blocks away. Trevi during the day and Trevi at night are entirely different experiences. Here's some pictures from our late night ramble around the Eternal City.

Amazing lighting on the Colosseum at night

Piazza Venezia/Garibaldi Monument

Pantheon

Trevi Fountain, AMAZING

The next day Deanna and I made our way over to the Vatican Museums, stopping at Piazza Navona, home of la Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers), which depicts the largest rivers from each continent to which Papal Authority had spread at the time in river god form, those rivers being the Danube (Europe), Nile (Africa), Rio de la Plata (Americas) and the Ganges (Asia), and the Piazza Campo de' Fiori, which houses a daily market, on the way.

When we got to the Vatican Museums I found out that Madonna and Child could actually get more monotonous. What a feat. Luckily there was a Faberge Egg exhibit to liven things up a little,

And we saw the Sistine Chapel (no photos allowed. people do it anyway, but the guards were being pretty tough the day we went). We spent a good 2 or 3 hours there, then left the city and got some amazingly cheap and delicious gelato (much better priced than Milan, and more flavors too!). Then we kept walking. We saw the rest of the sights in Rome, like the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Piazza del Popolo, the Ara Pacis, and so much more. It added up to a lot of walking. We stopped back in the hostel around 6 to grab our bags then went to the station and got our tickets home, sat down on the train and r e l a x e d. Felt great. Rome in a Day: Doable, bordering on suicidal. 

P.S. For the Calvin and Hobbes book referenced in the title, go here: http://www.amazon.com/Days-are-Just-Packed-Collection/dp/0836217357

Where Gods Walk

And all of a sudden it was our last day in Sorrento. We headed down in to the city nice and early to grab a bus down the Amalfi Coast, to the town of Amalfi. The views were incredible, and we saw the islands where Homer’s Sirens lived along the way (which is why Sorrento is named Sorrento. See, there was a reason to me calling it our Southern Italy Odyssey!) Here are a few choice pictures from the ride:

Vesuvio!

The Siren's Islands

Positano, Port of Amalfi

After an hour and a half of twists and turns and a bit of nausea, we arrived in Amalfi, the town the coast is named after. We walked around the town a bit and saw some interesting stuff, such as

Duomo of Amalfi

And

Not the Duomo of Amalfi

After wandering around for a bit we grabbed the bus up to Bomerano, where the hike we had researched, the Sentiero degli Dei (Path of the Gods) begins. Aptly named. Incredible views, beautiful hike. Take a look:

It was also all downhill, so that made it even better.

When we reached the town at the end of the trail, Nocelle, we stopped and ate picnic lunch in the main square and watched Italian life go by. We weren’t quite back in Positano yet, however, and had

Remember how I mentioned those 300 up in Capri just being the beginning? Well this was our end. My knees have never hurt so much as they did after we got down all 1700. It was ridiculous. At least I got a good workout, seeing as I hardly worked out at all my whole time in Italy.

We got back to Positano and had to wait about 40 minutes for the bus back to Sorrento, but our bodies appreciated the long break. We got back to Sorrento, grabbed our bags from the hostel, got the train back to Naples and hopped on the next train to Rome, where our story continues in my next post!

Come for the Blue Grotto, Stay for the Blue Grotto: The One Trick Pony Island

Capri was amazing. We got there around 10 am and promptly hiked up from Capri (the main, lower town) to Anacapri (the other town, closer to the Blue Grotto and with a chairlift up to the summit of the mountain, which is supposed to have amazing views of the island). We walked up around 300 or more stairs to get to the town (just the beginning of all the staircases we conquered this trip) and were greeted with another street lined with Limoncello stores! 2There was a Czech tour group wandering down the street so we acted Czech and got tons of free samples (rather than the bunch of free samples we would have gotten if we hadn’t acted Czech). After gorging on sweet liquors and candy (at least as much as you can gorge when you get one piece and move on) we grabbed the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. This was the view going up:

The view from the stairs

From the chairlift

And we took no pictures at the top, so obviously it wasn’t a great day to go. At least we tried. We hiked back down the mountain after, and stopped at a couple of those limoncello stores one more time before starting our walk down to the Blue Grotto. According to the maps we got there was a simple to follow trail going from Anacapri to the Grotto. Our maps lied. The streets in Anacapri are the most confusing things ever (they number the intersections as well as the alleyways, but the map did not) so we got lost in that maze for a bit. Finally we escaped on to the path to the Grotto, which about halfway through was washed out. We kept going anyway, despite there being no clear trail, and then finally made it to the grotto after about an hour.

View on the way down the mountain

We grabbed a boat in and ducked as we went in to the tiny opening (about 10 inches of clearance?) and were greeted with this amazing blue light

The light gets in to the grotto because, while there are rocks covering the opening, there are no rocks in the water itself. Sunlight streams right in through the water and diffuses in to that incredible blue. So worth the 12.50€. We wandered around the area a bit and found another rocky beach just next door. The water was freezing again, but it felt great. I brought my goggles this time too, so I looked underwater and saw this enormous dropoff about five feet from the shore. Slightly terrifying. I didn’t know I was afraid of deep water until then. It was weird. But incredibly deep! I think I was mostly afraid of the fact that I had NO IDEA what was down at the bottom, and so got all panicky about deadly things. After marveling at the depth, Deanna and I decided to do a bit of cliff jumping, and so we did. After going canyoning two weeks before I thought it would be no big deal, but I totally froze at the edge for like five minutes, until I got Deanna and the kids we met from Chicago to count me down. I got trained pretty well by Graziano (our canyoning guide) to go on “1”, so it worked. Here, look:

We hung out on the beach a bit longer then made our way back to Capri to grab the next ferry back to Sorrento. We got there a little early (had around 45 minutes to kill) so we browsed the tourist shops and just sat by the water, resting our exhausted feet/bodies. And reflecting on our amazing trip in to the Grotto. It was amazing. Like, incredible. I hope you all understand just how amazing I thought it was. I think it should be obvious, it is one of my favorite places in the world. Along with everywhere else I went this semester. Except Naples.

When we got back to Sorrento we got to climb another 100 stairs from the port up to the town itself, and then got some groceries, got on the bus and went HOME. Watched the Social Network, such a great movie. Slept. Next post, Amalfi.

In Sorrento, land of Limoncello and more Limoncello

The morning after our boring yet also riveting day in Naples, Deanna and I got up early and grabbed the Circumvesuviana (Campania’s regional rail service) to Sorrento, our next stop on our Southern Italy Odyssey. We arrived in Sorrento an hour later, and after figuring out which bus would get us to our hostel (it took longer than you would expect) we promptly got lost. The bus stop was only about 10 minutes outside of Sorrento, while we took the bus all the way to the Capolinea, to the Point of Sorrento. It was a nice place but walking around with a full suitcase in the heat and sun of southern Italy isn’t very fun. We went in to the Tourist Info nearby and figured out just how far from the hostel we were (pretty damn far) and grabbed the next bus back, luckily seeing the HUGE sign for our campsite this time. Not sure how I missed it the first time. Whoops. (that word comes up a lot in this blog, doesn’t it)

Got checked in, put our bags away. First stop? The beach at the campsite, which was nothing like any beach I’d been to before. No sand. Just rocks.

And some freezing water too.

After relaxing on the beach for a bit, Deanna and I headed down in to town to see the sights. The ones mentioned in Rick Steves were “Strolling”, a lemon and orange grove, and free alcohol. Strolling was nice. The Lemon and Orange grove was pretty awesome, the lemon trees had orange branches grafted on to them so the two fruits grew on the same tree (about half the trees in the whole grove are like this, according to the lady who gave us free alcohol). They also had a stand set up with a ton of different liquors, distilled from lemons, oranges, honeydew, licorice, blueberry, some kind of nut and a bunch of other things too.

Lemons and Oranges growing together... Mass Histeria!

The stand you can't really see clearly in this picture had tons of free samples

Next we went to walk down the main street in the town, which was lined with stores selling Limoncello (Sorrento’s famous lemon liquor), Arancello, Meloncello and every other kind of cello possible. All of these stores also gave out free samples, and they were sooo gooood. Too bad they only gave you a little taste, rather than a full shot or something like that. In other words, I thought store owners would be getting me drunk for free but all they did was make me want to buy their delicious product. So I did.

Also, there were lemons the size of your head

And bigger

We spent quite a bit of time there and then headed back to the hostel to rest up for our trip to Capri the next day!