Two weeks ago we went on our first extended all-class field trip to the regions of Umbria and Toscana (Tuscany). These are pretty much just other states in Italy (Rome is in Lazio). Anyways, we traveled on a big Mercedes tour bus through the Italian countryside for typically at least four hours or so every day back and forth among all the cities. Not too shabby by anybody's standards. The Italian countryside is't too bad either--too many vineyards, olive tree groves, and rolling hills to count.
It would take me way too long to explain how awesome the field trip was. Suffice it to say that for the vast majority of the "field trip" I had a hard time believing it was "school-sponsored" because of all the sight-seeing, picture-taking, and wine-tasting. However, I was very much aware of the school sponsorship when we checked into our 4 star hotels. Yikes. OK, here's a little bit about each city. All the pictures of Umbria are online now. Ones from Toscana will be up soon.
UMBRIA
Orvieto--Day 1, a relaxing hill town (more like a mountain town) only accessible by a ridiculously steep mountain train. The town is surrounded by a giant wall perched on the edge of several cliffs. The duomo is spectacular, the people are very relaxed, and the wine is delicious. I highly recommend visiting--I'll be going back to buy a nice bottle of the white wine for which the city is famous.
Todi--Day 1, an even steeper hill town, but no mountain train. It had some interesting Etruscan architectural tricks such as the fact that all the buildings are connected with large arches to help them withstand earthquakes and landslides. It's worked great for the past few hundred years or so. The city is most famous for Santa Maria della Consolazione, a very cool centrally-planned church. We sketched it.
Citta di Castello--Days 1, 2, & 3, we stayed at a 4 star hotel in this little city for 3 days. There were a lot of buildings (very few of them interesting), but the town was absolutely dead after 8:30 P.M., even on a Saturday night. We frequented a nice pizzeria the first two nights and a very cool, albeit random, little car show of old aston martins, porsches, ferraris, and the like. That was nice, but the only real incentive to go visit that city again is the continental breakfast at the hotel--mmmmmmmmm
Gubbio--Day 2, this is pretty much Gondor if you've ever read or seen The Return of the King. A town built against the side of a mountain with several rings of walls, very steep streets, a few travertine towers, and incredible views everywhere. After walking through the city and sketching the main piazza, we ate lunch on top of a terrace that overlooked most of Umbria and then wandered through a random park that overlooked most of Italy. Highly recommend visiting there.
Perugia--Day 2, the home of Italian chocolate. We only had the opportunity to visit the main drag of this city of 400,000, but it seemed great and veeeery lively--a nice change from Citta di Castello. We sketched, had Italian mass in the Gothic cathedral, and then bought some of Italy's finest chocolate after battling the crowds of college-aged people crowding the street. I definitely want to go back there to explore.
TOSCANA
Montepulciano--Day 3, this city is famous for its traditional red wine, vino nobile. The whole city is built on a network of wine cellars. It has an impressive number of switchbacks that help you get to the main piazza, where we ate a delicious lunch of bruschetta, pizza, and vino. We sketched at the Chiesa di S. Biagio, another centrally-planned church down the hill. Amazing visit, amazing views, great excercise on the hills, and delicious wine. I'll be aging my €20 bottle of vino nobile back in the states (and that was one of the cheaper ones--it's only a 2004). Tasting is free. Visit immediately.
Pienza--Day 3, this city has become a big tourist trap. It's beautiful, but crowded with German tourists. It also smells like cheese, of which the German tourists purchase large amounts. We sketched and whistled Disney songs as a class. Visit outside of the tourist season (April-September).
Arezzo--Day 4, a weird little hill town with a giant hilly piazza that we sketched. Lots of craftsmanship here--several of the churches have dozens of columns that were each carved by separate artists--no two look alike. Had a nice little lunch of pasta, chicken, and bread in the basement of a little piazza. The gelato was pretty good, but not as good as Rome's.
Siena --Days 4 & 5, my favorite big city of the trip. We stayed in an immaculate Renaissance hotel that overlooked the Siena soccer team's field. The city is beautifully planned around a seashell-shaped piazza that has the Siena Campanille (belltower). It's almost 300 feet tall. My friend Caleb and I climbed it after lunch--spectacular views. There's plenty to see in Siena, including the stunning Duomo of Siena, which was the greatest architectural feature of the trip. There's also a museum of torture, but it's a little expensive. Visit Siena.
Firenze (Florence)--Days 6 & 7, a very beautiful city with almost as many architectural masterpieces as people. It was swarming with tourists, but that was to be expected. We stayed at a nice hotel in the heart of the city. Did lots of walking, talking, art gallerying, palazzoing, and eating, but we had to leave early the second day because of a huge storm moving in. It would be an incredible place to visit during the non-tourist season. I need to go back to go inside the Duomo, the Uffizzi, the Academia, and a few other places that we just didn't have time to explore. You should visit as well.
We headed back very tired from the non-stop travel, but I got over 1500 pictures and I feel like we all learned a little bit more about Italian culture than we had so far in Rome. It's all about giving things a try and not being afraid to use your Italian. Good times...
GERMANY
As soon as we got back we had to pack up for a nice weekend trip to Germany with the ultimate goal of making a pilgrimmage to the hallowed Oktoberfest in Munich. Adam, Ashley, Tereza, and I headed out together. We took a cab to the airport in Rome because the public transportation workers were on strike that day (It's Italy--these things happen). When we landed in Frankfurt we had to take the subway to find our hotel, but we quickly realized that we didn't read or speak a lick of German. We must have looked like monkeys as we punched random buttons at the ticket machine. There were no English speakers around, but we did manage to find an Italian who gave us some much needed direction. It can be very useful having a back-up language.
Frankfurt, as far as we could gather, is the business capital of Germany. Most of the city was destroyed in WWII, but it was still surprisingly beautiful. Being a business hub, there are lots of Asian restaurants and strip clubs for all those venturing to the city on business trips. We ate at a very good Thai place for lunch because A) we were frustrated with being illiterate B) we knew what the food was and C) it was cheap. We waltzed around the city for a while, poking our heads in and out of random churches and walking across a few bridges. We went back to our nice hotel for a couple hours to recharge from 8 days of straight traveling, then we ate a real German dinner at a cozy little restaurant a few blocks away. When in Frankfurt, you get the Frankfurter, which is infinitely more flavorful and in pretty much every way better than American hot dogs, except for that lovely charcoal taste. The beer was delicious too.
The next morning, after an incredible coma-sleep and a tasty breakfast, we hopped on a train to Munich to meet up with the rest of our ND friends for Oktoberfest. Riding the trains I noticed several things that I liked about German culture. 1) They have lots of electricity-producing windmills, which don't pollute the air. 2) They recycle everything. 3) The plastic bottles are about three times as thick as American ones because they literally reuse every bottle. Quite genius, really. 4) They treat cigarette smokers as second-class citizens. Cigarette smoking was permitted only in these 30 foot or so squares marked on the pavement, which also designated where the trash cans and recycle bins were. 5) Their trains are really fast and really smooth.
Anyways, Munich. We showed up and met everybody outside the camp we stayed at, which was a Equestrian stadium full of tents that could be rented out. It was fine when we got there, but we were quickly told that while Adam, Ashley, Tereza, and I were in Frankfurt, the rest of the gang had the worst day ever in Munich. It was pouring rain, several people forgot sleeping bags, everything was soaking wet and cold, and one of our friends had to make an emergency trip to the hospital after falling down some slippery stairs (don't worry, said Domer was fine after a few stitches and a night in the hospital). Tereza and I walked around Munich for quite some time in the afternoon. It is a very interesting city that would be great to explore outside the crowdedness of Oktoberfest. It was weird seeing the mortar/bullet holes in so many of the old buildings around the city. Very cool
Oktoberfest is, as far as I'm concerned, both the largest carnival and the largest party in the world. The carnival part is really more of a day-time atmosphere--all the food and souvenir vendors and a few games here and there. The party atmosphere is also very much a day-time event, but really comes out at night. I have never seen so much beer, sausage, and liederhousen in all my life, nor do I expect that I'll see so much again any time soon. We were able to snag a table in the beer garden just outside the main Lowenbrau tent. We didn't waste any time ordering our Litres of Lowenbrau from Ellen, our table's beer wench. [Side note: I loved writing that last sentence.] Several of the different countries have national drinking songs, but we just belted out the Victory March and a few Bon Jovi songs whenever the occasion came about. It was crowded, dirty, and a little disgusting at times, but so worth it. I even made off with my last stein. Good times. Pictures will be up soon.
We eventually made it home after about 8 more hours total of riding trains, planes, and automobiles across Germany and Italy. Our cabbie on the way from the airport back into Rome cut a 30 minute trip in half by breaking every traffic law in the city, including "Thou shalt not pass a car whilst another car is driving towards you in the opposite lane," but we survived. Since then it's been mostly work, work, work. We're nearing the end of a design project--designing a palazzo to close off an incomplete piazza. We took day trips to Bagnoregio, Viterbo, and Ostia Antica--I'll put up pictures soon. The power actually went out for an entire night the other night and for 4 hours or so today, so I'll unashamedly use that as an excuse for this blog's tardiness. This coming Friday (the 19th) we start off on a week-long academic excursion through the region of Veneto, home to such fine cities as Venice. I'll try to swing a gondola ride if my wallet can handle it, but we'll see.
Auf wiedersehen/Arrivederci...
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