I used to think Alice was an idiot.

So much trouble and so many questionable decisions, just to get into a garden: drinking magic potions, eating giant mushrooms, taking advice from crazy people, abusing hedgehogs and flamingoes (you know that croquet game couldn’t have been fun for either creature) for the amusement of a homicidal queen, the list goes on and on. Just to get into a garden she glimpsed through a keyhole.

I now know how she felt. I just spent the afternoon in the most beautiful garden I’ve ever seen. It is the garden at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, about an hour east of Rome. The garden is built in terraces going down the hillside behind the villa, and it truly is a Wonderland. My camera died partway through the trip, but I still feel that I got enough good pictures to let them speak for themselves:

Il Palio...Monty Python Style

Alyssa, Shelby, Sherri, Michelle, Me, and Whitney on top of the Duomo.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday, we began a whirlwind tour through Tuscany. We took a high-speed train from Roma Stazione Termini to Florence, where we spent the rest of Thursday and Friday. Florence was nice, but incredibly touristy. I am pretty sure I heard more English in my two days in Florence than I’ve heard in the rest of the month and a half I’ve been in Italy. We got to see palaces, a science museum from the 19th Century, churches aplenty, and famous works of art (Mom, I did see Leo, but I didn’t get to say hi, as he was a bit busy at the time), and we even got to climb to the top of the Duomo and see Florence from above.

On Saturday, we left Florence for Siena, but along the way, we stopped in the medieval town of San Gimignano, the “Manhattan of the Middle Ages.” It was amazing! We got off the bus near a supermarket and had to climb the hill, but at the top, we were greeted by imposing stone walls and a skyline of towers and clay-tiled roofs. I climbed the tallest tower (54 meters tall, built in 1311) with a couple of the girls, and I was able to admire some truly beautiful views of the Tuscan countryside. And I got a gelato from what is officially the best gelateria in the world (this place actually did win the world championships for gelato from 2006-2009). After San Gimignano, we went to another medieval village, this one named Monteriggioni. Like San Gimignano, this town is surrounded by stone walls, but the wall of this one forms a sort of crown around the top of the hill. This town was pretty neat, but San Gimignano was definitely cooler.

Siena was nice as well. Siena is also where the Monty Python bit comes into play. Il Palio is a horserace that takes place in the Piazza del Campo in July and August every year. Jockeys from each of Siena’s highly competitive neighborhoods don period dress and ride bareback at breakneck speeds around the piazza. To give you an idea of how hardcore this race is, I’ll just point out that both riders and horses are blessed by a priest before the race, and that a horse is not required to have its rider at the end to win. In tribute to Il Palio di Siena, Sherri, Michelle, Whitney and I (Shelby filmed the whole affair – and apparently giggled about it) held a short race of our own:

We spent the last part of Saturday, as well as Sunday morning in Siena, wandering back and forth across the old part of town. On Sunday, we left to head back to Rome by bus, but along the way, we had two more stops to make. First was Pienza, where we saw a church and wandered around taking pictures from the walls, and then came Montepulciano, where we saw what I think is my favorite church to date. After that, it was a couple more hours of driving through the Tuscan countryside and then the suburbs of Home Sweet Rome.

"Inactivity is death."

Have you ever seen one of those post-apocalyptic type scenes that come up so often in science fiction movies? A group of road weary travelers finally arrives in a new place (city, planet, time, etc.) and takes their first steps outside, only to find the place completely deserted. It's the futuristic version of the Old West ghost town (usually minus the tumbleweed that rolls across the main street).












*Scene from the popular science fiction movie "Serenity." *

Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini once said that "Inactivity is death." I think it is interesting, then, to note that the EUR (a neighborhood begun under Mussolini in the 1930s and completed in the 1960s) is just about the most inactive place I've ever been. Even though the place was full of people, I still felt like I was walking through an alien ghost town, and I had the nagging feeling that I should be watching out for zombies as I turned corners. It was futuristic, but at the same time, it was ancient and dead. The whole place was just cold and austere - and downright creepy.

"Try to get lost in Rome at least once a day."

I’m not sure who gave me this advice, only that it has never led me astray. I feel that this is mainly because I have attached another little clause to that recommendation: “…but always have a way out.” Always have some means of getting yourself unlost in a hurry, just in case something goes wrong. Streets in the old city are only occasionally straight, and then only for a block or two, with the exception of the Via Giulia, which was the first straight street in Rome (we actually took a field trip to go see it as a class), and if anything, the streets in Trastevere are worse. I believe the popular travel guide phrase used to describe the neighborhood where I live is “charming Medieval maze.”

I tend to rely on the Tiber River and the Janiculum Hill as my quick fix. At least once a week, I set off from some known point in the city, like the school at Palazzo Taverna, Piazza Navona, the apartment in Trastevere, or the supermarket off Piazza San Cosimato, and just pick a known destination and a new direction. I might follow the known path between two points until about halfway and then take a “shortcut” down a side street, or I might try to blaze my own completely new trail. It depends largely on my mood and how much time I have to wander around town. No matter where I’m going, I always keep track of where I am in relation to the river, since all the bridges are labeled on my maps. All I need to get home is the name of two bridges so I can pick a direction and then follow the river back to my neighborhood. If I am wandering around Trastevere, I just have to get to a relatively wide street, and I can see the Janiculum Hill, which runs along the street right behind my apartment building and is one of the highest points in Rome.

I must admit that I have been relying heavily on the sun this past month to tell me where I am in relation to my quick fix points. I felt amazingly independent and Crocodile Dundee-esque. Until I realized (this afternoon!!) that I have had an actual compass with me the entire time. Last semester, Dr. Paradise, being concerned about Bailey and I walking home behind the frat houses after dark, gave me an emergency whistle with a little red light (which we discovered has the ability to either light the way or blind the user completely, depending on which way it is pointed) and a tiny compass. I carry it on my key ring. I carry my key ring everywhere I go.

Following a wrong turn this afternoon, I got to take a whole new path to get home from school. I made it out of the old city and across the river just fine, but when I got into Trastevere, those “charming Medieval” walls blocked my view of just about everything. The very northernmost part of Trastevere is separated from the rest of it by a little spur of the Janiculum Hill, so I knew that until I got clear of that, knowing where the hill was would not help me much, not that I could see it anyway. I decided to just set off in a general southerly direction, still using the sun as my guide.

It was high noon.

The sun being little help to me, I wandered for a bit, just trying to keep the river generally behind me and the hill, when I could see it, relatively close and off to my right (I really was in no mood to climb the Janiculum, though in hindsight, that would probably have been faster). Consequently, I wandered down four dead end streets in a row, and I made a couple of wrong turns that took me in the completely wrong direction (I got to see the same architecture firm on two occasions, about ten minutes apart).

By the time I made it home, I was tired and rather crabby. My mood did not improve much when, pulling out my keys to get into the apartment, I noticed the little black circle with >, S, E and W on my emergency whistle. And I found my maps on my nightstand.

The best part is, I will probably still pretend to be Crocodile Dundee when I get lost tomorrow.

"Eh... Napoli."

That pretty much sums it up. We just got back last night after a three day weekend in Naples. It was quite the experience. We took off bright and early Friday morning on a high speed (over 300km/hr) train bound for Naples. The train ride was fairly uneventful, as was our arrival in Naples and trip to the hotel, which was little more than a block from the train station. Little did we know that the safest, most predictable part of our trip was now behind us. We took off immediately to see a 13th Century castle on the waterfront and the Royal Palace from the 1600s. Naples was under the dominion of Spain at the time, and the palace was built for the King of Spain, who was going to visit the city. The palace was beautiful! Everything was marble and gold leaf. There were huge tapestries depicting mythological scenes, one-of-a-kind hand-made tables with marble inlays, and tall windows looking out to sea. All of that for one guy, and the guy never showed up. Classy.

Saturday was supposed to be devoted to the ancient Roman sites along the Bay of Naples that were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, but it rained. We went as far as the Villa of Oplontis, but then we decided to head back to the city because we were all getting soaked. To make it up to us, our tour guide took us to see the underground aqueducts of Naples (featured during an episode of the History Channel’s “Cities of the Underworld”). The aqueducts were build (dug) by the Greek founders of the city (Neapolis=New City=Napoli) and later used during WWII as bomb shelters, since Naples was the most bombed city in Italy. At one point, our tour guide took us to the mouth of this long tunnel that had no lights. It was an ancient maintenance tunnel that led to a huge cistern. To give us an idea of how the ancients used the place, we were put into groups of two or three and given candles and told to start walking. The tunnel was only about two feet wide and varied in height from five feet to more than twenty.

Saturday night, a huge group of us went out to dinner. We took four taxis out to the water front, where we found a cute little seafood restaurant (I had a vegetarian penne dish, much to the amusement of my neighbor, who had been hoping to share a lobster dish with me – “You do know this is a seafood joint, right?”) in the shadow of yet another of Napoli’s castles. Dinner was delicious, but a couple of people split a huge crab and were disappointed by how much work it took to get so little meat – this crab had a huge body, but it had short little legs, several of which mysteriously went missing before making their way out to our table. We took more taxis back to the hotel. No one in Napoli obeys traffic laws, by the way. The two taxi rides were terrifying. On our return trip, our driver veered around a corner just as some guy going the opposite direction did the same thing. I swear we nearly collided, but then the other guy sped away, and we did too, swerving in and out of several lanes of traffic. We were all exclaiming our panic, but the taxi driver just shrugged and said, “Eh… Napoli,” and kept on driving.

We went back to Pompeii on Sunday morning, and we got to spend a little time at the forum and markets, and then we were turned loose for about half an hour to explore before regrouping to visit the Villa of the Mysteries. I headed off immediately to find the insula I have spent the past year and a half working on reconstructing for the Digital Pompeii Project. It was almost completely closed off to the public. Out of the entire block, I got to see two of the tiniest houses and a little shop. It was rather disappointing, but at least I can say I’ve been there.

All in all, I can’t say that I particularly liked Naples. I was actually homesick for Rome. Naples was really dirty, with trash piled everywhere, and there were no police officers to be seen all weekend. Here, there are police, security guards, and military personnel everywhere. It’s an off day if I don’t see at least six on my way to school in the morning. Police presence would have come in handy since the men were really pushy and forward, stopping some of the girls on the street and even pulling over to honk and shout about beautiful girls after we crossed the street. I’m glad I went to see Naples, but I’m even more glad to be back safely in Rome.

Favorite Spot

I think I have officially found my favorite spot in Rome: in among the columns of the northern arm of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.


It is peaceful here. I can still hear the noise of scooters and tour buses going through the gates in the Vatican wall nearby, and I have to contend with throngs of tourists to get here, but once I'm here, nestled safely in the cool shade of the columns, everything but the dull murmur of the masses and the chime of falling water ceases to matter. I sit in my sanctuary and watch children chase pigeons and listen for the bells that toll the hour, and I am perfectly at ease. If I sit here long enough, the pigeons stop minding my presence and come to share my stripe of shade for a bath or a nap after gorging themselves on tourists' bread.


All in all, it's not a bad way to spend an hour or an afternoon, alone or with friends, the stone cool against my back, the starred ceiling above me, and pilgrims and pigeons alike going about their merry way all around me.


Interesting side note: Did you know that pigeons can sneeze? It's actually quite cute and rather epic, as they tend to hop a little bit and then shake their heads in confusion.

First day of school...in a Roman palace!!!

"This place is, like, stupid-pretty."

So spoke one of my classmates this morning as we stood by the fountain in the central courtyard of the Palazzo Taverna, a 13th Century palace located between the Piazza Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo, in the heart of the old city. The UA Rome Center occupies several rooms in one wing of the palazzo, and it is filled with Pompeian-style wall paintings, Egyptian-style chandeliers, and crooked, time-worn steps. I think I could get used to this.