I left my heart in Orvieto (and some ruins)

Saturday was my personal day to brave Italian transportation and find my way to Orvieto. Actually it was super easy and I'm pretty sure I can get anywhere now. Anyways, Orvieto is about an hour north of Viterbo and it's an old fortress town on top of a hill. The train station is at the bottom of the hill and you have to ride the funicular to the top.

Right next to the funicular at the top is an old fortress with a commanding view of the countryside.

Panorama from the the battlements. A road zigzags down the face of the hill. It was very smoky because everyone seemed to be burning trash that day.

Next to the fortress was some monument, undecipherable to me but beautiful nonetheless.

On the other side of the funicular is the Well of Saint Patrick, built by a pope who fled to Orvieto after the sacking of Rome and decided that no one sieges a walled town, on a hill, with a well. And he was right. Alternate views from the top and the bottom.

And next to the well was some Etruscan ruins, which you can just walk up to and pretend like you're Etruscan, although no one really has any idea what they were all about. This used to be a temple. Actually a lot of the area surrounding Orvieto is rife with Etruscan ruins and artifacts, which explains why there are not one but TWO Archaeological Museums in town. Both of which I went to later in the day. 

But before the museums...

The Duomo of Orvieto, which I'm pretty sure is one of the most beautiful Gothic style churches in all of Italy. Each mosaic depicts some sort of the scene from the Bible, which I could read from the pamphlet and tell you but maybe another time. Pictures in the Duomo are strictly forbidden, so the ones I did take were from the hip, all incognito like. I felt like a Russian spy.

  Snapshot of the ceiling and one of the stained glass window behind the altar.

The real big sight inside the Duomo is the chapel of San Brizio, conveniently installed with camera detecting alarms. I only managed one or two blurry pics before the alarm sounded and a grumpy guard showed up to yell at the wrong person while I whisked away scot free.

After that it was pauso pranza and the only thing open besides pizzerias was the Museo Archaelogico Civico. The real highlight of the museum was a collection of Roman coins, which were displayed in a rotating case so you could see both sides.

Now the bad news. Pauso pranza still hadn't ended yet so I hoped I could head over to Pozzo della Cava, an Etruscan cave and get there in time for to open and get inside. As luck would have it, the only solid week that the cave is closed happened inextricably to be the same week I thought it a good idea to visit Viterbo. On top of that, I had missed the last tour to see the other Etruscan caves and the Etruscan Necropolis was at this point too far to get to and make it back for the 5:22 train.

Defeated, I grabbed lunch and headed back to the Duomo to visit some of the surrounding galleries. Oddly enough, included in the galleries for Renaissance art and pieces from the Duomo was a gallery dedicated to Emilio Greco. Click on this to see his work: Artwork.

I still had an hour to kill before I needed to leave to make it back to the train so I figured what that hell, why not another archaeological museum? Posing as an art history student, I got the reduced ticket price and geeked out over even more Etruscan artifacts. I'm quickly becoming a fanatic about a culture I know almost nothing about.

Besides an amazing collection of terracotta sculptures, jewelry, and household objects, they had these suckers. You might be thinking this is Roman, but nay, this is Etruscan armor. At least... I think so. Regardless, how awesome is that?

I have decided to return to Orvieto to spend the whole day doing nothing but visiting the Etruscan caves and necropolis. On the 4th, I depart for the weekend to Florence to stay with mia amica Vivian and try to cram in the top 6 sites within a 3 day period. Wish me luck.

Sidenote: Some people are hollering for more information about the cuisine in Italy. I have been eating on the cheap in order to have more money for travel. That being said, I've started making an effort to take pics of food, both home cooked and purchased. When I have enough, I'll dedicate a whole blog post to nothing but the gluttonous glory of food. And wine... lots of wine.

Vatican Day

January 21

Alrighty, we arrived in Rome about 11:30 with the sole intention of spending the day in and around Vatican city. I'm not going to write much, since the pictures will speak for themselves and even then, they fail to do proper justice.

The good 'ole panorama from St. Peter's Square.

One of my favorite pics, this guy sits in front of the steps to St. Peter's Basilica.

We decided as a group that it would be worth 5 Euro and climbing 551 steps to reach the top of the Cupola. If you look at the first panorama and look at the 3rd topmost ring on the dome, there are actually people up there. Yeah, it's huge.

A sadly incomplete panorama of the inside ceiling of the dome that you walk through on your way to the top.

You can see all of Rome in every direction at the top.

Facing away from St. Peter's Square. The long building on the right is the 4 mile expanse of the Vatican Museum. Of course I had to take advantage of using the tilt-shift effect.

The rest of the photos are from the inside of the Basilica. I'm not going to write anything because frankly, I hardly spoke for the better part of an hour and a half that I spent inside. Click for a full-view.

These are the best of the ones I've managed to edit so far. I can only say that I will be returning to the Basilica again and that if you do nothing else exciting in your life, you should at least come to Rome. 

Bagnaia

January 16

Alright, so every year the town of Bagnaia lights these huge bonfires. Don't ask me why because it was never explained to me. We took the bus from Viterbo, after missing the first one. The square was packed but it wasn't too bad since standing anywhere within 200 feet of the fire provided plenty of warmth.

Standing within like 50 feet of this sucker was like sitting in an oven.

Some of the USAC students huddled together for warmth. From front to back: Kim, Katie, Kate, Ben, and Stephen. After all the photo ops, we waited in line for dinner, which was totally worth it. Grilled lamb... enough said.

Meanwhile...

Italians love rock and roll, even if they don't understand a word of English. Dancing to Classic Rock when the singer is slurring all the wrong words together is really funny. Some of the USAC girls jumped onto the stage to dance. I'm pretty sure the band thought they were groupies.

Anyways, so the bus didn't run after 10pm, so it was a cold 3 1/2 miles home. Still had a lot of fun though.

Update

Alright, so I'm like 3 or 4 blog posts behind right now so I'm gonna just summarize what's been going on the past week and I'll put up the formal blog posts once I'm done being a perfectionist over my photos. Last Monday we took a bus to the nearby town of Bagnaia, where huge bonfires and live music took place. Tuesday-Thursday was dedicated to school. Friday consisted of more exploring Viterbo (there are more side streets and back alleys than you can imagine). Saturday was Vatican Day, which was mind-numbingly beautiful and I took some 300 photos that day. Yesterday was an easy day, going to the park and our weekly family dinner, which the girls absolutely rocked at. I swear those stuffed artichokes were made by angels.

So have a little patience and trust me, you won't be disappointed with the photos. =)

Rome Field Trip

Alright, so I took something like 200 photos in Rome on Saturday and most of them are crap so here's a condensed and glossy overview of the day. It was a very cold and early morning when we arrived in Rome after a 2 hour train ride. 

First thing we saw after we hopped of the metro was of course the Coliseum. Our tour guide spoke to us through personal radios, which was a bummer since it could be hard to hear her sometimes. Also a bummer is the fact that we did not actually get to go inside, something about a logistical problem. That didn't stop me from being blown away by its sheer size and magnificence. Our tour proceeded to Palatino Hill, the hill on which Romulus founded Rome. Everywhere you looked was stock full of ruins. Below is a panorama of what I believe was a palace but don't quote me on that.

 A walk down the other side of the hill took us to the Forum, kind of like the Parliament building for the Romans. The place was littered with half-obliterated columns and fallen monuments. We got to see where Marc Antony gave his speech over Caesar's corpse and the tour guide told us that people still bring flowers to the spot. I'm pretty sure just to taunt me, the tour guide walked us through Capitoline Hill, home to 3 separate art museums, pictured below. Rest assured I will be returning there.

Our tour concluded at the Pantheon, which is way bigger than I had imagined. I tried to take a panorama in there but it didn't really turn out so that's on my to do list next time I go to Rome. After that we were given maps and left to our devices. Needing a map in Rome is almost irrelevant since every piazza seemed to have either a church, column, fountain, or statue. Of course, we had to act like tourists and see all the typical stuff, like the Trevi Fountain.

It really is the most beautiful fountain I have ever seen. The downside to being the most beautiful fountain is the amount of people who swarm around. EVERYBODY was intent on doing the whole "throw a coin over your shoulder while your picture is taken" thing. The rest of the day I played tour guide (I had the only map in our group) and checked out a number of piazzas, parks, and churches. At one point, we just happened to be at the right place at the right time to witness the changing of the guard at Quirinal Palace. 

Our day ended at the Spanish Steps, another popular tourist spot. We climbed all the way to the top of the steps and checked out the church at the top before coming outside to catch the sunset. 

All in all, I think I walked upwards of 5 or 6 miles during the day. Needless to say, the bulk of Sunday was spent in recovery. Classes start this week and for once I'm actually excited to go to class. I spent part of today (Monday) getting lost in Viterbo so maybe I'll post some of those photos in the next day or two

Moving in and getting Familiar

These past three days have mostly been spent with all sorts of orientation and getting used to finding our way around the city.

 This is Porta Romana, one of two main gates for the walled "downtown" part of Viterbo. The school is 2 min outside of the gate, an old church that has been repurposed for a school. More pics of the school will follow in the next couple of days. A 15 minute walk along the outside of the wall to the left leads to the apartment that I share with Fulvio, Ben, and Garret.

 The Winged Fountain, kind of in the middle of town. It's the common meeting spot for the USAC group.

We moved into our apartment on Wednesday. We live on the 3 floor and it was quite a surprise to see how nice it was. We have marble and tile floors, pretty fancy! This is mine and Ben's room. We have more storage than  we know what to do with although you can't see it in the picture. Fulvio and Garret have the single rooms but I don't hold it against them. 

 Our swanky living room, complete with glass chandelier. The table is made of marble if you can believe it! There is no way that a student could possibly afford this quality of place in the U.S.

The small but comfortable kitchen. Washing machines take place of dishwashers in the kitchen which is a bit bizzare. I have yet to use the kitchen.

A brief recap of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Wednesday consisted of moving into our apartments, getting a tour of the city, and getting cellphones from the post office, of all places. The only 4 guys in the program (myself included) cooked dinner for about 30-35 girls.
Most of Thursday and Friday were spent in school, getting orientated (pretty sure that's not a word). Both afternoons we had our first Italian language classes, involving a lot of awkward silences and bursts of laughter. Mi piace la professora ma non parla inglese in leccione! Dificile!

Tomorrow we have to wake up bright and early for a day long field-trip to Rome, which includes a tour of the Coliseum and the Pantheon. Rest assured that lots of pictures will be taken.

The First Day

 Arrived at LAX with some time to spare so I was goofing around with the tilt-shift preset on my lovely camera. Both the flight to London and the flight to Rome went fairly smoothly, despite a minor delay on the Rome leg, which gave me time to be found by some fellow USAC students and get to know them.
Fast forward to landing in Rome, where the whole student group gathered and found our way through passport control, baggage claim, and finding the group transportation. The 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Viterbo gave us some more time to meet and get to know one another.

 So we arrived at the hotel and got assigned rooms with just a couple of minutes before we all took a walk inside the city to Il Portico for some awesome courses of bruschetta and pizza. Pictured below on the right, front to back is Kate, Lindsay, Stephen, and Maggie. On the left are Italian students Lucia, Alliai (that's her more pronounceable nickname and I'm pretty sure it's spelled wrong), and not pictured behind her is Elena. We spent the better part of four hours playing Scattergories on the place mats and teaching each other some words and hand gestures. A lot of laughing took place during the whole affair.

It's been a fantastic first day and now I'm going to try and sleep but I doubt that'll happen. Tomorrow we get a tour of the city, move into housing, and obtain cellphones. After that... "Bo", which according to the Italian students means "I don't know".