Sunday at Elizabeth's
On Sunday, the group was invited to Elizabeth’s house for a picnic and just time to hangout as a group. Elizabeth has an amazing house out in the countryside near Florence. While it was quite an adventure actually getting there on the unpaved roads on the bus, the scenery and food was worth it.
We had several kinds of lasagna, chicken and other sides for lunch. Apple pie, cheesecake, and chocolate salami for desert, and then we played a bit of soccer before going inside for a sing-along with our Italian teachers, several of whom could play pretty much anything on the guitar. We sang a ton of classic songs, and then as the finale for our afternoon, we got to see Elizabeth’s flag twirling team perform for us.
The afternoon was a great group event and a lot of fun for everyone. Now it’s the school week, and classes are officially starting.
(Our little sing-a-long session. With Andrea, the Italian teacher playing guitar)
(Everyone getting ready to watch the flag twirling, with some of Elizabeht's land in the bacground)
(Elizabeth's flag twirling team)
(From left to right: Me, Mike Rennaker- in the back, Mattia, Keith Bergh- in the back, Drew Allen, and Lamberto)
Rimini and San Marino
Friday was our last day of intensive Italian, and that meant we had a written final in the morning, oral final after that, and then a pizza party with our classes and professors in the evening. The tests went well enough. The dinner was amazing, it was a full on Italian meal with multiple courses, all the pizza we could eat and a lot of good times. After eating, we decided to go out to celebrate the end of our intensive Italian. About 30 of us went to a discoteca named Central Park in the Parco Cascine. Normally the cover is 16euro, but American students get in free. We had a good time there, and headed back to the villa way too late.
My train the next morning for Rimini was to leave Florence at 5:28am. John and I left the villa at 5:13am for the fifteen minute walk to the station. We made it to the station and bought tickets at 5:29am, and were on the train just a minute later. Had the train been on time, we would not have made it. All that said, it was pretty impressive that we actually made the train that early after getting only 1 ½ hours of sleep. About ten others missed trains to various places because of the late night and sleeping in, but we made it. We had to change trains about 2 hours later in Faenza, some small town I’d never heard of. A short ride after that, we were in Rimini and looked at taking the bus into San Marino. The next bus was not to leave for another hour or so, so John and I walked into the Centro of Rimini, looked around at the churches main streets and other stuff of interest before heading back to the bus station to get our bus to San Marino.
(One of the old entrances to Rimini, with a newer church in the background)
The bus ride took about 45 minutes, most of that was taken up by the bus slowly climbing up a long and winding hill that lead up to central San Marino. The country is very small and land-locked, and the portion that most people see is that old city that is perched atop a mountain with some serious cliffs and amazing views. We got there, walked around taking all the views of the surrounding countryside and ocean in the distance, and also looking around the many shops selling expensive stuff. San Marino is something of a shopper’s paradise as there is no tax there, so many tourists, as well as Italians, go there to shop. We then went into the first of the forts, or castles. We climbed around there for a bit, climbed up the tower for some amazing panoramic views, went to the second castle for some more of the same, but better views of the city. After that, we had lunch at a pizzeria, looked around the rest of the centro before heading back down to Rimini and the beach. We spent most of the afternoon on the beach in Rimini and walking around the port before heading back to Florence fairly early that evening. We had to go back through Bologna, so we stopped off there to have dinner before finally making it back to Florence at about 10, about 17 hours after leaving for our day trip.
(Heading up the hill to the center of San Marino)
(View from the top of the mountain)
(One of the 3 castles in San Marino)
(Me at the castle above, with another in the background)
(The beach at Rimini)
Cinque Terre
Hey everyone! This weekend was our first opportunity to travel since classes have started here. I had predetermined that my first trip would be to Cinque Terre, and the idea seemed real popular with people in the house in the beginning, in fact, I’d say that at one point, 35 people were planning to go, but then we saw the weather forecasts. They called for a 70% chance of rain on Saturday, and a 50% chance on Sunday. That drove people away, so it turned out that only 6 of us wanted to go and risk it.
John, Kaycie, Ariana, Courtney, Brenden, and I left on the 7:50 train from Firenze to La Spezia. We got there at about 10:00 and then got onto a train to Riomaggiore and arrived there about 15 minutes later.
From the train station, we bought our passes to make the hike between the five towns for the weekend and were off.
Ariana, John, Me, and Brenden before starting the hikes.
The first hike, from Riomaggiore to Manarola was real easy. It took us 10 minutes or so on a paved sidewalk. We looked around Manarola a bit, and then had to catch the train from there to Corniglia, the third town, as the path between the two was flooded and deemed impassable. From there, we climbed up a killer set of stairs and were in Corniglia. We went to the traditional vista points there, took lots of pictures of the other four towns, had gelato and were on our way to Vernazza, the fourth town. The hike from Corniglia to Vernazza is one of the more difficult hikes in Cinque Terre, taking about ninety minutes, and requiring some serious ascents and descents on narrow and steep staircases. About thirty minutes into out kike, we started to hear thunder off to the East, so we sped up, determined to beat the rain to Vernazza. We ended up making the hike in just over an hour, and ended up beating the rain into Vernazza. The weather up to this point had been bright and sunny, in the mid eighties, but shortly after we got to Vernazza, it started to rain.
The six of us on the breakwater in Monterosso.
We talked about it and decided to take the train to Monterosso, the last town, find a place to stay and enjoy our evening there. So, at about 16:30, we got on a train to Monterosso and were searching for a place to stay. We asked at several places and found nothing promising for the six of us, and I was about ready to suggest sleeping in the train station I shifts when we found the Hotel Souvenir and discovered that they had a “bungalow” that could hold six people, and were only going to charge 100 Euro for it. That worked out to about 17 Euro each, so that’s what we decided to do. It was perfect because we all got a bed and had our own bathroom, and had a roof over us. It was kinda a small room for 6, and we did see a dead scorpion on the floor, but other than that, it was perfect.
We decided to take a nap and then go out for a nice dinner, so after a quick nap, we called a restaurant located about 2 kilometers outside Monterosso, so we made reservations for the six of us, and they told us that they would send a shuttle to pick us up, so at 8:00 we were on our was to il ristorante il Ciliegio. They are famous for their pesto sauce and their seafood. We got there, and ordered Prosciutto con Melone for our antipasto, along with a bottle of white, and a bottle of red wine. For our Primi Piatti, we went with the Trofie al Pesto (Trofie is a Ligurian pasta that is called their speciality), Ravioli al Ragu, and the Trofie al Pesce Spada (swordfish). The Trokie al Pesce Spada was simply amazing. It was kinda spicy but it was welcome because hardly any Italian food is. The rest of it was great as well. For our secondo, we for fried seafood and potatoes, as well as sever different kinds of fish. It was all great, but at this point we were stuffed. We finished most all of it, found room for some tiramisu and sat around talking and enjoying ourselves, trying to make this as traditional an Italian meal as possible. The restaurant gave us a couple of postcards to send to people, so we sent them back here to the villa to tell people about our amazing trip and stuff like that. Then, the restaurant gave us an apertivo which we gladly accepted. About an hour after that, we headed off, back to the shuttle.
Me, on the hike from Monterosso to Vernazza, Vernazza is in the background.
Brenden, John, and I decided that the tip of that rock would be the perfect place for a pic.
We got to the city and decided to look around a bit, so headed to the beach and wandered around for a bit before going back to head for bed.
When we woke up Sunday morning, we say that it was slightly overcast, but not raining anymore. We got breakfast at a bar around the corner from our hotel and then headed to the trail to hike from Monterosso to Vernazza, the hike that the rain didn’t allow us to do the day before. This was the most difficult of the hikes that we did, it took us about ninety minutes, including about twenty minutes of straight stair climbing. The views we saw were amazing and the hike was completely worth it. We had vineyards to our left and cliffs then ocean to our right. When we got to Vernazza, we looked around the city for several hours, got lunch at a pizzeria, and then caught a train back to Pisa. It rained a ton while we were on the train, and thought about what the weather must have been like in Florence all weekend. We got to Pisa then immediately got on a train back to Florence. We made it back in the pouring rain just in time to catch Sunday dinner. Everyone had a great weekend, and for it being our first weekend of travel, everything went amazingly smooth.
(I took more pictures, I promise, but our internet here was real slow in uploading them)
The First Few Days
The group got here the other day, and now as we approach the end of our second full day orientation is almost over and intensive Italian is starting on Monday.
I got room 14, a 3 person room. My roommates are Drew Allen and Myles Allen (no relation). We've got a pretty good room that over looks the courtyard, has a big bathroom, and doesn't require the climbing of a ton of stairs to get there.
Everything has been going smoothly so far, we have had class sessions for most of the day, but have also had some excursions that have been fun. The first night, we went to Piazzale Michelangelo. Last night was the train station and gelato, and today was Piazzale Michelangelo again and Fiesole.
Right now, we are just trying to figure out a way to watch the OSU-Texas game here.
That's all for now, but here is a picture of me, Myles and Drew at Piazzale Michelangelo.
Ireland Trip
The day after I got into Florence, I headed out to Ireland. I just couldn’t get enough travel so I decided to kinda retrace my steps and fly about 1500 miles back to the states. Before leaving Florence, I bought a Carta Verde- green card (not like those in the states but a discount card for rail tickets), and then I was off to Pisa as I was to leave from there later that day.
(Me about to leave the villa)
After the hour or so train ride that I’ve taken many times I was in Pisa Because I had several hours before I needed to be at the airport to check in, I decided to take my traditional hour and a half tour of the city. I have thought for a long time that Pisa is overrated, and this trip reconfirmed that. I walked into the city center which took about fifteen minutes, spend an hour or so looking around there at the leaning tour, duomo and baptistery before eating a quick lunch and heading back to the station to get the train to the airport.
(The Duomo and Leaning tower of Pisa)
After checking in and waiting for a bit, I was on the plane to Ireland. A short flight later, I was on the ground in Dublin and headed to the city center on a bus. The bus dropped my off at Connelly street, and from there the hostel’s directions advised me to take a bus to the hostel, but I decided to walk. After eating dinner I headed off looking for my hostel. I had a map but didn’t really use it. I went north on Connelly street and at the head of the street, I decided to stop in a pub to ask directions. This would be a common occurrence during my trip. I frequently stopped into pubs to ask for directions and to have a pint. After having a beer and obtaining directions, I went back in the opposite direction and walked for about 45 minutes, asking directions several times before finally finding the hostel. It turns out that had I gone the right way, I would not have had to turn at all, just follow a pretty twisted street a very long way. I checked into the hostel and freshened up a bit and then went back out to another pub and to use the internet for a minute. After that I returned to the hostel to head to bed.
(The St. James' Gate Brewery)
I woke up at about 9 the next morning, had a quick breakfast of toast and coffee in the hostel and then walked right around the corner, literally to the Guinness Storehouse. I was there when it opened at 9:30 like I had planned because I thought it would be very crowded later in the day. I paid my entry fee, got a souvenir and a token to exchange for my pint and was off exploring the museum. I learned all about the ingredients, the process and the history of the stout and about how it was marketed and sold world wide. After going through about 6 floors of various exhibits, I made it to the top of the plant and to the bar. I exchanged my token for a pint and enjoyed it while taking in the view of the city from above. The bar at the top of the storehouse is surrounded in windows so there is a full view of the city. I even saw a rainbow from there, a real Irish rainbow, and I got my picture taken, at the Guinness storehouse, with a pint, with a rainbow in the background. It was pretty cool.
(Me with the pint of Guinness at the Storehoure bar, with Dublin in the background, and a faintly visibly rainbow in the upperlefthand corner)
From the storehouse, I walked back into town, had lunch near the river and then was off to Trinity College to see the grounds and the Book of Kells. I got lost along the way, so I stopped by another pub, had a beer and talked to the bartender a bit and was on my way with directions and advice on what to see. I saw the Book of Kells which was pretty impressive and saw all the history associated with it in the exhibits and then headed out onto the grounds. After walking around the grounds for a bit, I headed to St. Patrick’s Cathedral which was only a short way away. I paused in the grounds outside the church for a break and then had a look around. After that, I went to the banks of the Liffey river and walked down the river bank to the port of Dublin to have a look around. After returning from the excursion, I stopped for dinner at a Subway, for a somewhat healthy meal, stopped by the famous Temple bar for a pint, and then went to the hostel.
(St. Patrick's Cathedral)
After resting for a bit at the hostel, I went to the pub nearby to see the Euro ‘08 qualifier between Ireland and Germany. I watched the match between the favorite Germany and Ireland in the pub with about 100 locals who were passionate about every second of the game. Ireland played very well, but lost 1-0 which was a respectable, and not unexpected result for the Irish. The fans at the pub seemed happy enough about the game, and after talking football with a guy sitting near me, I went back to the hostel and went to bed.
The next day was when I had planned to make my trip up to Belfast, but the train I wanted to catch was due to leave at about 14:30, so I had all morning and a bit of the afternoon to look around Dublin. I went to Dublin Castle first and had a look around there, didn’t get to go inside anything as it was Sunday and most everything was closed at this point in the morning. From there I decided to head to St. Stephen’s greens, a pretty large park. I walked around there a bit, saw the various statues, including those of Art Guinness and James Joyce, and was about to sit down to relax for a bit, it started to rain. I thought at this point that it was time for me to get lunch and head to the station cause both would be sheltered, so that’s what I did. I ate, and bought my ticket and then waited in the station for a bit to catch the train up to Belfast. The train was much nicer that those in Italy, but the ticket price reflected that added luxury. I enjoyed the scenery that included the coastline and traditional Irish hills and green pastures during the two and a half hour train ride. I got to Belfast mid afternoon and walked from the station in the general direction of the city center and my hostel. I had a quick look around the city center and then went to the hostel. This hostel was much nicer than the one I stayed in while I was in Dublin. I went to my room and saw that I was the only one in there at the moment so I paused and freshened up before heading back out.
(Queen's University)
I walked a short ways to Queen’s University and saw the grounds there and after looking at all that I could before the sun went down, I had dinner at a pub while listening to some Irish music before heading back to the hostel and bed.
The next morning I went on a semi organized tour to the Causeway Coast. The bus left the hostel at about 10 and headed north along the coast through Larne, stopping for the first time at one of the nine Glens of Northen Ireland. We stopped at Carnlough, a tiny port town with little more than a harbor and several houses. After taking in the town for a few minutes, the bus was off to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. This bridge is a fairly wobbly rope bridge of about 15 meters that connects the main land of Ireland to a small island that salmon fishers use for their work. The bridge hangs over a 80 foot drop off, and sways both with the wind, and then even more so as people walk across it. It was a lot of fun and I got to see some amazing scenery along the mile or so walk from the parking lot to the bridge. We could even see a bit of Scotland from the coast up there
(Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge)
(Another pic of the bridge)
From there, we went to the small town of Bushmills for lunch. Some of you may know that this is the town where Bushmills’ Irish Whiskey is brewed, and the tiny town does indeed house the oldest whiskey distillery in Europe, if not the world. I briefly saw the distillery before going to a pub and having lunch there. After that, it was off to the highlight of the tour, the Giant’s Causeway. Legend has it that an Irish giant named Finn MacCool built the causeway to get to his lover on an island off the coast of Scotland, but it was probably just created by volcanic activity as most geologists believe. Anyway, the causeway is a geological formation of thousands of hexagonal shaped rocks that for something like a peninsula out into the ocean for 200 feet or so. It was really amazing to walk all around the place and see the thousands of rocks and how each are placed together almost like a puzzle. It was fascinating, and after spending quite some time there, I walked further down the path to some view points and then finally, I hiked up the cliff to see the view of the causeway from above
(Giant's Causeway)
(Me at the Causeway)
We left there in the late afternoon and then headed to Dunluce castle, an ancient looking castle on the coast. I don’t really know how old it is, but it looks as if parts of it have fallen into the ocean. It started to rain as we arrived so the visit there which was only due to be about 15 minutes turned into a quick photo opt and then we were on our way back to Belfast. The tour was an amazing, but kinda expensive way to see a lot of the northern coast, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see that area. Once back in Belfast, I got some dinner and then went to the hostel and immediately went to bed.
(Dunluce Castle)
The next day was my day to explore Belfast. It was supposed to rain all day, so I was surprised to see that it was clear when I woke up. Not knowing how long the semi-clear looking skies would hold up, I decided to head up to Shankill road to see all the monuments and historical murals there. I walked all up and down the road and saw a ton of the murals and noticed all the historical monuments there. After taking pictures there, I headed back to the city center and ate lunch quickly before heading off to St. Anne’s cathedral. I toured the cathedral which was a cross between a church and war memorial to the Irish.
(Signs on Shankill Road)
(Another Mural on Shankill Road)
From there, I walked down the main road in Belfast and looked through the Castle Place mall there briefly. From there I went to the Belfast city hall which was celebrating it’s centennial anniversary this year, so I looked around the grounds and then the exhibition on it’s history before heading to the Belfast Opera house which was undergoing serious renovations to the facade. From there, I saw the Europa hotel which is the most frequently bombed hotel in Europe. I left there pretty quickly and went by the Crown bar, a gorgeous bar that is built entirely of marble in many different colors. After that, I headed back to Queen’s University and saw the botanical gardens there which had closed by the time I got there the other day. After walking around there I went to the University’s Ulster museum which turned out to be something like a natural history museum. There was an exhibition of dinosaurs, geology, animals or Ireland, and mummies, but then there were also exhibitions on Irish art, and Irish participation in wars throughout history. From there, I didn’t really know what to do, so I went to a pub and watched some horse racing there. From there, I went back in the direction of the hostel and decided to go for a walk along the river. I saw the enormous cranes that build ships in the harbor, the same harbor that built the Titanic. On the way back, I saw a movie theater and went to see a movie in English, something that is going to be a rarity in the upcoming months. I saw You, Me, and Dupree as it was the only thing on there that I hadn’t already seen. From there, I went back to the hostel to spend my final night in Ireland.
(Belfast City Hall)
The next morning, I took my time getting ready and then headed out for one last walk through the city center of Belfast before heading to the rail station. I took the train back down to Dublin and got off and immediately went to the boardwalk of the river for lunch. From there it was off to a pub for my last pint in Ireland. After that it was off to the airport and then back to Pisa. The flight was delayed a bit, but that was ok as I knew I was going to have to wait for some time once I got to Pisa for my bus back into Florence. The flight passed without incident, and I made it back to the villa at about 2am. After that it was onto bed and now I’m just here today with the two other students that have already arrived waiting for the main group to get in later today.
In review, I’m really glad that I came early to see Ireland. I had an amazing time there, but it was tough, especially the first day and last day being alone. Traveling alone wore me out, as did carrying around my 12 pound backpack everywhere. It didn’t seem like much during the morning hours but as the day wore on, it got heavier and heavier. I was also worn out because of all the walking I did. I figure I walked an average of 10 miles a day there, and carrying the backpack made it seem that much longer. I’m glad to be back in Florence but also very happy that I made the trip. It’s lunch time here so I’m going to go, but there will be more later as the year officially starts today.
(Our little sing-a-long session. With Andrea, the Italian teacher playing guitar)
(Everyone getting ready to watch the flag twirling, with some of Elizabeht's land in the bacground)
(Elizabeth's flag twirling team)
(From left to right: Me, Mike Rennaker- in the back, Mattia, Keith Bergh- in the back, Drew Allen, and Lamberto)
