Firenze 2006-2007: Roma and Venezia

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Roma and Venezia

This last week we went to two of the most famous cities in Italy, each for just a day. On Wednesday, the entire group had a field trip to Roma to see the Pope and do several other things off the beaten track. Then, yesterday, what seemed like the whole group made the trek up to Venezia for a taste of the Carnivale.
We left Florence very early on Wednesday, and got on a train to Roma, getting there at about 8:30- the time most people would have usually been getting up on regular days. We then all somehow took the subway to the Vatican without losing anyone. We got instructions for the day, and walked around to the auditorium where our audience with the Pope would be. None of us had any idea what to expect with this audience, so I guess you can say that we weren’t surprised to see that it was an auditorium that seated about 2,000-3,000 people. We got seats and then started to look around the room and saw flags from about 10-12 different countries, and various banners from organizations etc. The audience finally started with a short sermon by the Pope which was then repeated in five other languages, so we heard the thing six times. After that, a priest or someone like that started introducing the groups, and when he said a group they would all stand up and cheer or sing. It was pretty cool, especially when they announced our group. In the end, there was the Lord’s prayer in Latin and that was it. It wasn’t that intimate a setting, but it was pretty coo because we did get to hear the Pope preach and take part in the kind of “pep-rally” that he has every week. After that, it was lunch time so West, Steven, Conner, and I went to find some pizza near our meeting point. We did rather quickly, ate it and were still hungry. Still having an hour or so we walked around some more and got some Chinese food before heading off to the meeting point and our next stop in Roma. We all got on our bus and headed to the Catacombs that are just outside the city. The Catacombs are old, old underground burial sites that the Christians used in the first few centuries A.D. We took a tour of one of them- a good thirty feet below the current street level. This Catacomb was on Via Appia, a road that Paul is sure to have traveled several times in and our of Roma. We took the pretty eerie tour of the underground system of tunnels and tombs. We saw all the major tombs and passage ways before heading to see the burial place of St. Sebastian in a church above the Catacombs. From there, it was onto the Church of the Bones, which strangely enough is on a road in Roma that I know quite well (it’s only like 50 yards from the Hard Rock), but I never knew the church was there. The thing with this Church is that the monks didn’t believe in death, or at least burial it seems because they would use the bones of their fallen brothers to decorate their chapels. It was really weird, but also kinda cool to see. From there, it was back to the station and our train back to Florence. We were back for a late dinner and for me, bed.
Then, yesterday several of us went up to Venezia to see what exactly Carnivale was. We left pretty early as we only intended to stay for the day and wanted all the time we could get, so by noon we were in Venice. We walked through the labyrinth of tiny streets and alleys as well as bridges over canals to get from the St. Lucia station to the Rialto bridge and then St. Mark’s square. We got something to eat just off St. Mark’s square and then headed into the church, I have to say, the church is so much nicer when it isn’t flooded. From there we headed out into the piazza to see what was going on with the Carnivale scene. We ran into several other Pepperdiners who were there for the day as well so we played with the pigeons and talked to them for a while before heading to the water front at the far end of the piazza for some pictures. It was about then that we learned that the Carnivale events would begin at about 4:30 that afternoon, so we got all our return stuff squared away and made sure that we would have as much time as possible to see what was going on. At 4:30 we were in St. Mark’s square and watched as the stage that had been set up started to attract people, and a few minutes later there were some actors that came on stage. They did a short scene introducing the Carnivale and the events before other, smaller stages in the piazza started to attract people as well as there were scenes going on there. We walked around the piazza, looking around when we noticed that there were a ton of people collecting around the waterfront area, so we went to see what was going on. We saw a parade that was starting there, with a marching band and flag twirlers followed by people in costume and then people carrying women to the stage. We learned that the guys carrying the girls to the stages were carrying participants in some sort of a beauty contest, so we picked up one of our girls and tried to get into the parade, but were unsuccessful. We watched the parade and all the other goings on in the piazza before going to get a quick bite to eat before catching our train back to Bologna and then Florence. We ended up getting back at about midnight which was perfect. We all felt like we had got an idea of what Carnivale in Venezia is like and all got to see the city, or at least the main points of interest.
Now we are back in Florence and just around here for the rest of the weekend, recovering and getting ready to leave for Turkey on Tuesday.