Mamma Mia I Went to Italia
What can I possibly say about 9 days in Italia? There is too much...but I will try to give a brief account as best I can:
Three girls from my program and I took our over-packed weekend bags and flew over the Alps to Milan, Italy, for two days in this urban city of intimidating fashion, lots of money, and far too few restaurants/places to find food. Buenos Aires is the main street for shopping, which we walked down several times but kept our pocketbooks close, as we were on a hostel-cheapfood-2nd class budget. Right away Italy was put on the good list as a nice Italian man on the street asked us if we needed help with directions and then proceeded to request additional help from a shopkeeper down the street.
Best Milan discoveries? 80 euro cent espresso. leather gloves. cheap bottled water. BIG dogs. local Italian flea markets where I tower over everyone with all of my blinding blondeness. talented street musicians. The 4th largest church in the world, Milan's Duomo (and our climb to its roof). The bejeweled leather elevetor with tvs in the store that we weren't allowed into...
In Milan, people are so well dressed you want to cry. There's this one street with all the designer clothes--Gucci, Dolce and Gabanna, Prada--and then there's the people in the streets wearing them.
Venice is much more my type. Inexpressibly beautiful, visiting this city is like being in a movie with the best set ever. It's very easy to get lost in this city of canals and tiny medieval streets dead-ending into each other every other corner. And it smells a bit like the ride Pirates of the Carribbean at Disneyland. But in a good way. This is how I'd pictured "Italy," only better. It's truly a postcard come to life. The only setback is that the city is very touristy. I don't think any locals actually live there. But it's a small price to pay for possibly the most romantic city on the planet.
The most authentic part of our first day in Venice was probably resting on a bench across from a very ancient Italian couple listening to a radio while some boys played futball against a centuries-old wall. In some places, you can actually see, very subtly, the building of Venice slowly sinking into their foundations--their foundations of water.
The best part of that day was playing "6 degrees of separation" on a dock we dead-ended into that night and just decided to sit on for a while, swinging our legs over the water. Other awesome things about that day included the outdoor chocolate market, with tons of fresh chocolate of all different shapes and flavors, including scissors, guitars, jasmine-flavored, big blocks that took days to finish...and then eating pomodoro spaghetti at this cheap little place that was so good and tasted like no other spaghetti I've ever had.
"They just don't know how to appreciate the art of the dead end like we do." This quote, which my friend Maddy said, truly sums up our stay in Venice. The next day, after the morning's cup of cappucino, a walk through the city, visits to some really old churches (like all the rest of Europe), a view of the city from the bell tower above St. Mark's square famous for all its annoying pigeons--after all this, we grabbed a picnic lunch and dead-ended where this back street met canal and spent the next several hours devouring foccacia bread, salted pumpkin seeds, and chocolate on the small corner of one canal where we could watch all the tourists on their 80 euro gondola rides cruising by five feet in front of us. All the Asian tourists paused to take our picture, and the gondoliers started flirting with us after their second time around the route. "Omero" (one of them) actually offered Maddy a free ride on the gondola, but that would've required going by herself with the other tourists in the boat. Awkward.
Apparently, Venice is the city of the masquerade. They sell masquerade masks everywhere. Same with glass beads and figurines. But the city's natural beauty is all free--and it sure does live up to it.
Florence is very different from the preceding two cities. It's kind of like Paris, but smaller and it feels older. It's centered around another Duomo cathedral, a beautiful architectural masterpiece of the city. The first night, we ate at a cheap calzone place and received free pastries in compensation for the slight disturbance of a crazy guy who came in. Needless to say, we came in again for breakfast the next morning and dinner the following night--both meals during which we received yet another round of free pastries. :)
The next day featured a date with the statue of David, which was great because we just got to stare at him the whole time. Then we visited this Swedish cemetary where Elizabeth Barret Browning is buried and there was this cute little old nun who used to teach English at Princeton smiling very hard at us in greeting. Later, we had the most delicious proscuttio sandwiches from a deli in some market. Everything was picture perfect, until the walk home when I managed to acquire blood blisters from my shoes, leading me to wear my shower-shoe flip-flops for the next day and a half or so.
The train trip through Tuscany from Florence to Rome is beautiful. Simple vineyard villages, one after the other--its a rustic dream of rolling hills of green and gold and autumn, ancient stone houses telling of some other time and place but really still in use, right then and right there.
Rome. A city that perfects the art of the modern and the B.C. You've got your ruins on your left and your business buildings on your right. And your very, very smelly streets smack in the middle, making Paris seem like a hospital in comparison. Our touristy day in Rome was during a transportation strike, of course, so we walked everywhere: to the Vatican where we saw St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel, then the Piazza del Popola, the Spanish Steps (Trinita dei Monti--unimpressive), the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, the Fontana di Trevi, the Arco di Tito, and more and more and more! Rome is like no other city, with so much history and stories ingrained into its foundation. But I would never want to live there. Too dirty. If there's one thing my visit to Rome told me, it's how much I really do love Paris. Coming home was a dream. I somehow see everything with new eyes, like there's so much more of Paris that I have yet to see and need to see...so it's time to explore my home once again...
Three girls from my program and I took our over-packed weekend bags and flew over the Alps to Milan, Italy, for two days in this urban city of intimidating fashion, lots of money, and far too few restaurants/places to find food. Buenos Aires is the main street for shopping, which we walked down several times but kept our pocketbooks close, as we were on a hostel-cheapfood-2nd class budget. Right away Italy was put on the good list as a nice Italian man on the street asked us if we needed help with directions and then proceeded to request additional help from a shopkeeper down the street.
Best Milan discoveries? 80 euro cent espresso. leather gloves. cheap bottled water. BIG dogs. local Italian flea markets where I tower over everyone with all of my blinding blondeness. talented street musicians. The 4th largest church in the world, Milan's Duomo (and our climb to its roof). The bejeweled leather elevetor with tvs in the store that we weren't allowed into...
In Milan, people are so well dressed you want to cry. There's this one street with all the designer clothes--Gucci, Dolce and Gabanna, Prada--and then there's the people in the streets wearing them.
Venice is much more my type. Inexpressibly beautiful, visiting this city is like being in a movie with the best set ever. It's very easy to get lost in this city of canals and tiny medieval streets dead-ending into each other every other corner. And it smells a bit like the ride Pirates of the Carribbean at Disneyland. But in a good way. This is how I'd pictured "Italy," only better. It's truly a postcard come to life. The only setback is that the city is very touristy. I don't think any locals actually live there. But it's a small price to pay for possibly the most romantic city on the planet.
The most authentic part of our first day in Venice was probably resting on a bench across from a very ancient Italian couple listening to a radio while some boys played futball against a centuries-old wall. In some places, you can actually see, very subtly, the building of Venice slowly sinking into their foundations--their foundations of water.
The best part of that day was playing "6 degrees of separation" on a dock we dead-ended into that night and just decided to sit on for a while, swinging our legs over the water. Other awesome things about that day included the outdoor chocolate market, with tons of fresh chocolate of all different shapes and flavors, including scissors, guitars, jasmine-flavored, big blocks that took days to finish...and then eating pomodoro spaghetti at this cheap little place that was so good and tasted like no other spaghetti I've ever had.
"They just don't know how to appreciate the art of the dead end like we do." This quote, which my friend Maddy said, truly sums up our stay in Venice. The next day, after the morning's cup of cappucino, a walk through the city, visits to some really old churches (like all the rest of Europe), a view of the city from the bell tower above St. Mark's square famous for all its annoying pigeons--after all this, we grabbed a picnic lunch and dead-ended where this back street met canal and spent the next several hours devouring foccacia bread, salted pumpkin seeds, and chocolate on the small corner of one canal where we could watch all the tourists on their 80 euro gondola rides cruising by five feet in front of us. All the Asian tourists paused to take our picture, and the gondoliers started flirting with us after their second time around the route. "Omero" (one of them) actually offered Maddy a free ride on the gondola, but that would've required going by herself with the other tourists in the boat. Awkward.
Apparently, Venice is the city of the masquerade. They sell masquerade masks everywhere. Same with glass beads and figurines. But the city's natural beauty is all free--and it sure does live up to it.
Florence is very different from the preceding two cities. It's kind of like Paris, but smaller and it feels older. It's centered around another Duomo cathedral, a beautiful architectural masterpiece of the city. The first night, we ate at a cheap calzone place and received free pastries in compensation for the slight disturbance of a crazy guy who came in. Needless to say, we came in again for breakfast the next morning and dinner the following night--both meals during which we received yet another round of free pastries. :)
The next day featured a date with the statue of David, which was great because we just got to stare at him the whole time. Then we visited this Swedish cemetary where Elizabeth Barret Browning is buried and there was this cute little old nun who used to teach English at Princeton smiling very hard at us in greeting. Later, we had the most delicious proscuttio sandwiches from a deli in some market. Everything was picture perfect, until the walk home when I managed to acquire blood blisters from my shoes, leading me to wear my shower-shoe flip-flops for the next day and a half or so.
The train trip through Tuscany from Florence to Rome is beautiful. Simple vineyard villages, one after the other--its a rustic dream of rolling hills of green and gold and autumn, ancient stone houses telling of some other time and place but really still in use, right then and right there.
Rome. A city that perfects the art of the modern and the B.C. You've got your ruins on your left and your business buildings on your right. And your very, very smelly streets smack in the middle, making Paris seem like a hospital in comparison. Our touristy day in Rome was during a transportation strike, of course, so we walked everywhere: to the Vatican where we saw St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel, then the Piazza del Popola, the Spanish Steps (Trinita dei Monti--unimpressive), the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, the Fontana di Trevi, the Arco di Tito, and more and more and more! Rome is like no other city, with so much history and stories ingrained into its foundation. But I would never want to live there. Too dirty. If there's one thing my visit to Rome told me, it's how much I really do love Paris. Coming home was a dream. I somehow see everything with new eyes, like there's so much more of Paris that I have yet to see and need to see...so it's time to explore my home once again...
posted by Maggie at
1:23 PM
2 Comments:
why do you have to be SO GOOD at relaying stories? i always feel like i'm right there with you and then get so sad that i'm not! man oh man. do you have any other trips planned before you come home? i'm assuming yes, so where are you planning on going?
i'm trying figure out that last trip right now, cate. i'm thinking a weekend in london would be a splendid way to finish off my pocketbook, what say you?
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