Roma If You Want To: Outside the Walls...

It’s been an adventure-packed week and a half since I last posted on here, and I’ve since ventured out of the city walls twice—a field trip to Ostia Antica and a weekend excursion to Viterbo.

Having finished two weeks of classes, I’ve adjusted to my daily routine and I really feel like I am living in Rome, not just visiting. I am now friends with Florin, our barista at our favorite café, I know the shortcuts to our studio building without getting too lost and how to cross the streets (eek!), I can order pizza or gelato in Italian, and I figured out which 2 euro bottles of wine are the best. I wouldn’t call myself a Pro-talian yet, but I’m getting there...ha!

Last Friday we took a field trip to Ostia Antica, the ancient port town outside of Rome. Though much of the place appeared to be ‘just some more ruins’, with the help of Allan’s explanations and maps, we were able to understand what we were looking at (i.e., ancient bathrooms), and we lucked out with another perfectly sunny day.

On Saturday, I caught a train out of Rome with three friends—Eric, Dan, and Marissa—and headed for Viterbo, a small Medieval town that is still almost entirely enclosed by its massive defensive walls, and Civita di Bangnoregio, an almost-abandoned town built into/ontop of a mountain. Once we arrived in Viterbo after a two-hour train ride from Rome, we realized that none of us had written down the name or address of our hotel…but we set off to find it anyways. With the help of free wifi from a local bookstore and Marissa’s iTouch, we found our hotel, where we were able to get some directions to our real destination: Civita di Bangnoregio. After some confusion at the bus station, we got on a bus and, despite our complete uncertainty, made it to Bagnoregio (insert ‘woohoo!’ here).

The small town of Bagnoregio that lead to the Civita felt deserted, and we wandered around the streets, finding our way through winding alleyways that lead to magnificent views of the surrounding valley and mountains. At the end of Bagnoregio, the Civita immerged in the distance, and we realized we had only an hour before the last bus would leave Bagnoregio—our only way back. Feeling the pressure of being potentially stranded, we kept our eyes on the time and hiked up to the Civita.

Over the last 800 years, Civita, which was founded by the Etruscans in 400 BC, has experienced major erosion around the outer edges of the town, turning it into an island that is only reachable by a long pedestrian path. Because of its relative isolation from civilization, the architecture of Civita has remained more or less untouched for hundreds of years. With almost no fellow-tourists in sight, it really felt like we had traveled back in time to a miniature Medieval town filled with amazing smells, herds of cats, and unusual architecture. Thankfully, we made it back to Bagnoregio in time to catch the bus to Viterbo where we celebrated our successful adventure over a huge dinner and some bottles of wine.

Last night, Marissa and I booked our spring break! Instead of going on the class field trip to Northern Italy in March, I am going to spend a week in Capri participating in a design workshop with international architecture graduate students. Marissa will then meet me in Naples and we’ll head off to the Amalfi Coast—Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, and everywhere between…