Roma If You Want To: 04.2012

I didn't forget about the blog...I've just been a little preoccupied with wrapping up what little is left of the semester (only one more week of classes!?). Our projects are due on Friday, and most of my classmates are heading home on the 26th. I'll be hanging around Rome until May 1st with the California boys, checking out anything I didn't get the chance to see or do in Rome before leaving town for two weeks of traveling.

This week, I visited the Borghese gallery with my fabulous Masters and Monuments teacher. The collection once belonged to the Borghese family and contains some of the most important paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance and Baroque artists, as well as many significant ancient statues. I was completely amazed by the Bernini sculptures, especially the stunning realism of the figures of The Rape of Proserpina. It's hard to imagine that Bernini was 23 (my age?!) at its completion.

This week we also visited Zaha Hadid's MAXXI, the modern art museum, Renzo Piano's Parco della Musica, a large complex of theaters and venues, and a few other notable contemporary Roman buildings.

With a quickly approaching project deadline, I probably won't be posting again for two weeks. Until then, lets hope for time to stop flying so fast!

Bernini's Rape of Proserpina (Not my photo)

Freaky shop window

Italian basketball stadium

Inside of the basketball stadium

Renzo Piano's Parco della Musica

Rainy day at the Parco...

Structure behind auditorium facades

The MAXXI with a kayak sculpture installation

Artists setting up a new installation at the MAXXI

Zaha's famous MAXXI staircase

More fancy Zaha stairs

MAXXI hallway

Incase you’re wondering why I’m so late on posting, I spent the last two weeks catching up on all of the school work I’ve ignored for three months, preparing for a studio project review, and fleeing to Cinque Terre for the weekend as soon as that was over.

Getting back to the swing of things wasn’t so easy after our two-week-long spring break, but the weeks were packed full with field trips to some of the most important sites of Rome that I hadn’t visited yet. Last week, we visited the EUR, the Garbatella housing district, Castel San Angelo, and some more churches (because what’s a week in Rome without visiting churches?) with class. The EUR is the area of Rome that was Mussolini’s residential and business district, designed to celebrate Fascism as the site of the 1942 World’s Fair (that never happened due to World War II). Castel San Angelo, originally constructed as Hadrian’s tomb, was fortified in Medieval times and was used as the Pope’s hideout while the Vatican was under threat.

Tourist season is in full swing in Rome, and the city is flooded with herds of non-Romans enjoying the perfect Mediterranean spring weather and making it hard to walk to class through the crowded streets that we once had to ourselves. While I was warned about this transformation of Rome during tourist season, I had not anticipated it to be this drastic. So, instead of dodging tourists in Rome this weekend, I packed my bags and became a picture-snapping, street-blocking, ooo-and-ahhing tourist in Cinque Terre (five adjacent towns along the northern coast of Italy) with a few friends.

We spent the weekend exploring the different towns, surprised to find two of the five severely damaged from flash floods and landslides that happened last October. Many of the trails between the towns had been wiped out and were closed, but we managed to find and hike along a few that were open. On Saturday we took the local train between the towns where trails were inaccessible and spent the evening on the beach by our hotel before a delicious dinner in Monterosso, the town we were staying in.

On Sunday, we took the ferry from Monterosso to the opposite end of Cinque Terre, and Marissa and I wandered around Portovenere while Eric and Dan built rock towers on the pebbly beach in Riomaggiore. We hiked up to the Medieval castle at the top of Portovenere and wandered through the streets in the town, grabbing yummy pesto focaccia for lunch before taking the ferry back to catch our train to Rome.

Time in Rome is flying by wayyy too fast—we only have two more weeks of class?!—but I have finally finalized my plans for traveling in May: Istanbul, Berlin, Switzerland (to see Anthony and Luki, my adoptive biker brothers), Prague, and Venice!