Birthday a la Roma

Topped off 22 with a week full of visits to ancient sites (both in and out of Rome), and kicked off 23 with birthday cake and the warmest February weather I’ve ever seen.

On Thursday I ventured inside of the Colosseum and explored the Roman Forums with my class, learning all about the history of Gladiators and the significance of the Forum as one of the earliest formalized public spaces.  We climbed to the top of the Palatine Hill to peer down at the ruins of what is thought to have been the hut of Romulus--the sort of, kind of, might-have-been founder of Rome.

This weekend we field tripped to Pompeii and Paestum, two sites of city ruins that date back to the 6^th and 7^th centuries BC.  On Friday we clambered through the ancient streets of Pompeii, checking out the homes, baths, theaters, and stadiums that are still surprisingly in tact, thanks to the volcanic ash that covered the city for centuries before its re-discovery and excavation in the 1700s. 

After Pompeii, we bussed to Paestum, catching a huge sunset over the Amalfi Coast and views to Capri (where I’ll be in less than a week!) on the way.   We settled in to our beach-front hotel in Paestum and watched the crazy Californians dive into the fa-reeezinggg Mediterranean Sea before heading off to a restaurant for a big group dinner.  Throughout the meal, a band which consisted of a couple of accordions and a mishmash of other funny little instruments along with four belting voices walked through the restaurant, playing catchy, happy music that (with a little help of a lot of wine) got most of us dancing between the tables with a goofy crowd of German tourists.  Back at our hotel, we had a bonfire on the beach…with more wine, chilly beach air, and good company.

All day Saturday we visited the ruins of Paestum, where three Greek-style temples from 650-ish BC remain almost entirely intact since they happen to stand on a shock-absorbing plate of earth that has protected them from centuries of earthquakes that have destroyed surrounding ancient sites.  The immense size of the temples was absolutely stunning, and the thought of them standing upright for 3000 years is mind-bogglingly insane.

Back home in Rome, I spent Sunday just hanging out and doing a little birthday shopping for myself.  Last night, ABCD (Angel, Brian, Colin, and David--the Woodbury guys who live upstairs) cooked dinner for me and Marissa, who conveniently shares my same birthday, complete with a to-die-for chocolate gelato cake—think Carvel icecream cake, only wayyyy better--Yum!, and an hour of watching ridiculous YouTube videos.  Nothing like ‘Chubby Kid dancing to LMFAO’ to make you feel 23...

I am leaving for Capri this Sunday where I'll be spending a week participating in a design workshop with a bunch of international architecture graduate students and hiking around the island with Eric, my PSU classmate and fellow-adventurer.  From there I'll be heading to the Amalfi Coast for a week of spring break with Marissa...ooooo baby!

Street marker along our Cartography Walk

Inside the Colosseum

Colosseum

Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum

Ancient crosswalk in Pompeii (and tracks from wagon wheels)

Statue in the House of the Fawn, Pompeii

Ancient machinery in Pompeii

Piece of a tomb in Pompeii

Paestum temple

Carnevale

What a weekend! Aside from a minor three-hour delay on our train departure and incessant rain on Sunday, the trip to Viareggio was a success.

Saturday evening we arrived in Viareggio in time to catch the last few hours of beautiful weather and a gorgeous sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.  We wandered around the beach town, admiring the charming, inauthentic ‘old-looking’ buildings that lined the perfectly-gridded streets—two things we realized are completely absent in Rome (where the buildings are actually old and the streets are rarely perpendicular).  After walking around after dinner and wondering why the streets that were rumored to be ‘filled with people during Carnevale’ were empty, we heard music coming from the far end of the beach…

Turns out the entire town (and then some, and then some) were out in the streets in full costume—furry adult-size onesies were everywhere—dancing to music that was blaring from different DJ stands while spewing silly string and confetti all over the place! We checked out the chaotic scene, which, other than being occasionally body slammed by hundreds of over-enthusiastic dancers, was surprisingly under control.

We woke up the next morning to rain that stuck around all day for the Carnevale Parade, which consisted of incredibly massive, 4+ story tall, paper-mache floats with huge moving parts that were entirely man-powered by pulleys and ropes.  The detail and craftsmanship were stunning, and the floats were mostly political, incorporating caricatures of contemporary leaders into outrageous scenes. We spent the entire day under our umbrellas with saturated feet, but the parade (complete with sausage-and-sauerkraut sandwiches) was well worth it all.

Just a few more days of not-so-busy classes before field-tripping to Pompeii on Friday…cheers to that.

Odds 'n Ends

There’s not much to write about since I just posted a few days ago…but I wanted to post my recent photos before heading to Viareggio tomorrow for Carnevale!

We finished up our studio project, a submission for an international urban design competition, so we were able to enjoy the week without having any work to do…simply glorious.  With all of our classes this week, we walked through the city visiting various monuments, ruins, and churches (and churches and churches).   One of my favorites was the Church of San Clemente, an Early Christian church built on top of the ruins of an ancient church built on top of the ruins of a more-ancient church. We were able to walk down through the different layers, two eerie stories underground, and see the rooms of the original churches that were still in tact, and, at the lowest level, a natural spring. 

On another note, I learned that tomatoes, a ‘staple’ ingredient in Italian food, came from America (meaning they did not arrive in Italy until the 1500s).  Italians originally used them as decoration and did not realize they were edible until many years later.  Ha!

After two weeks of freeeezing weather, the sun is shining again in Rome and the temperature is slowly creeping back up in time for me to travel north tomorrow…looking forward to Carnevale!

Competition boards by me, Marissa, and Dave

San Clemente church built ontop of ruins

Sant'Ivo church by Borromini

Water spout at Sant'Ivo

Cappuchino-break spot

AstroTurf coat

Statue along our cartography route

Lookin' churchy...

Groovy autoshop sign 

Staircase in a private courtyard

So many delicious colors in Rome!

The sun is back!

Snow Many Churches in Rome

Oops, sorry for the long wait on this post…this week has been full of snow, churches, churches, snow, churches, and studio work.

Last weekend Rome was hit with a heaping 4 inches of snow.  What would have been considered a minor flurry at home in PA set the entire city into total shut-down mode. Luckily I didn’t need to get anywhere because public transportation was down, too, and instead we had a lazy weekend in our apartment.  We ventured out once to get a hot chocolate from the neighboring café, and once for groceries to cook ourselves a snow day bunch feast—pancakes included.  Tons of the locals were out in the streets playing in the snow (and MoonBoots were everywhere).

The rest of the week was filled with class trips to different sites around the city, including Trajan’s Markets, Palazzo Barberini, and a churches designed by big-name Baroque architects, Borromini and Bernini.   On our cartography walk this week we stopped in one church to see Michelangelo’s Moses sculpture, and another to see the ruins of an ancient warehouse that an also-very-old church was built on top of. I’m feeling a little churched-out after this week, but walking through the more-than-impressive, elaborate structures really gave me a sense of how insanely powerful and wealthy the Catholic church was throughout history.

Elisabetta, my Masters and Monuments teacher, toured us through the Roman forums and Trajan’s Markets, an ancient marketplace built into the Quirinal Hill.  Much of the original structure still remains, though it has been largely reconstructed, because the building was slightly altered and reused during the Medieval Times as an apartment complex.  Essentially Trajan’s Markets is the earliest model of the modern day shopping mall, originally housing about 150 businesses, shops, bars, and restaurants.

This week we are all working on finishing up our studio project to submit to an international competition and on Saturday I am headed to Viareggio, in Northern Italy, for the Carnevale parade and celebrations with some of my classmates.  Stay tuned for pictures and a blog post next weekend. (I’ll try to be on time…)

Our courtyard covered in snow

Italian hot chocolate with fresh whipped cream

Mosaic Apse

Frozen fountain

Michelangelo's Moses in St. Peter in Chains Church

Pope lounging above the Moses Sculpture

Eerie tomb statue

Baroque Church

Statue at Palazzo Barberini

Trajan's Market

Trajan's Market and the Medieval addition

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…

Allan showing us to use the ancient toilets

A statue at Ostia Antica

Mosaics at the baths at Ostia Antica

Remains of a tomb at Ostia Antica

Eric in Bagnoregio

Civita di Bagnoregio in the distance

Civita di Bagnoregio

This house fell off the cliffs, leaving just the facade

Street in the Civita

Ancient Civita oil mill, carved into the mountain

You talkin' to me?