Cinque Terre (CHIN-kweh TEH-reh, "five lands") is a famously scenic group of five villages along the coast of Liguria in northwest Italy. Last Friday a five of us, one for each terra, took a midday train there for the weekend. We stayed in La Spezia, a town not officially a part of the region, and bought two-day passes for unlimited access to the trails and trains between the villages. The first day we walked the trails to the first three villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Corniglia. It was a dreary day, but the views were very nice and the walking was more or less easy. I did manage to break my umbrella though, so it now only extends halfway.
We crossed a particularly treacherous bridge at one point.
We ate in Corniglia (another weekend of great seafood!) and trained back to La Spezia. That night we went out to the nearby "Tavern del Metallo," which I only mention because it was lit by nearly 50% candlelight, and had Viking helmets and crossbows on the walls. Metal indeed.
The next day we took the train to the last town, Monterosso al Mare, and worked our way to Vernazza and back to Corniglia. Now, I've been craving a good hike for the last few months, and Bologna isn't the most outdoorsy city on the peninsula. The two paths to Vernazza and Corniglia absolutely satisfied this need. There was a light drizzle in the morning, but since it was so humid and we were doing so much climbing, it was a welcome refreshment.
The views from these trails were absolutely amazing. To get an idea of the sort of hiking we were doing, consider that the town in the picture above was in fact the destination at the end of the trail, and we had to wind along those hillsides to get from town to town. In a lot of places, the trails were only one-person wide and unfenced along fairly steep cliffs. Those among us with a distaste for heights wavered between the awe of never wanting to leave and the AHH of guys-let's-go-please-stop-taking-pictures-because-I-can't-look.
The trail from Vernazza to Corniglia was a bit safer, but much more vertical. The sun came out just as I ran out of water, and we were begging for the rain to come back by the end.
At the end of that trail, two others hiked down to a beach they saw signs for while the rest of us played it safe and went back to Monterosso for the beach. The other two ended up at a nude beach, so I think we won out that time.
The next day, those of us that stayed the second night went to the La Spezia maritime museum.
After learning all we could about boats, we took the train back to Bologna.
If you like hiking, I can't recommend Cinque Terre enough. It's definitely feasible to do the whole thing in a day if you start early in the morning and hike all day, but we gave ourselves enough time to take it easy the whole way and really enjoy the scenery. Definitely a top trip. I mean, seriously, I took this picture:
Two weeks ago my parents arrived in Pisa and I met them there on Friday. Pisa's somewhat of a one-trick pony. Absolutely everything worth seeing is in a small field in a corner of town, and the rest seems to be hotels and restaurants to hold the tourists who come to visit that field. The city's entire economy relies on some anonymous architect's inadequacy at his job. Pisa is four degrees of tilt away from obscurity.
We saw the cemetery there and the church and the baptistry, and that's all very nice, and finally we got around to climbing Pisa's Big Mistake. Now, I hadn't thought about this, but as you climb the tower, you feel bizarre shifts in gravity as you walk the spiraling perimeter of the architecture. It's really cool and just a little disorienting to feel yourself leaning to one side and slowly, slowly back toward the other as you make the way around. Someone ought to see what happens when you send a Slinky down the stairs.
We made it to the top of the tower- even my father, after a glorious effort that deserves its own monument- and took in the view. That night I slept in an air mattress on the floor, and the next day we were off to Lucca.
Lucca is a small, medieval town not far from Pisa. The famous walls of the city are completely intact, and to enter you need to cross through some tunnels through the border. We visited a major church, a noble's garden, and climbed to the top of a tower with trees on its top.
That night, in Pisa, we managed to find the one restaurant where all the actual Pisans go to eat, and had what was probably my best meal of the semester. I should mention that as of this weekend today, I have spent five weekends in a row away, eating wonderfully (Spain / Milan / Pisa / Florence / Cinque Terre).
The next day, Sunday, we took the train back to Bologna, where my parents stayed in a hotel more or less in my neighborhood. I showed them around some museums and key sites on Monday, and Tuesday they went to Ravenna (they skipped Classe). Wednesday they left for Florence, and I met them there on Friday.
On Friday we went to Palazzo Pitti, an enormous palace that once housed the Medici family. It's full of wonderful art, and had a wonderful attached sprawling garden.
The next day we visited the Uffizi Gallery, the major art gallery in Florence, which houses major works of art such as Botticelli's Birth of Venus and masterpieces by all four Ninja Turtles. As with the Palazzo Pitti, I don't have pictures to show you, and despite how much time we spent there I can't really say much more than "there was a lot of art and it was cool." The sheer size of the Uffizi was somewhat of an issue, as by the end of the visit I had become so accustomed to astonishing artwork being on every wall that I had stopped paying attention to the individual pieces.
That afternoon (I think, but my chronology isn't quite making sense to me in my head) we went to the Galleria dell'Accademia, where Michelangelo's David is (and not much else of interest, honestly.) Again, "there was art and it was cool, no photos." You'll have to trust me on this stuff.
We also stopped by the archeological museum of Florence. The museum was a bit weird in that there was almost absolutely nothing in the first few rooms, and I was ready to leave, but we kept going and eventually found that everything good was stored in back. They had mummies!
On Sunday my mom and I took a bus tour to the Chianti region to visit a vineyard for a wine tasting. The place was very nice, and the guide, who had a surprisingly French accent, showed us all the barrels, and then we all sat down for wine with the usual light fare (bruschetta, bread and oil, prosciutto). I still don't see what's so great about wine. The one I liked the most was the cheapest.
Afterword we were taken to the small town of Greve, where we missed the festival of hometown legend Giovanni "why on Earth would anyone want a bridge to Staten Island?" di Verrazzano by one day.
I shot off back to the BO that night, and the next day my parents flew home to-
Oh dear.
My parents had planned to fly from Florence to Rome, and then back home, but the first flight was canceled so they went by train and missed the second flight. The travel situation wasn't clear at that point thanks to old Eyjafjallajokull, whose name means "fire that halts the skies" in the Black Speech of Mordor. My grandparents made some calls and found them some relatives in Rome to stay with, and I understand that they had time to see the Pope in the Vatican and have dinner with a relative of Sciortino's before they finally escaped on Friday from what was clearly three days of terrible discomfort.
I'll update soon about this weekend's trip to Cinque Terre. It was amazing, and on Friday I finished my Unibo class, so I'm done waking up early until summer!
On Easter morning, I put on my nice button-down shirt and brown shoes, grabbed the cookies I had bought for a gift, went to the station to catch an early train, watched the train pull away, bought another ticket, and got on a second train an hour later to meet my relatives in Milan. Ettore (EH-tor-ray, the Italian version of "Hector") and his siblings are my third cousins; we share a common pair of great-great-grandparents (my mother's father and his father's mother are cousins). I stayed the weekend in the apartment outside Milan where he lives with his mother, sister, and brother.
Now, having visited more than enough churches in these few months, and after having experienced the Palm Sunday from hell in Seville, I expected Easter with the relatives to be a major affair. It wasn't. I was overdressed for the occasion, which was merely a standard Sunday meal for them with some special desserts and special guests (Ettore's cousin Antonio (also my third cousin), Antonio's girlfriend, and myself). My family's Easter in America is a much bigger affair (though our typical Sunday dinners are much less significant).
Ettore's mother (who I am not related to) has on their fridge the following card:
Hunger is an ugly thing. She applies this philosophy to everyone who enters her domain. Everything you've ever heard about Italian mothers is true, if not an understatement. I ate myself sick, with her constant encouragement, and then collapsed into a two-hour food nap.
That night Ettore and his sister took me on a tour of Milan, but it was dark and rainy. We toured Milan again on Tuesday, so I'll post pictures of the city then.
On Monday (what the Italians call "Pasquetta," "little Easter") we drove through the winding mountain highways to Genoa, where we met Antonio, his girlfriend, and my other third cousin Gaetano. Genoa was nice: there is a substantial marina there, and the whole city has a significant crush on hometown hero Christopher Columbus.
CASTLE! YES! To get up the hill to the castle, we took a really neat elevator that moved into the hill horizontally on a track before being pulled up by a magnet.
From Genoa we went to a nearby beach town. Gelato may have been involved.
At one point, while we were standing on a rocky ledge near the shore, an unusually large wave struck, showering my back and making me damp for the next half hour or so.
We went back to Genoa and went to a bar for aperitivi- a drink + cold food deal that my friends and I often take advantage of in Bologna for dinner. After we ate that, we got into the cars again. After a while, I finally asked where we were going. Dinner. Apparently, aperativi weren't enough.
We went to a great seafood restaurant they knew of in Genoa. Here's a shot of everyone I was with:
From left to right, that's Antonio's girlfriend Antonella, Antonio, Ettore's sister Gabriella, Gaetano, and Ettore. Everyone pictured except Antonella is a third cousin of mine.
They ordered a massive mixed seafood dish for us...
We drove home to Milan after midnight, speeding and swerving through empty cliffside highways, with a few glasses of wine in Ettore's system.
The next day we explored Milan in the daylight (though they never woke me up, and waited for me to rise about noonish). We visited a nice park, the outside of a major castle, and climbed up to the top of the gothic-style Duomo:
The Duomo was the first thing I was allowed to pay for all weekend, and only because Ettore ran out of cash and I quickly took advantage of the situation and bought the tickets. He seemed ashamed of the incident.
And that's all I have to say about that. My parents are here this week so expect reports on that soon, plus I've got plans in the pipeline for Cinque Terre and London!
Last Friday, I flew off with my friends Catherine and Erik for Granada, Spain. Our spring break is this week, and I've had open days since last Saturday until next Tuesday. Erik and Catherine's schedules prevented them from doing anything in the latter half of this week, and I got a little sick anyway so I've been in Bologna since we got back on Monday. However, I'm spending Easter with distant relatives in Milan (my third cousin Ettore and his family) and will be there until Tuesday. But let's talk about Spain.
Granada is a city in the southern Andalucia region of Spain. After a bus ride from the airport, we found our hostel right in the center of the city, in a great restaurant neighborhood and with really great accomodations (it was really about as much space as we had in the hotel at the beginning of the semester). We set off for the Alhambra, which is an enormous complex of Moorish castles, mosques, and walled gardens on a hill overlooking the city.
Now, I had never heard of this place before, but Erik said that in his research he found that it was on numerous "Wonders of the Modern World" lists- and it deserves it. The Moors have definitely earned a spot on my "Top 10 Civilizations" list. We entered into a nice park area, with a path that steadily climbed uphill. It smelled like actual nature, which living in Bologna is something I sorely missed. Within this park area, after climbing to the top of the hill, you hit the Alhambra proper and its various churches, mosques, and other structures, and the Generalife (heh-neh-rah-LEE-fay, not "general life"), a seemingly endless series of walled gardens, all with waterworks elegantly integrated into the architecture and filled with explorable nooks and crannies.
The Moorish architecture is fascinating, as every flat surface is elegantly inscribed with a tangle of written characters (the Moors couldn't draw representations of religious figures; recall the Mohammed comic controversy from a few years back). Yes, there was a castle. The highest point of the whole place was from its tower(s), so here's a 360 panorama I took from the top. We spent our entire first day, from roughly 3 to 8, exploring the Alhambra, and we definitely didn't see the whole thing.
Keep in mind that throughout this whole adventure none of us are familiar with Spanish. It was easy enough to read the signs since written it's close enough to Italian (Italian -zione becomes -cion, -tà becomes -dad), and I could actually completely understand a few people when they spoke to us (others, nothing at all). My Spanish, of which I studied two years seven to eight years ago, was enough to ask simple questions and get by, so good job and gracias to Mrs. Scherba of Columbia Middle School, wherever you are now.
The next day we asked (in Spanish!) the woman minding the hostel where the nicest beach was, and she pointed us to a general area. The bus to our first choice was full, but we got tickets to Almuñecar and set out. The ride there was through the Sierra Nevada mountains, which offered some absolutely breathtaking views as we awkwardly contorted ourselves to take photos through the windows.
We got to the beach and it was hot and sunny. Hungry, we found a place by the beach which was offering a fixed menu lunch for 11 euros each. We had paella, swordfish, and great desserts, and every time they brought out one of those very high-quality dishes, we worried about the price and they swore that it was all included in the 11 euros. We worried that perhaps they meant 11 per dish, or that the whole thing might be an elaborate trap set by my enemies to lure me to this restaurant. We got the bill, and it was glorious: 11 euros, plus water. That was probably the greatest value meal I have ever bought.
We crossed the street and found a spot on the beach, and we all sat down to read, relax, and enjoy the surrounding scenery, sun, and topless ladies. After a few hours of digestion and reading, I got up to explore and found a climbable hill with a large cross at the top, which offered another great view.
The next day we took a 10:00 bus to Seville. Now, this day was Palm Sunday. We knew we were going to a major city in a Catholic country, and expected some sort of procession to be there. Sure enough, within the first half hour of exploring a park near the bus station, we found everyone crowded around a parade of musicians, religious "floats," and devotees walking through.
To American eyes, the devotees' costumes are extremely unfortunate, but I assure you that the Catholics of Spain are not as racist as their dress suggests.
Having witnessed the procession, we went to find some lunch. Here is where my Spanish was no longer adequate. I ordered the squid from the menu (Andalucia is a major seafood region, and I spent this weekend indulging as I haven't had good seafood for months), calamares con tinta. Potential travellers, remember this well: "tinta" means "ink." I was served a black mass of liquid and fish, which my friends and I all tried. It wasn't very bad, and it's definitely one of the more interesting things I've ever eaten.
We returned to the historical center and saw the cathedral, though we couldn't get in and the place was surrounded with wooden chairs for the impending evening mass. We saw the procession pass by again, and decided to enter the Real Alcazar, which looked to me like a castle from the outside. It wasn't: it was much larger than I expected, and was an Alhambra-like maze of buildings and gardens that were all absolutely wonderful. Students got in free! Good job again, Moors.
We left the Alcazar in an hour or so and decided to try for the bullfighting ring across town. We took some roads northward...and found the procession again. We tried to pass by the crowds, but soon found ourselves immobile in an unmoving mass of Spanish Catholics and tourists all watching the parade.
We didn't know this- not an idea- but Seville during Holy Week is one of Spain's major cultural events. Everyday, several processions representing different churches make their way through the city, slowly clogging the major arteries of the city as tourists and religious come from all over to witness the event. Completely by accident, we had come to Seville on the best day for tourism in the entire year, and the worst day to see the city sights.
We couldn't get anywhere. Everytime we tried to go around a crowd, we found another one. We tried navigating every which way, but in every possible direction there were processions and crowds of well-dressed churchgoers. We saw no other individual city sights for the remainder of the day. I believe there was a time when we may have been literally surrounded on all sides with no escape at all.
After we sat down to dinner, we gave ourselves two hours to reach our 11-o'-clock bus back to Granada. We went around in a few circles, trying to push through crowds of people we couldn't adequately speak to. The processions would all stop at each corner when the hand-carried "floats" needed to turn, and everyone would clap when it was accomplished as devotees ran around to relight the candles that had gone out. Eventually we found the end of a procession and crossed the major street we needed to, made our way to the major road around the historical center and walked around historical Seville to the bus station.
I normally don't buy souvenirs, but the next day in Granada I bought I tiny wooden figure of one of the costumed devotees. There's nowhere it could ever be appropriately displayed in an American home, but I needed a momento of what was easily the most surreal night of my life.
L
