The last few weeks.

My time in Italy is starting to come to a close -- only 18 days left! -- but I've had the opportunity to travel to a bunch of places over the past few weeks.   I finished my class on fresco cycles two weeks ago, so three friends and I chose to travel to Pompeii and Sorrento during the break weekend.  We spent basically all of Friday in Pompeii, which was much bigger and more excavated than I expected.

I was also surprised by how intact many of the frescoes and mosaics were inside the homes.  Most of the bodies have been removed and taken to a museum in Naples, but we did see a skeleton or two.  From basically any part of the city, you can see Mt. Vesuvius looming in the background.

After our day in Pompeii, we took a train along the coast of the Bay of Naples to Sorrento.  We had booked tiny cabins in a campground right outside of Sorrento, but when we arrived to the campground we found out that we had been upgraded to bungalows with kitchens and porches and views of the Bay and Vesuvius and the cliffs of Sorrento.  We took advantage of our kitchen and porch and made dinners and breakfasts and cappuccino to eat outside!

After spending Saturday and Sunday walking around Sorrento and trying lots of lemon flavored treats (Sorrento is known for its lemons) we took the train back to Naples to get some pizza before heading back to Orvieto.  Naples is known for having the best pizza in Italy, but it's also known for its high rates of crime and unemployment.   Between the gangs of men hanging out and lining the streets and the craziest drivers I've ever seen, we felt like we were risking our lives in Naples, but the pizza was totally worth it!

After our trip, we started a new class on liturgy and art.  For the next few weeks, we're learning about praying the hours and making two liturgical books.  This past weekend, we also went to Rome to visit the catacombs.  On Sunday, the town of Orvieto celebrated Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) by shooting a bird down a zipline into the Duomo.  It was definitely an interesting spectacle, since it incorporated men in Renaissance tights with trumpets, firecrackers, giant pictures of the apostles with fire coming out of them, and a big band parade.  I'll never think about Pentecost the same way again.

Frescoes and Football

This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we’ve been going on both educational and non-educational field trips.  On Thursday, we visited Arezzo to look at a famous fresco of the Legend of the Holy Cross.  While we were there, we also had some free time to look around the city.  Arezzo is a really old town in Tuscany, so it was full of amazing architecture and beautiful views around the edges.

Friday, we drove to the monastery at Monte Olivetto and then to the small town of San Gimignano.  Even though there were huge frescoes in both locations, the best part of the day was definitely the fact that we spent hours driving through the Tuscan countryside.  It was absolutely incredible.  Every single time I looked out the window, it was like being in the middle of a post card or a movie.

San Gimignano is a really tiny hill-top town.  It’s known as the city of towers or spires because it used to have more than seventy tall towers -- our professor referred to it as the ‘little Manhattan of Italy’.  At some point, the local duke ordered the towers to be removed so only thirteen of them remain, but thirteen still looks like a lot considering the tiny size of the town.  San Gimignano is mostly a tourist destination today, but it’s completely idyllic.  All of the streets are lined with leather and ceramics stores, and each window has a different type of flower draped from it.  Exploring the area was definitely a beautiful way to spend the day!

Yesterday, we took a break from viewing frescoes for class and went to the Roma football game!  It was definitely the most intense sporting event that I’ve ever seen.  Roma played Catania (a team from Sicily) and even though the scores wouldn’t affect either team’s standings, the crowds still sang, booed, cheered, whistled, and yelled their hearts out.  The final score was 2-2, and I thought that some of the Roma fans around me were going to have a heart attack in the final few minutes because there were a bunch of shots on their goal.  I’ve heard that soccer is basically a religion to the Italians,and their enthusiasm for Roma definitely surpassed their enthusiasm for Easter Mass!