Firenze, Siena, e Venezia

November 10, 2010

I’m on the bus now going to Firenze, Tuscano, and Venezia! We’re going to be gone for 5 days. The past week has been pretty run of the mill, except for yesterday, when we went to a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit with my drawing class. Our drawing assignment was to decompose his paintings by abstracting the main elements and use pencil line weight and shading to denote or highlight/emphasize certain things. My professor calls it “collage-ing with pencil.” I really enjoyed it! We were taking abstract paintings (impressionism) and making them even more abstract. It makes you really search the drawing for the lines that dictate the space. Which ones dominate? Which ones line up with the ones below? Which ones are primary? And which are secondary? I feel like I will remember those paintings really well because I redrew them. One set in particular that I found fascinating were entitled: The Sower. He made one in 1865, and another in 1880. It’s the same basic image- a sower in a field. However, the technique than Van Gogh used in the second is drastically different from the first! He switched from realism to impressionism. Both are good, one is more serious (the first) with more somber colors, while the second has much more lively colors.

Later…

Florence isn’t all that different from Rome. It’s smaller population-wise, but filled of beautiful old monuments all crammed into a city center. The river plays a much greater role than the Tiber does. I like it here. We had a tour guide who took us around to some of the major monuments and landmarks, like Ponte Veccio, Santa Maria Novelle, and San Lorenzo. We had the afternoon free, so I ended up going back to San Lorenzo with Marda, Kristy, Sarah, and Corey (we didn’t go inside earlier with the guide). After that we climbed up to the cupola of il Duomo! It’s the highest point of the city and the view of all the red rooftops was amazing. As I was going down, it started hailing, which was a little freaky. The climb up and down is in these tiny, cramped stairs. For a while it is a rectangular staircase, then it turns into a spiral staircase. And as you climb over the ribs of the actual dome, the walls curve in around you. At my height I was fine, but I could imagine taller people having a problem. And along the way you can stop and go inside the dome and look down on all the people below, or look up at the beautiful frescos.

I had to leave touring around to go register for classes back at the hotel, and then I met up with them again for dinner. I had pici (pronounced peachy), a thick spaghetti type noodle with cheese and pepper, and for dessert a torta ricotta e pera- yum! (Pear and ricotta cake).

Nov 12

We’re on our way to Venice! We just stopped for breakfast at the largest truck stop I have ever seen. I got succo de arancia (orange juice), un cappucino e un cornetto marmellata. The juice was a surprise- it was fresh squeezed and something I had been wishing for during the morning bus ride! Wishes do come true.

Yesterday we spent the day in San Gimignano and Siena. I especially liked San Gimignano. It is a really small renaissance town with random arches buttressed everywhere and lot of towers. The towers were built by the wealthy families; the taller the tower, the more powerful and wealthy you are. Brings to mind today’s skyscrapers. They are only one room wide, with the well at the bottom, and the kitchen at the top. The poor women who had to carry the water up to the kitchen! And there are no windows, or only one or two, so the families could defend themselves in case of an attack. We sketched (of course) and then I shopped around a bit. I finally got my leather purse (with a discount)!!!! And I bought something for my awesome grandparents….but I can’t write it here J 

We also had a guided tour while in Siena- the town is full of shops and historic buildings. It is made up of a bunch of districts or communities. And they are all next to each other. The only way to tell which district you are in is by a small plaque decoration of the walls of buildings. The town was laid out in a circle and had many different level changes- it was interesting. I’m glad we were only there for a day though. We had a group dinner that night- by far the most food I have consumed in my life. First we had bread and olive oil (by the way, having olive oil with bread is a totally American thing), followed by bruscetta, meat antipasti, chicken liver pate, mushroom risotto, pici with wild boar meat, meat entrée, tiramisu and biscotti dipped in a sweet wine (which was NOT sweet at all). PLUS, 30 bottles of wine- about 1 person.

Nov 13

Venezia. We got there about an hour late, so our tour was cut very short. After that, Karrah, Claire, Ana and I picked up a snack at a pasticceria and sketched next to one of the rivers. Claire and I also found a hot chocolate place that puts fruit in the cioccolata calda- I had mine with papaya, and she got hers with strawberry. And the way Venice is always portrayed- it is actually that way. The movie The Italian Job takes place in Venice in the beginning- it is the exact same, and I recognize places from the scenes. As we were sketching, we were sitting right next to the water, and got whistled at by Italians, and our picture taken by multiple people. I’m telling you, if you ever want to attract attention, just start sketching somewhere. This seems contradictory, because you are making the least amount of noise possible, but people tend to be very curious. And I guess it looks picturesque. After sketching, we did some shopping (more Christmas presents!) and found this really cute ristorante. Okay, so usually ristoranti have menus outside that you can look at to make sure you want to go there. And usually there is a “host” who will come over and try to get you to eat there, and will seat you. At this particular ristorante, when he came up, Karrah told him, in Italian, that we wanted a table for 4. He responds “wow” and then starts leading us inside. I, the ever curious one, asked him why he said wow. He said he was surprised that we spoke Italian. Hmmm. Made for a great joke the rest of the night though. We ordered insalata di polipi (octopus salad) and salmon (smoked salmon) for antipasti, and then I had tortellini panna e prosciutto- it was so good! And for one of the first times, almost all the other customers in the ristorante were Italian. We did have to walk off the beaten path to find it, but all the more touristy restaurants are closer to main attractions. Finding our way back to the hotel was interesting. We didn’t have a really good map, and the streets wind so much that we lost our way. We got to the river, but it was a dead end with no way to cross. So I asked a man we passed how to get back- I’m so glad we took the unit on directions in Italian class. I loved Venice. It was too touristy, but very beautiful. I love water, I love living on the water, I love being on boats- this was definitely a town for me. My impressions of Venice: it matches every picture I’ve seen of it. There are really neat bridges that don’t solely function as bridges, but also transition from road to stair to bridge, and back again. And looking for a restaurant is like shopping for the right pair of jeans- it takes a little bit, but totally worth it when you find one you like. I would like to see this place flooded- and I mean that just to see how they deal with it, and how high the water comes up. I mean, they have doors that go straight into the water! And windows that aren’t that high off the water.

Today we went to the architecture biennale that is in Venice every 2 years (biennial…). It was split into two parts: one part was located in the Giardini, the other in the Arsenale. We went to the Arsenale first: it housed installations done by lots of different architects. The Giardini has installations categorized by country. It was really really cool. To see so much famous architecture in one place- WOW. Karrah and I ended up walking through most if it together- when we were in the Giardini, Drew joined us and we booked it, but made it through every exhibit. I saw the Nordic Nation Pavilion, which I did precedent research on during my first year of architecture. I walked into the building and thought it was familiar, and got super excited when I realized what I was seeing! And in front of the American building exhibit, we ran into 4 students from Penn State.

After the exhibits, Karrah and I ended up meeting with the Penn State kids for dinner- it was fun, except for the first time in Italy, I had a bad restaurant experience. I should’ve noticed that the “host” was not Italian (mistake #1). Then he served us red wine when we asked for white. And he kept trying to get us to order more food and wine and hovered. Uggh! It was frustrating.

Nov 14

Today we took the bus in the morning from Venice to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet. We toured Castelveccio (literally “old castle”), when Carlo Scarpa did a lot of architecture. It was very beautiful, and I definitely sketched. Afterwards, Kristy and I saw Piazza Bra (??) that has an arena in it that looks like a mini Colosseo, Piazza Erbe, and the Casa de Giulietta e Romeo. And that is apparently all the big attractions in Verona- it’s a tiny town. And on the way home on the bus we watched The Italian Job and Romeo and Juliet. Oh, and a big surprise in Venice: three of our classmates who have been studying in Turkey came to visit! They are traveling back to Rome with us and will be here for a bit.