Buona Pasqua - Happy Easter

I really missed the good home cooked meal, but spending Easter in Milan and Genova makes up for it.

My friend, Meg and I, took a train up to Milan on Friday morning. Which took 5 hours, by the way! But it went quickly. There were 2 other couples sharing our cabin with us. We attempted to talk to them as much as possible, but they knew absolutely no English. They were probably in thier 60’s or so. However, what I managed to get out of it was that one couple was from Naples going to visit their sons (2) in Pencenza (which is about an hour from Milan) and the other couple was from Rome and they were going to visit family in Milan. They were really excited that we were studying in art and architecture in Italy and kept telling us how beautiful Italy was. The men didn’t talk much but the women were quite chatty. It was hard to understand the lady from Naples though, because she had a slightly different accent/dialect.

Well, we finally got to Milan around 3:00 and we went in search of our hostel, which was only about 4 blocks from the train station. By the way, the train station in Milan is really cool; it’s completely covered by a glass dome. After finding our hostel, we took the metro to the Duomo. If you’ve never seen pictures of the Milan Duomo… it’s huge and that’s no exaggeration. We took the lift to the top of the Duomo. There’s no dome, but you can climb on top of the roof and walk all the way around it. So we got to see all of Milan and all the spires of the Duomo up close. After the Duomo, we went next door to the Victor Emmanuel Galleries. This is a “museum” with a shopping mall flare. It has a glass dome covering the entire thing, but basically it just houses stores (like Prada) and cafes. We took a stroll down the main street (or rather the shopping street), which was all the really expensive stores. Milan is supposed to be one of the fashion capitals of the world, but I didn’t really see anything incredible, or anyone for that matter. In fact, twice, I saw a pair of pants in a window, which looked, to be made from felt and they were zebra stripped and the crotch hung down to the knees. I’m pretty sure if I were those anywhere, even in Milan, people would think I had special needs. For dinner, we went next door to our hostel and had some really good pasta … and my entire meal… including pasta, bruschetta, wine and water, was less than 12 Euros. Considering everything else in Milan was extremely expensive, I was rather impressed with this Chinese-owned seafood/pasta restaurant. We spent the evening out in Milan in the Brera district, which is the university area/artsy area of town. There were lots of sidewalk cafes and swanky little bars. However, drinks still cost us 8 Euros. So there’s the Milan factor kicking in.

The next morning, we went to the Sforza Castle, which used to be the fortress of Milan, but now it houses 5 different museums and you can get into all 5 for only 3 Euros. We were on a tight schedule so we just went to the ancient art museum, where we saw Michelangelo’s forth, and last Peita, (representation of the Madonna holding the crucified Jesus in her arms), which he was unable to finish, because, well, he died. Then we went to the furniture museum, because Meg is a an interior architect and she is pursuing product design, but it was pretty cool seeing lots of furniture from the middle ages and then some really modern designs as well. Then we got lunch, pizza of course, and headed to the La Scale Opera House and Museum. The Museum was all right, but we just really wanted to see the theater. The theater was really cool, with a giant chandelier in the center and sides lined with red and gold box seats. They were setting the stage up for a show and I never really realized how slanted the stage is. If I had to sing and dance on that stage I’d fall off and you’d be fishing me out the violins in the pit. Afterwards, we retrieved our bags from our hostel and we caught a train to Genova.

When we reached Genova (Genoa in Italian), my penpal, Stef and her boyfriend, Andre picked us up from the train station and drove us to our hostel. We spent the entire evening walking around in the city center as Stef and Andre tried to fill us in on some history. Christopher Columbus was from Genova, so we got to see his house, or rather what’s left of it anyways. We also go to see their Duomo and the pier and the boardwalk. They took us to a small typical Genovese restaurant and told us we had to order something with pesto, because pesto originated from Genova. So we got some pasta with pesto and it was very good. They also took us out to the square where everyone hangs out in the evenings and introduced us to some of their friends.

In the morning, Stef and Andre picked us up from our hostel and we drove down to Camogli, which is a small town only 15 miles down the coast from Genova which has some beaches and tourist attractions. It was really quaint and beautiful. It wasn’t really sunny, so we didn’t lay on the beach all day, as we originally planned, but we walked around the town, had some coffee, tried some foccacia (apparently the have the best foccacia too, and it was pretty good), and finally ate some lunch. We got pizza, with pesto on it, haha. Then it was finally time to catch our train home, so Andre and Stef drove us back to the train station just in time to get on.

It took us 7 hours to get back to Orvieto and we had to change trains twice, but I really enjoyed spending the weekend up north. I hope I can go back to the Genova region again, its by Cinque Terre, which is the coastline with small towns and beaches, which is known for being “ultimate romantic getaway in Italy”. It was also fun to have my friend Stef show us around and to get to know her better and to swap stories about the differences between being American and being Italian.

The Story in Pictures

Some Pictures for you all, just to keep you on your toes.

In the garden of Monsters, outside of Orvieto.

The Campo (main square) in Siena, where the Palio takes place every July and August.

San Giovanni Cathedrale in Siena - the relic of St. Catherine is kept in this church - and by relic, I mean head.. yes.. an actual decaying head... I saw it.. with my own 2 eyes. It was crazy.

This is from Venice - a picture of some gondolas and Santa Maria Maggiore in the background.

Siena and the Palio

I seem to be on the down-slope of this journey. I’ve been here for 11 awesome weeks and I only have 5 left! The weather is starting to warm up around here, but just like Kansas, Orvieto has very unpredictable weather. One minute it is bright and shiny and warm, and the next its thundering and rainy and cold! But the warm weather brings unwanted things to Orvieto as well…. Tourists! They come in herds of 30-50 and they are EVERYWHERE I want to go. They also like to wear matching items, so its very common to see a large group of people and they all have red hats on. It's nearly impossible to walk down the Corso (the main street) on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. But with the tourists comes good things as well. The shops have started to remodel and more and more are opening, as well as the restaurants are beginning to offer more out-door seating. So the city is becoming very lively at the same time! The market is also growing and expanding. In January, on Saturday mornings, you could find several local farmers with stands and few stands with cheese and meats and an occasional person selling clothes or shoes or something odd like rugs. However, yesterday, when I went to the market, I found that it had grown quite significantly since January. There were many more local farmers and their wives who had opened up more stands, selling a much bigger variety of fruits and veggies that I had seen yet. There were also more vendors that had set up special meat stands, where you could buy the meats already cooked, like chickens or pork, or kebabs, or hamburgers even. I also found that the market stretched from not only the main square, but down some of the side streets as well and you could buy everything from rugs, to lace products, to clothing to cooking supplies to purses to accessories, and I even saw a stand that sold toiletries and make-up related things. It was like being in a very crowded (and cheaper) shopping mall.

Last friday we went to Siena. Siena is small town, around the size of Orvieto, and its home to many universities and students. It one of the most well known towns in Italy, because of its strong traditions and rivalries within the city walls. This is the home of the famous Palio, the horse race in the main square (which is huge). The horse race takes place twice a year and every time is just as important as the first. Siena has 17 contradas (neighborhoods) and they all are represented by an animal (goose, elephant, worm, etc). They all find a professional jockey (usually never from Siena) to ride in the Palio. Then the horses are chosen at random. The 3-day prior to the race are the most crucial. These are the preliminary rounds because only 10 of the 17 contradas are allowed to proceed in the actual Palio event. These days are also important, because this is when all the dirty work takes place. The bribery and the back-stabbing and cheating. Jockeys are not only usually paid by their contrada, but usually also paid in secret by other contradas to lose. It's a very dirty sport. The day of the Palio, is a huge celebration, the 10 horses are taken into the contrada's own church and are blessed by the priest. If the horse happens to poop while in the church, this is considered good luck, because this means that the horse has no respect and that he is simply selfish and therefore will be only ruthless during the race. The Jockeys are hidden all day and are constantly surrounded by bodyguards so that they may not talk with one another or other contradas before the race. Then there is the race around the main square, which they have packed tight with dirt and people. The winner of Palio is no-less than God until the next Palio. These contradas are all rivals and they all hate each other, and as Marco says "the Palio is an excuse for them to punch one another". This is an event that draws in thousands and thousands of visitors every year and it is nearly impossible to book a hotel or a place to stay nearby unless you book a year in advance! So this has certainly been put on my list of things to do before I die. But, even without the Palio, Siena was a very nice place. Very busy, but very beautiful and friendly, with a wealth of shopping available as well.