Sicilia

The past week, Abby and I have been in Sicily soaking up the last bit of our time in Italy. Everyone says that the further south you go in Italy, the nicer the people are. People in Lombardy are more closed and instead those in the south are more open. We were excited to get to the south and speak with open Italians. Yet, we faced something a little different ... Palermo was full of Americans! We went to lunch our first day and saw tons of broad-shouldered, muscled, buzz-cut hair, English-speaking men. That's right, the US Marines docked in Sicily for the weekend. We saw Americans everywhere, and here was our first glance at the American flag in a while:

Along with 3,000 Marines, we took a sight-seeing tour bus and saw the various sites in Palermo including the Cathedral, the Catacombs, Palazzo dei Normanni and the Teatro Massimo.

Cathedral, Palermo

Teatro Massimo, Palermo

We took some day trips and with a 20 minute bus-ride went to Monreale. We saw the Duomo and had lunch. The Duomo was full of mosaics and had terraces to climb for a view of the city.

Duomo, Monreale

View from Terraces, Duomo, Monreale

View from Terraces, Duomo, Monreale

Mosaics in Duomo, Monreale

We also went to Cefalù, an hour train ride from Palermo, to go to the beach. We met up with the cousin of one of my friends from Boston College. The Duomo looked more like a fortress and a climb from the historical center was a huge rock they call La Rocca.

Duomo, Cefalù

La Rocca, Cefalù

After Palermo, we went to Catania. It was a much smaller town with more pedestrian city-centers as opposed to Palermo. In front of the Duomo was an obelisk with an elephant on the bottom made of lava rock left over from the eruptions of Mount Etna. I constantly found mosaics of the elephant in Catania. The city has layers from the Greek and Roman cities before the modern Italian city. In fact, an old river runs underneath the Piazza del Duomo and actually all of the city. 

Duomo, Catania

Elephant on Obelisk, Catania

Part of the river underneath the Piazza, Catania

On our last day, I visited the Monastero dei Benedettini or the Benedictine Monastery in Catania. It is the second largest monastery in Europe and now holds part of Catania's university. I went on a guided tour to see the remains of the original monastery and the university's efforts to function within the history and ruins of the Greek, Roman and Benedictine control of the space. The library is among the ruins. I just can't stop thinking how amazing it would be to study in this atmosphere.

One of the coutyards

Modern courtyard

Part of the students' library

After 8 months in Italy, I'm heading home stateside tomorrow. Thanks for reading my thoughts and reflections through this experience, which I know have helped me appreciate it more.

Ciao, ciao

Leonessa Americana

Goodbye Brescia ...

Lake Como

Today, I left Brescia. I'm in Milan for the night and then heading to Sicily on Sunday for five days before getting back stateside. My year living and teaching in Italy has been a great experience and I am very happy with what I have done here. Some of my students assumed I would be returning next year, some asked if I would, but the eight months teaching in the vocational/professional high school were just enough for me. Will I return to Italy? I hope so. Teaching was a huge part of my year, but it was also the means to the language and cultural exchange. I would live in Italy again for these reasons, but with a different job or study.

Sunday with Roommates

As you can see from my first picture, I did get to Lake Como this week. I have been wanting to go since I studied in Parma and planned to go this year. Our roommate who left in January found a job in Como as a lawyer and we planned to visit her in May. Last Saturday when Daniela and I went to buy our tickets for the next day, the man at the ticket office told us, "ma domani, c'è sciopero" = "but tomorrow, there's a strike." We tried to ask questions about which types of trains, the hours of the strike, etc and he just looked at us and said "C'è sciopero, punto" = "There's a strike, period." How Italian. Regardless we had a nice afternoon together and went out to lunch at a new osteria. As to getting to Lake Como, I ended up getting there on my day off on Thursday. Although not without difficulty. I bought a normal ticket to Milan and tried to buy my ticket from Milan to Como while I was still in Brescia. The machine told me that the tickets were sold out. Well, you do need a reservation for this type of train however I know that you can buy a ticket without a seat and just stand on the train. The machine wouldn't give me the ticket. Once I got to Milan, I asked someone if I could buy a ticket to stand, because there were no more seats. Well, if the machine gives you the ticket, you can buy it, yes. Well, the machine is not giving me the ticket, so how can I buy one? I went to the ticket office and again he told me that he would gladly let me pay for a ticket without a seat but the machine wouldn't let him do it. Any way you could override that? I bought a ticket for the train two hours later but went to the platform for the earlier one and asked if I could get on since I couldn't buy a ticket without a seat, so I bought a ticket for the later train. "Well you can't, but I'll let you." There ended up being plenty of free seats. The train was a replacement and so none of the seats matched the reservations, for example there was no car 7 on this particular train. Instead of working it out, they just decided to "sell out" all the other tickets. Again, how Italian. 

Once in Como, I took the boat ride along the lake to Bellagio and back. Each way took two hours of relaxing on the water. It was beautiful, although I unfortunately did not see George Clooney or his house.

I always imagined George Clooney's house would look like this

One of the private lessons I do here in Italy is with two retired teachers who study English as a hobby and meet with me once a week for an hour of conversation. After our final lesson, they asked where I'll be next year and what I'll be doing. The honest answer is that I just don't know. With plenty of ideas, I have nothing concrete in mind. They wanted to know if I'd be back in Brescia or not and the argument ensued. She'll probably come back to Italy, just not Brescia. But, why would she come back to Italy instead of going to another European country? Well, she'll want to explore more areas in Italy first as opposed to going elsewhere. Annamaria's argument was that not another country in the whole world has as much variety as Italy. You cannot just have an experience in the north, because all regions of Italy are a new world, like another country. We see this the best in the dialects spoken throughout the Italian boot. In fact, before the unification of Italy, Italians in the north could not understand those in the south. Television shows taught Italians the Italian language. That is how different these languages were that they learned Italian through television shows meant to teach them the national language. Not only are there other regions to see, but various dialects to learn. So far I've lived in Emilia Romagna and Lombardia, that leaves 18 more regions to go. So don't worry Italy, I'll be back :)

I hope you've enjoyed my blog as I've been in Brescia. I shall write another to tell you all about Sicily but it may or may not get out before I return home depending on the internet my last day in Milan. Thanks for reading!

Travels

I'd like to take a blog to share with you some travels taken in the past couple of months, mainly in pictures. For Easter, my parents and sister came to visit and we went to the Cinque Terre, Florence and ended up in Brescia during their stay.

Milan:
Jenn and I started in Milan for a night and the morning they arrived, we went to see the "Cenacolo Vinciano" or Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" at the Santa Maria della Grazie church in Milan. You must have a reservation in advance to see his masterpiece which occupies an entire wall of the Dominican order's "mess hall." This version captures the moment after Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him and expresses the reactions of the disciples. Sorry, no photographs allowed.

Cinque Terre:
The Cinque Terre are becoming more and more popular as a tourist destination. It even made Rick Steve's Europe book as one of the top spots in Italy. Cinque Terre translates to "Five Lands" in English and describes five small cities along the Italian Riviera in the region of Liguria. The National Park of the Cinque Terre gives tourists a range of easy, moderate and difficult paths to hike between the five towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore [and even smaller mountain towns among these]. There is also a small train that runs among the towns in case you do not want to walk the whole way. From Monterosso to Riomaggiore, the hike takes about five hours.

View of Monterosso from Path

View of Vernazza from Path

Unfortunately, the path between Corniglia and Manarola [the most beautiful from what I remember when I did it four years ago] was closed due to landslides. When we took the boat along the water from Riomaggiore to Monterosso after our hike, at least we saw that the path was completely impassable.

Impassable landslide

Our Hotel in Monterosso

"Il Gigante" or "The Giant" on the Monterosso beach

In front of our hotel

The shortest path along the hike is from Riomaggiore to Manarola and only takes 15 to 20 minutes. It is called "Via dell'amore" or "Path of Love." If you remember from a previous blog, I shared the tradition of attaching locks to bridges and throwing the keys into the water. The Via dell'amore is full, full, full of locks! Everywhere! Compare these two images from my first trip to Cinque Terre in the summer of 2007 and just now in the spring of 2011:

Entrance to the Via dell'amore

Locks added!

Locks!

Florence:
We were in Florence for Easter Sunday and went to the Duomo to see the "Scoppio del Carro" or the "Explosion of the Cart." A decorated cart processes to a spot between the Duomo and the Baptistery with a blessed flame where a white dove somehow lights the cart and it explodes into a fireworks show. Florentine families march in the procession with the traditional dress of their houses and perform a flag show before the lighting of the cart which will bring luck for the year to the city.

Duomo and Bell Tower in Florence

Flag Show

Cart before Explosion

Look at it go!

Good Luck

Otherwise in Florence we saw pretty much everything. We went to Piazza della Signoria, della Repubblica, Dante's house, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, the churches of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, Piazzale Michelangelo and San Miniato al Monte, the Accademia to see Michelangelo's David and Slaves and the Uffizi gallery.

View of Ponte Vecchio from our hotel

Pisa:
We spent a morning in Pisa at the "Campo dei miracoli" or the "Field of Miracles" with the Cathedral, Baptistery and Leaning Tower ... just to marvel.

That is one leaning tower ...

Or is it being pushed ...

Parco Giardino Sigurtà:

On the first of May, Abby, another assistant and I went to a Park/Garden near Lake Garda, walked around, had a picnic and laid in the sun. 

Mantova:

One Sunday I took a day-trip to Mantova, a city in Lombardy surrounded by lakes. I visited the Palazzo Ducale owned by the Gonzaga family and walked to their summer palace, Palazzo Te. Their family invoked Olympus, the home of the Gods, and the labyrinth to their name and so the Palazzo Ducale is full of both. One ceiling [no pictures allowed] had a labyrinth with the expression "Forse che sì, forse che no" written throughout. "Maybe yes, maybe no."

Palazzo Ducale, Mantova

Lago Superiore, Mantova

Lake Iseo:

When you think of what there is to do in Brescia, there's not too much to the city itself. In the province, there are three lakes: Lake Garda, Iseo and Idro. I visited Lake Iseo last week when I didn't have any classes one day. There is a large island in the center called Montisola and two smaller islands around it.

Montisola, Lake Iseo

From Montisola

Villa on another island San Paolo;
rumored to be bought by George Clooney