Termina

Well, this is my last Italy-themed post. I write this as I sit in New York, having seen the end of my Italian adventure. I know that my blogging was more sporadic this semester, but in truth that may have been a function of doing fewer "new" things. I mean, how many evening out at the Druid can one blog really stand?

Now, I am heading back to Washington, DC. Back to my little apartment in Cleveland Park (which is conveniently located across the street from Liam and Meghan!):

This summer I will be doing three things: interning at an undisclosed location in DC, spending several hours a week working with French tutors so that I might actually have a chance of graduating next year, and becoming reacquainted with my neighborhood fitness facility. Should be good times....

I think I may try and keep the blog going this summer, so do check back....Otherwise, thanks for sharing my Italian adventures with me! It was fun!

Le Marche

This post was supposed to be better, but after trying and trying, I can't seem to add any further photos. I apologize. You miss out on seeing the true wonder of Il Casato and Mario....


Okay, so I know this is late in coming (and I am back in the US, which will be the subject of my next post), but I thought this would still be a fun post, for a number of reasons. First, this area, Le Marche, is located to the east of my region, Emilia-Romagna, but is much less traveled than another regional neighbor, Tuscany. In fact, this region was written up in the New York Times last year as being the next Tuscany. I know this sounds like quite a cliche, to visit the next anything, but the article made this region sound so lovely....I wish I had more pictures to share with you, but blogger has thwarted my attempts to add all but the following photos. Here are some general photos of the region:




And here is a photo from the town of Urbino, which is located in the northwest of the region and is actually a UNESCO World Heritage site:
The highlight of the trip, though, was definitely the encounter with Mario Boria, who runs Il Casato in Castelraimondo. This farmhouse holding the restaurant has been in Mario's family for 250 years and everything served is made from the ingredients grown on Mario's farm. There was vino, meats, pastas, homemade grappa, and a delightful cherry dessert. I would say that no trip to Le Marche could possibly be complete without a trip to see Mario....

La France

Maintenant, je pense que je parlerais au sujet de mon voyage en France. Vous dites que vous ne pouvez pas lire des Français? D'accord, je reviendrai à l'anglais....

Anyway, for spring break, I decided to make a solo journey to the south of France, if order to practice my French and pick up some reading material for the summer. So, a simple train ride from Bologna took me to my first stop: Nice. Actually, Nice was my first and last stop. Anyway, my first day in Nice was less than stellar. I won't bore you with the details, but the hostel was located up on a hill and the buses were weird and it involved walking uphill with all my stuff. I wasn't too pleased with this location, but the price was right. On my return to Nice, I found a great, cheap B&B where I could stay right in the middle of town. Oddly enough, haveve no pictures from this first day in Nice.

After Nice, I headed west to greater Provence. My first stop was Aix-en-Provence. I ran into a similar hostel problem there, too. Some of it was my fault, but a large part of the problem was the hostel's closing in the middle of the day. What is up with that? Is the hostel trying to be Italian? I need see a few interesting things in this town. One thing I came across was a Good Friday march to thcathedralsle. My mother will be happy to know that I actually joined in:
I also saw the most amazing carousel, complete with miniature Sputnik, biplane, bug, dinosaur, hot air balloon, rocket-shipsps, and cruiseliner:After Aix-en-Provence, I headed to Avignon, which is where the whole trip started to pick-up. Till that point, the trip was about to go down as my least favorite. But Avignon was a cute town, situated right on the Rhone. And it features a Papal Palace and actually served as the seat of the Papacy instead of Eternal Rome for 70 years in the 14th century. I believe it is the only city to have served such a purpose. Here is the Papal Palace and the area right around it:

Above the Papal Palace is a large park overlooking the Rhone. Within this park, I found palace where kids could hire and ride horse drawn carriages. I thought this scene was rather funny:

Another picture of Avignon:

After visiting Avignon, I traveled to Arles, where I planned to stay on Saturday and then on Easter Sunday. I was a little concerned about what I would do with myself on Easter, for imagined the entire town would be shut-down. Boy was I wrong. Instead of finding a boarded-up town, I found a huge festival ushering in the start of the bull-fighting season:

This festival featured the running of the bulls (at one point it looked like the bull might run through the fence, so we the spectators had to run, too), old women making paella, a bunch of rides and carnival games (check out the Friends-themed game, plus the shooting game with the prize of alcohol, and the game that allows you to choose which knife you want as a prize):

In between the festivities, I also went to church, which features the Nicene Creed in Latin!

After Arles, I head back to Nice, where I saw a beautiful sunset while sitting on the beach:Then I saw something that reminded me why I travel:This is a life-size vending machine, that was probably 8-10 feet tall and 10-15 feet wide. You could buy all sorts of things-normal vending machine stuff like soda and candy, but also full-size milk cartons, toiletries, and all sorts of stuff. It reminded me why I travel because I really enjoy seeing normal everyday things, like vending machines, tweaked and manifested in a new and novel way, like above. The Friends-themed carnival game is another example.

After Nice, and before returning to Bologna, I traveled to Grasse, which is a small town an hour north of Nice. I don't have any pictures, but it was a rather cute medieval town. The only difference between this town and other medieval towns was the state of the town. Most like towns have been rather bustling places, full of cute stores and cafes. This town was different, as most of the storefronts were either empty or just shut-down. I felt like I was in a town that was still several years, if not decades, away from revitalizationin plan. Grasse is a hotbed for perfumeries, though. I almost bought a perfume with a base of dark chocolate, but decided against it. They also had a perfume based on marshmallows.

The next day I returned to Bologna. I was very happy to be back. I enjoyed being in France, as I read French Cosmo, some French celebrity magazines, and started reading the Da Vinci Code in French. That part of the trip was good, although I also saw how badly I need to work with tutors this summer to improve my speaking skills. I knew exactly what I was supposed to say, but when people actually spoke to me, I clammed up and got really nervous about having to say something. This needs to change, so my next trip to France is more productive....

My Brothers Came, Saw, and Conquered

So, I am not sure how best to explain my blogging absence. I could say that it is because of my brothers' visit or mid-terms or even my spring break trip to France. Or I could say it is a combination of all of the above. I think I will claim choice (c).

Regardless, I have lots of good stuff to report and expound upon. the first topic to tackle will be my brothers' trip to Italy....

To properly set the scene, you have to understand a couple things about these boys (who were nearing the end of their first jet-lagged day when this photo was taken--don't they look excited?):

First, this was the boys', aged 25 and 18, first trip together. Ah, ain't that sweet? More importantly this was Diedrich's, the older and red-headed brother, first international trip and his very first passport. The big question is who will go win the race to take their second trip abroad first--my mother or Diedrich?

Anyway, those are the preliminaries. Now on to the specifics of their trip. They arrived on a Saturday, left the following Saturday, and traveled to Ravenna, Venice, Rome, and Pompeii in between. These were some busy boys.

On night one, I thought they should jump into the Bolognese scene first feet, with dinner at Aroma de Roma and drinks at the Druid. Joining us on this adventure were the usual suspects--Mark and Natalie. here is a picture from dinner (Natalie is taking the picture): And here are some photos from the Druid (does anyone think Patrick may have enjoyed a pint given his embracing of his siblings? Also, would you not agree that we are the most motley group of natural siblings you have ever seen? Not sure one would guess we were related, let alone siblings....):

While in the northern part of Italy with me, the boys and I visited Ravenna and Venice. If you would like to see pictures of Ravenna, please see Liam's blog, which is only a click away. We saw the same things....The day after we traveled to Ravenna, we decided to venture out and tackle Venice. Here are some photos from that experience:

And then after Venice, I got a willing group of participants (actually this willing group looks more like a get-together of my blog circle--Mark, Liam, Meghan, and Natalie) together and took my brothers to Osteria Broccaindosso, which is infamous among SAIS students (and potentially among my loyal blog readers) for serving large amounts of food family-style and then presenting you with bowls of chocolate and cream for dessert. Here are some pictures from this event:

And that was about it in terms of pictures. My brothers left the next day for Rome and then came back for one last half-day/evening in Bologna. All in all, I think they had a good trip. At least Patrick enjoyed ordered and drank legally--that has to count for something, right?

The Brothers Are Coming....

Tomorrow my brothers begin their journey to Bologna. Hopefully the city will survive....

Orvieto

Not too long ago, in a country far, far away, your blogger visited one of those mystical type of towns that is hard to believe actually exists. For this weekend, the mystical Italian city of our choosing was Orvieto, which I believe I mentioned, is a place that I had wanted to visit since I first spied it from the window of a bus when I was 16 years old. Well, earlier this month, I finally visited the town. Mark, Natalie, and our friend Lindsay set out from Bologna on Friday afternoon and had a lovely direct train ride to Orvieto. After disembarking from the train in Orvieto, we had to take a funicular train (which may be my favorite mode of transportation) to the actual town on a hill: (this is a bad picture swiped from the Internet) The village of Orvieto sits on a butte about an hour outside of Rome. The butte is populated with many underground caves, which today are used mostly for wine cellars and basements of the people of Orvieto. At various times in the past, the caves were used to house pigeons, food, etc.

After arriving on Friday night, we went to eat at a restaurant located in a cave. It was rather neat. I would post pictures, but they are stuck in Natalie's camera....After dinner we roamed a very deserted Orvieto. No one was out on the town. It was eerie how silent this place was on a Friday night.

On Saturday, we took to the town and saw everything there was to see, which isn't saying too much, as the town is so small you could walk from one side to the other in 10-15 minutes. Anyway, some of the sights of our tour included a view of the hillside and some of the town's buildings:

Here is me in the town, overlooking the valley:

We also took an underground tour that included caves dating back to the Etruscans. The last time these caves were used for anything other than wine cellars was actually during WW II when the caves were used as air raid shelters:

And can anyone say "Absolut Fortress"?

Here are Mark and Natalie, trying to figure out what we should do next. Or maybe they were looking for a restaurant. I don't recall. But what is funny about this picture are the surroundings. Or maybe the combination of the playground, beer, and wind....
And here are me, Natalie, and Mark:
And then there is the Duomo in the center of town. This was a very interesting church--very ornate gold mosaic scenes on the outside, but very sparsely decorated on the inside. Actually, the inside of the Duomo has huge frescoes on the walls that some credit as the inspiration for Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The church is also interesting because of its immense size. The town of Orvieto is tiny, but the church is huge. Seems very disproportionate....




After spending the rest of Saturday walking around the town and sampling some of the local vino, we headed to an absolutely amazing dinner at a restaurant called Ristorante Zeppelin. They had a special "surprise" dining menu where one paid a set price for 3 dishes, but the cook decides what you are going to eat. After some deliberation, we decided to take the plunge. And what an amazing meal it was. My first course was a chickpea flan, with pecorino cheese mousse. Then for the second course, I had black truffle pasta. Finally, the third course was rabbit, stuffed with apple and herbs. I probably would never have ordered any of these items on my own, but they were so good. A very good time was had by all, that is certain....

the other thing that was interesting about Saturday night was the amount of people out on the town. It seemed that as soon as Saturday night mass let out, the town became overrun with people and did not clear-out of people until very late. Where these people were on Friday night, I don't know, but they were out in force on Saturday.

And then on Sunday we traveled back to Bologna. It was a very good weekend. I can't wait till my next out-of-Bologna experience....