Italy, Fall 2008

We had a week for fall break off, and it couldn't have been more needed. We had just finished midterm (a music history test, paper, and conducting evaluation) and everyone was exhausted. Even planning the trip was pretty hectic, including flights, buses, trains, and hostels, but it was certainly worth it. A few of us flew out of Pisa, so while we waited for our plane we took a short trip to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa at the Duomo. Beautiful, certainly, but very touristy.

I then started my trip in London, where I stayed on the floor of a friend who was studying abroad. For only a few days I tried to pack as much stuff in as I could. Went to the British Library (saw original manscripts of poets, musicians, politicians, etc),

British Museum (saw the Rosetta Stone),

walked over to Trafalgar Square and took a peek inside St.-Martin-in-the-Fields which has some of the most amazing concerts lined up, and it's only a church (Mozart's Requiem was playing that night for instance),

had dinner at the Texas Embassy (a restaurant in the building of where the Texas Embassy used to be when they were independent way back yonder), and then we just walked around the city for a little while.

The next day decided to take it a little easier and slept in, walked around town and took some photos of the Parliament House, James' Park, Westminster Abbey, and the River Thames. Most things are closed for tourists on Sunday, so I had to wait a day to go inside those but instead I went to an Evensong at St. Paul's Church. Walked across the river to the South Bank (the artsy side of town), because I really wanted to visit the Globe Theater, a recent reconstruction of the theater Shakespeare wrote for and premiered many of his works. It's a near-exact replica, including the building technique to floor space and frescoes, from the ruins of the original they found below a building only 20 years ago where it lied for almost 450 years.

Afterwards we jumped over to the Barbican Center and saw the London Symphony Orchestra play Sibelius Symphony No. 9, Schumann Symphony No. 2, and a Mozart Piano concerto with Imogen Cooper.

Monday was just as exciting: started with a trip to the Parliament House (where Big Ben is, and near the London Eye),

and literally right across the street is the Westminster Abbey, where royalty is coronated and people such as William Purcell, Charles Darwin, George F. Handel, Charles Dickens, Robert Stephenson, Isaac Newton, and many nobelmen are buried. Since London is very protective of their historic landmarks, we weren't allowed pictures of much inside, but seeing Protestant London (and later Lutheran Germany) was a change of pace from all the Cathedrals I've been visiting. Took make me feel a little more at home we walked to Westminster Cathedral after that, but English take on Gothic and Romanesque architecture is different enough to be worth seeing. The Cathedral is only a century or so old, and it was already getting renovated. That night I was able to get a free ticket to a play called War Horse (based on the children's book of the same name) at the National Theater that the Furman students were going to see, and it was certainly worth the chance to see.

I had to get up early for a flight that left at 7 in the morning, and be able to catch a train from Amsterdam to Erfurt, Germany. While we waited during the layover in Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank house, which was a neat experience. After that I hopped on a train to Germany by myself, which sounds scary but it was very relaxing. I did a J. S. Bach tour: I stayed in Erfurt for a couple nights (where his father was born and worked), and visited Eisenach (where he was born) and Weimar (a place where he worked).

The Bach House was amazing; it has period instruments that I never heard of, and there was a short presentation on 5 different keyboard instruments of the time. Even was able to visit the Martin Luther House while I was there.
Nothing much survives from Bach's time in Weimar, except for a church he worked at (and where 2 of his sons were baptized), but it was one of my favorite towns to visit; it is even more famous for Goethe and Schiller, poets.
The last night I spent in Leipzig, where Bach also worked and is now buried at St. Thomas's Church.
This famous statue was erected for him, and is based on a plaster mold of his corpse (incidentally, the Bach House is doing an exhibition on using digital technology to provide an even more accurate picture of what he looked like).

Bach's body is actually on the altar.


I think all three towns I visited had streets named after German/Germanic composers: Wagner, Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, etc. They are very proud of their musicians, and they have every right to be!
The cheapest flight(s) I could get back to Italy took me to Girona, Spain (near Barcelona), where I had a nice dinner in town, over to Rome where I spent the night, and then a train back to Arezzo. It was definitely a great trip!

Shortly before midterm, we had a 3-day weekend and a few of us decided to head to the beach. About 5 hours away, Cinque Terre (literally meaning 5 earths, or towns) is a national park where the 5 cities have been built into the hills. We went during probably one of the last possible weekends before the water got too cold. It's rare to get seafood inland, but it is obviously abundant there and it was definitely worth the trip. It's also said to be where pesto originated, and I don't doubt it. There's a set of trails between each town, and we were able to do 3 of them. The most famous is the Via dell'Amore, or Lover's Lane.

Riomaggiore, the first town, is where we stayed.

Manarola supposedly is the site for a well-known cliff diving competition, but we didn't have enough time to find a good spot for it.

Corniglia is entirely on top of a cliff, and I think has one of the oldest churches in the region, with marble imported from the other coast and lugged all the way up the cliff.

Vernazza has one of the biggest ports, and is mostly known for shopping and eating.

Monterosso has one of the only actual "beaches", with sand and water access. It also has a number of old ruins, including "Il Gigante" carved into the mountain.

The musicians had another weekend together, in one of the best cities in the world: Rome. For starters, the weather was significantly warmer since it was closer to the coast and further from the mountains, and Rome is only a few hours away by train. That made walking and running around so much more enjoyable. We started off, as most tourists I'm sure do, at the Colosseum.

As soon as we got off the metro, the sight of the colossal Colosseum greeted us. We postponed going in until after lunch, but it was certainly worth the wait.

Since we didn't have a tour guide on this day, I more or less "happened" to walk around with one or two tour groups getting to know the history behind the building.

After the Colosseum, and getting some souveniors, we visited the Roman Forum, mostly ruins now, where Ceasar was cremated and supposedly buried, where Pagan-turned-Christian churches still stand, with the Curia (the place the Roman Senate took place), and with Palatine Hill, a great expanse of land including the Flavian Palace, where the Emperor lived. With no guide for this portion either, it was a little frustrating to see so many ruins and history and know nothing about it.

The next day we visited Vatican City, by far my favorite portion of the trip to Rome, and probably to Italy itself. We had a guide for the tour of this, which was a good thing. It was completely packed with people, and if you weren't with a group it looked like you had to wait for hours to get in, and this was only at 9 in the morning. The entrance leads you through all the museums of the City, from sculptures to paintings to Egyptian artifacts (all of the obelisks in Rome are directly from Egypt, including the one in St. Peter's Square) to tapestries to world maps (of the time period) and ending eventually in the Sistine Chapel. No cameras were allowed in here, but it is certainly every bit as exciting as people make it sound. While small, the frescoes are very much alive. Directly beside the Sistine Chapel is St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world.

I can't even begin to describe how awesome it is in here, and even just viewing St. Peter's Square is a sight.

We finished off the day sightseeing some smaller (though not less important!) sites, including the Pantheon...

...and the Trevi Fountain ("Roman Holiday", anybody?)

Rome was certainly a great experience; one could spend a lifetime trying to uncover everything there.

After a week of being here, the music department decided to gift us with a trip to Florence, where we spent most of the day. Since I'm only allowed a certain number of pictures per month, I can't show them all, but I'll put my favorites up, which are mostly from the Duomo in Florence.
The outside, from front left:


The inside, looking at the door:

The inside, looking at the altar:

The inside, looking at the fresco in the dome above the altar:

After visiting the Duomo, we went to the Ponte Vecchio, meaning "Old Bridge", where the river Fiume Arno flows under. I think there was an old fort here; I saw a memorial statue to soldiers who fell defending it, and what looks like a couple old watchtowers.

We also visited Santa Croce, known for housing the bodies of greats such as Dante, Michelangolo, Galileo, and Rossini. Said to have been founded by St. Francis, it's the largest Franciscan church in the world. We didn't have time to go inside (plus you have to pay), but I did get a pan of the plaza it's in:
A pan of the inside:

Unfortunately we had our first storm last night, which means the hike today was cancelled, so no pictures of the Tuscan hillside this time. Apparently there's a circus in town, so maybe all is not lost.

We left Charlotte Airport right on time, and flew over 8 long hours to touch down in Munich. After a long night of not sleeping on a crowded plane (with decent food, actually), we boarded this puddle jumper bound for Florence, Italy.

After we get there, we were welcomed to the large city of Firenze.

We took a train to our town of Arezzo, just over an hour away on the fast train. The rest of the day was spent getting to know everyone, the rules, and our wonderful villa that we're staying in. This is a view of the Duomo from on top of one of our buildings ("duomo" being the generic name for the main cathedral in town).

Saturday was spent shopping for little things like food for weekend meals, and adapters for our electronics. Sunday we get to experience one of the biggets events in Arezzo: the Giostra, or Joust. Held twice a year, the town holds a week-long celebration celebrating the medieval history of kingship and land distribution. On the final day people gather in the center of town and reenact an actual joust, with each section of town having a representative scored points on the target dummy. The town is divided into 4 sections, or porta; our section is Porta Crucifera.

During our walk through town that day, one of our directors' friend's was talking to his barber, who happened to know someone involved with the Joust and we were able to sneak into the Lance Room and look at all the costumes and real lances they used.

Shortly after we headed to the center of town, to the Piazza Grande (Big Plaza), and watched them perform. They started with flag dancers, a procession of the armies, and a reading of the rules of engagement.


After that, each knight had 2 chances to get as many points as they could by hitting the target dummy.

We lost horribly.
The town of Arezzo also has most of the original wall left, looking at least 30 feet tall. Standing on one of the old fort's outposts was another great view.

We started school on Monday: a light breakfast at 8, Italian 9-11, Music History 11-12, Conducting 12-1, Lunch 1-2, and then twice a week we have a movement class for an hour and a half, a lesson once a week for an hour or so, a couple of community meetings.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I had to go to Florence again with a frienc to pick up my rental cello and his bass. It was our first unaccompanied trip, and although we didn't get to walk around the city, it was a good experience to learn how the train system works and try out all the Italian we've learned. All the music students are going to Florence tomorrow for the day anyways. Right outside the train station is a large church, and it's not even the city's Duomo.

The instrument dealer was nice, and the cello is ok, but of course I wish I had my own.

This weekend we're going to Florence, and a short hike into the moutains on Saturday.
As a general side note, there are a lot of lizards, flies, and sandwich shops.