I’m writing at the end of my first full week, and weekend, in Italy. Classes are gearing up and we’re starting to get into the swing of things, which is good because I wasn’t doing so well without a routine. I always forget how much of a creature of habit I am.
Penn in Florence only runs classes Monday to Thursday, so all our weekends are long weekends. Thursday afternoon after class I was attempting to do some homework in the hotel lobby, since that’s the only place in the hotel we have internet. A side note before I start my story: we are staying in a hotel for the entirety of the six weeks. There are only about 40 rooms in the whole hotel, so Penn in Florence is using about 2/3 of the available space. The two brothers who work the front desk are about our age and they love to joke around with us and help us find the best things to do in Florence. I understand why Penn is building a relationship with this particular business – we provide them with consistent booking and they give us great service. Anyway, back to my story. I was quickly convinced to stop working and take a walk because it was beautiful and sunny outside; this “walk” turned into a complete evening out. We (Zach, Federico, Gavriela, Keira and I) wandered around for a while, got gelato, then went to take a break by sitting on one of the bridges. We ended up sitting on the bridge for two hours and watching the sun set over the River Arno. I’m not very good at sitting still, but in this situation I was perfectly happy to sit and talk and enjoy the sunshine. After the sun went down we decided to eat dinner and ended up going to a really cool place that serves typically Tuscan food. I had a pepper stuffed with cheese and a nice plate of pasta, plus bread, wine, and Limoncello, a sweet after-dinner drink (Lemon flavored, of course). Our waiter loved that we spoke to him in Italian and didn’t mind that we asked lots of questions, so he gave us the after-dinner drinks for free. The food in Tuscany in general is simple and fairly healthy. My Italian textbook taught me that this has been a relatively poor area for hundreds of years, so the food culture developed around what farmers could grow and raise and preservatives were rarely used. Tuscany is known for its olive oil, so there’s no need to put expensive (at least traditionally) salt in bread when there’s better flavoring available.
That was Thursday; Friday, a big group of us left for Cinque Terre, on the Lirugian coast (about 3 hours southwest of Florence by train). The Cinque Terre (literally, 5 lands) are 5 small Italian villages on the sea. We stayed in Riomaggiore, which is one of the bigger villages and the entry-point to Cinque Terre. The group booked a hostel for the two nights we stayed – each person only paid about 70 euro total. The hostel we stayed in is actually someone’s summer home, as far as I could tell from the family photos displayed around the apartment. The owners must put the hostel association in charge of renting the apartments to visitors, just as families in the Outer Banks allow realty associations to rent out their houses in the summer. The place where my friends Katie and Michelle and I stayed was really nice – newly renovated bathroom and everything. The only downside to staying in this particular place was the long walk to get it. All the villages are set on the cliffs next to the sea and we were staying at the highest point in Riomaggiore. There were probably 200 stairs plus various other walkways to get to our apartment. But the view was totally worth it. The higher up you are, the better view you have of the sea and the cliffs. The villages are surrounded by terraced farms where the villagers grow olives, lemons and other things, and you get a better view of those with altitude, as well.
The first day we were there we ate lunch, checked into our hostel, then changed and headed for the beach. The only sand beach (though I’m fairly sure the sand is imported) is at the 5th town, Moterosso, a 20 minute and 1.20 euro train ride from Riomaggiore. The air wasn’t very warm, but the water was, so we got to have a nice swim. It was great to hang out on the beach! The guys and girls in our group had made plans for the weekend separately, so the guys headed back to the hostel and the girls went to dinner. Liguria is famous for its pesto, so I had pesto lasagna for dinner – no meat, just lots of cheese and lots of pesto. After dinner we strolled around town and found a place to walk down to the bottom of one of the steep cliffs where the water smacks hard against the rocks. It was an absolutely beautiful night, and I would have been happy to sit there for a couple of hours and just listen to the wind and waves. But we headed back to Riomaggiore so we could wake up early in the morning.
Four of us got up in time to leave for a hike at 8:30 am. The villages of the Cinque Terre are connected by a train and by roads, but also by hiking paths. Between the first two towns, the path is cut into the rock of the cliffs and is relatively flat. It only takes about 20 minutes to walk between the first two, but the trail keeps you close to the sea and affords you a great view. The second leg is a little harder, changing elevation a little bit. Leg two ends with 385 or so stairs organized into switchbacks. I’ve never climbed so many stairs at one time in my life! There isn’t much to see in the second town, so we continued on right away, partially guided by a Native American man who was a little bored and eager to help us. We had the typical Penn State vs. Penn confusion – I guess it can happen anywhere. The third leg starts to change elevation a lot. We traveled up all the stairs on one side of the town only to go down just as many on the other side. The first set was made of brick, but all the other stairs we climbed were mud and stone cut out of the cliffs. It had rained in the morning, and rained a little bit while we were on our way, so it was very slippery! We were surrounded by vegetation, which is strangely tropical for the latitude. There are lots of bright pink flowers and even some cacti, though those might be planted instead of natural. All the while we had beautiful views of the towns we were heading toward and away from, as well as the sea and the forest. I’ve never seen anything like it. We stopped at Village 4 to get lunch and do a little shopping; we were worried that if it kept raining we wouldn’t be able to hike the last and hardest leg. But it stopped raining while we were eating and the sun even came out a little, so we headed for the fourth leg. There’s hardly any flat surface on the fourth hike – we were constantly going up or down stairs or dirt ramps. On the last leg the trail is very narrow in some places. There’s barely enough room for one person to pass, let alone people going in opposite directions. It’s a little scary when you’re on a foot wide path up against the side of the cliff with nothing but some trees on your other side to catch your fall into the sea. But we all made it safely, and it felt so good to start the final descent into Monterosso, a series of hundreds of stairs. We went into the sea again and looked around town, which has a lot of little boutique shops where you can buy jewelry, souvenirs and scarves. Our evening adventures back in Riomaggiore included a late night walk down to the beach under a full moon.
We got up early Sunday morning to head back to Florence. Some of us stopped in Pisa on the way. We’d been told that we didn’t really need more than an afternoon to see Pisa, so we figured we’d check it out. Everyone knows about the leaning tower of Pisa... Well now I can say I’ve been there, though it wasn’t really very exciting. It’s a tower, and it’s leaning. The tower literally puts Pisa on the map – there is nothing else to do there (except go in a museum about the tower). The city itself isn’t very big and it isn’t very nice. Florence has much more interesting architecture and is much more lively. The leaning tower itself isn’t as big as the tower in Florence, and really, if you think about it, the only reason anyone even knows about it is not because of an architectural feat, but an architectural screw-up. We didn’t really feel like paying 15 euro and waiting an hour and a half to climb the tower, so we just kind of looked around the tower complex, which includes a huge cathedral and a baptistery. I wanted to poke around the church, but there was a mass going on, so we really only got to step inside. It looked like there were some incredible frescoes on the walls, but we couldn’t get close to them. I think the baptistery cost money too, so we just headed back to Florence. I’m glad I got to go and see the tower in person, at least.
We got back and I finished my homework for Monday, then I heard from some of the guys I know who just graduated from Penn(Matt Curtis, John Bninski, Josh Veit, Terry Wang). They are eurotripping and Sunday was one of their days in Florence. We went out to dinner and then to my favorite gelateria – I know, it’s crazy that I already have a favorite gelateria. But this place is right next to the river, and we got to watch the sun go down. I’ve already seen the sunset several times, but I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching it. The colors are spectacular, and the reflection of the city on the water is perfect because the Arno is so still. It was a great night. I was missing my usual Penn crew a little bit this week, so this rendezvous was perfectly timed.
We’ll only have three days of class this week – Thursday is a group day trip to Assisi. Who knows where else we’ll end up over the weekend…
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