Cinqueterre- Part one

Italy is no doubt a beautiful place to be but the most beautiful place I have been so far had to be this last weekend in Cinqueterre. These five towns are connected by trails that one can hike and are not too far from each other (the longest hike between towns should take about an hour and a half). These five towns are all beautiful and awesome. This was the destination of our next voyage out of Torino and was easily my favorite to date.

Camogli

The Italian Riviera is awesome. I don’t know of many more ways to put it. For the girls' trip, I had prepared some papers for them that provided descriptions of some small towns and gave them day trip ideas for their time in Torino. One of those places was Camogli. When I wrote about it and did the research, I decided that even if the girls didn’t make it, I would be going the weekend after they left. They ended up going and loved it, which only meant that I would now definitely have to go.

The Final day the girls are in Torino

Having the girls in Torino had been awesome. They gave me someone to cook for and were excited to go out and do things so they were a blast to have in Torino. However, I knew the excitement would come to an end soon and before I knew it, it was their last day in Torino.

Chocolate festival

You read the title correctly. That is right, an entire festival about chocolate. Every year, Torino is the host to one of the largest chocolate festivals in the world. Consuming an entire piazza, tents selling and making chocolate spread their joys to the visitors of this wonderful event. I was lucky enough to get to go to this event multiple times so lets get going!

Torre di Lamberti

The Torre di Lamberti is the big tower in Verona. As I noted in the last blog, with Molly, Allie and Amanda, I finally got the opportunity to go up the tower so lets start climbing!

Molly and Her Friends Come To Town! Part II

Verona is a wonderful city. If any of you have a chance to visit it, I urge you to jump at the chance. As I have mentioned before, Verona is steeped in history and a wonderful place to be. When Molly, Allie and Amanda came to visit, Verona made it on the agenda largely because of my experience there a few weeks prior. This time, with a bit more knowledge on where to go, we planned to go to some of the awesome places I got to see last time as well as a few new things that I missed last time.

Molly and Her Friends Come To Town! Part I

After two months of not seeing Molly, to get to see her twice in like 2 and a half weeks was pretty much awesome. This time, however, was not going to be just the two of us as her friends, Allie and Amanda, were going to be joining us. Molly has been talking about these friends for quite some time so to finally meet these people and put a face to the name will be nice. We have quite a jam packed schedule ahead of us so lets get to it!

Since Spring Break

The last week has been a good week. The majority of the week was spent getting back to the grind of school and things like that. To start, I had to do a 15-minute presentation in Italian on The Lion King (wonderful way to come back from spring break) and at the end, we went to the GAM, Torino’s Gallery of Modern Art for the first time with my art class.

Spring Break!!!!!

When Molly left, Spring Break had officially started. My spring break’s have been fairly dull my entire life. In High School, Spring Break translated to a baseball tournament that would soak up the whole time. Now, in college, Spring break translates to working 40 hours for a week. This year was set to be 100% awesome, with plans to go to Florence for the a few days and simply being in Italy in general, this was set to be the best Spring Break ever!

Molly in Torino!

Molly coming to Torino was easily the most anticipated thing for me in the last two months. I know it may be sappy or whatever but I love Molly like crazy. I left on the 11^th of January and she came to Italy on the 11^th of March. Those two months were far tougher without her than I would have imagined. I had been planning her trip here for a while and was very excited. Armed with good recipes, great restaurant ideas and tons to do, I was prepared and excited! Then a good Italian bus strike struck and decided to try to mess with out plans...

Birthday!

So, I know it has been a while since I have posted. I ran out of space on my blog as just recently added more space to the blog so I can continue sharing pictures. I will try to post one a day until I'm caught up and, since this is all the way back in March, I’ve got a way to go, but Thanks for following! Now on with the show!

Ivrea

 

Imagine oranges, the fruit whose juice will be handed to us if we reach far enough back in the refrigerator of our nearest supermarket. The peacefulness of an orange grove seems like it would be a place that, other than the buzzing of bees, would be a fairly peaceful and calming place to be.

Now, imagine a small Italian mountain village, with narrow cobblestone streets, small piazzas and a river running through it. Also, seems like a very peaceful and calming place. Birds chirping and the Alps looming in the distance all complete the small town where the smell of pizza is in the air.

However, when you combine the two, somehow, you end up with the best way to celebrate Carnivale… in the world

Verona part II

After seeing the Juliet’s balcony, we made our way back to the main piazza and looked into climbing one of the remaining towers in Verona but decided, with such little time, that we would be better served going to the third largest coliseum in Italy, and probably one of the best kept in the world.

Verona- Part I

Verona is a fairly famous city (maybe you have heard of it) in north east Italy. It is one of the main tourist destinations in northern Italy, thanks to roman ruins and connections to some play by some old dude (yes, I am referring to Shakespeare’s famous story, The Two Gentlemen of Verona… oh and Romeo and Juliet, I guess that is famous too)

A Venetian Morning

With a full nights worth of rest, I woke up at about 6 am and made it out into Venice before the town was overrun with tourists. I took the slow Vapporetto down the canal and then made my way to the Rialto Bridge before walking back to the hotel to get breakfast. After breakfast, we went to Frari church and then made it back to the buses to head to Verona.

Carnival of Venice

 Traditions can be found around the world. In Reno, for example, it may be considered a tradition to go to Hot August Nights or the Rib Cook-off. Some of these traditions go back hundreds of years, like Carson Valley Days, while others are relatively new. Venice is well known for their take on Carnivale, which dates back to the thirteenth century and is different from other Carnivale type celebrations because of the famous masks.

Burano

 After our trip to Burano, we took the 15 minute ride over to the next island group in the lagoon, Burano. Made of four small islands linked with bridges, Burano is easily the most beautiful of the islands. Famous for its lacework, the islands homes are beautifully painted in warm pastel colors.

Murano

The Lagoon that Venice lies in is quite interesting. The main attraction in the area is clearly Venice but for those looking to make their way off the beaten path a little, trips to Murano and Burano are musts.

Murano is a series of islands that is famous for their glass. Here, glass blowing and glass making is an artwork passed down from generation to generation. The islands used to be their own independent group of islands but now it is a part of Venice. Murano was originally settled by the Romans and did pretty well for itself as a great fishing port and source of salt. By about the 11^th century, their status began to decline and Venice took control by the 13^th century, though it maintained more autonomy than other islands in the lagoon, maintaining their own set of coins.

St. Marks Basilica

  After we journeyed our way down the Campanile, we made our way across the square to the equally famous St. Mark’s Basilica.  The Basilica, over the last thousand years, has become one of the most religious sites in the world and has also become the sedimentary rock of Venetian society, with layer upon layer of treasure added to the building until it reached its present state.

St. Marks Campanile

Our first stop of the day took us to the famous St. Marks Campanile. The Campanile is the one that has been replicated and copied the world over, even finding its place in Vegas. Coming in at about 98 meters (325ish feet), it is a huge building in an otherwise fairly short city.

St. Marks from the mouth of the lagoon

Venice and Verona- an Overview

Venice is one of the most iconic cities in Italy, maybe even Europe. This city became one of the largest economic centers in the world, despite its humble beginnings. 1500 years ago or so, barbarians were terrorizing Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire, destroying towns, raping and pillaging their way through the once mighty empire. In hopes of refuge, people who lived in what is now the Veneto region of Italy decided to move into the lagoon. Though there are islands (Murano, Burano…) in the lagoon, they elected to go with building islands themselves. Be driving wood down as deep as they could get it to go, through the muddy surface and down to a thin layer of clay, the modern day city began to take shape.

Palazzo Madama

In the 2000 years Torino has been around, there have been a great number of changes and additions to the city. Having been here over a month, it has been interesting to get to peal back each layer of the cities history and see things from ancient roman artifacts to new shifts as a result of the 2006 Winter Olympics. One building, however, has been here the entire time and is completely symbolic of all the changes in Torino over the last 2000 years.

The Royal Church of San Lorenzo

Churches are everywhere in Italy. It is kind of like a bank in Minden or a gas station in the states or a Starbucks in California. On our first visit in my Art class, we went to the Palazzo Madama (which I will post about tomorrow) but took a detour to... you guessed it! A chruch!

Caffè Al Bicerin

When someone told me that the Drink of Torino wasn't coffee (and I don't mean a starbucks coffee but just a cafè, I have to say I was a little surprised. Italy is a country known for coffee, being coffee drinkers and essentially loving everything coffee so to hear that the drink of the former capital wasn't coffee, I think i was justifiably taken aback.

As I think I have noted before, Torino has a ton of old buildings. One of the old Roman gates is still standing (though I have yet to get a good picture of it- the weather hasn't been all that great this week) and part of the town is still on the same grid system set up by the Romans eons ago. That is where my latest journey took me (though it took a bit longer to get it on here than I would have liked, the inclement weather has made getting on the Internet far more of a challenge than I would have hoped for) for the Drink of Torino.

Aosta

This weekend was a weekend filled with tons of adventures and things to do so i will start with one of my favorites- our trip to Aosta.
     
Aosta isn't typically on the American tourist place. It was taken over by the Romans in 25 BC (and people had been living there much earlier) and remained a Roman stronghold until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. As with most of Italy, following the fall of Rome, the city changed hands frequently, going to the Burgundians, then the Ostrogoths, then the Byzantines, followed by the Lombards, the franks, Charlemagne, Burgundy and then finally the savoy family though it remained separate from Italy until 1948 (The Savoy family had granted Aosta special status when they acquired it). When the Romans took over the town, they laid out their usual grid pattern which is still very visible today. Today it's home to a little over 35,000 people and was in the running to host several of the last winter games. The city had hoped to get an event during the 2006 games but didnt as Torino kept all the winter events in Piedmont. 

Food!

I was looking at some of my posts through the first three weeks of being over here and I noticed that for someone who is in Italy, there isnt much mention of food. Considering how amazing everything has been, I was fairly surprised. This past weekend, My roommate and I were walking around Torino, headed back from a successful journey to the mall when we crossed paths with a ristorante hidden away from the hustle and bustle of Torino. We decided that it looked like a great place to get a good, authentic italian experience so we headed in...

JUVE!!

Last night, My roommate and I made our first trip to the mother ship of European sports (actually, probably the world's mother ship of sports but we Americans chose to refuse this and do things our own way)- the Soccer game. Having only been to professional Baseball and Basketball games, and knowing that Europeans are fairly well known for getting into full blown brawls during soccer matches, I figured it would be quantified as a good experience if i kept all my limbs and came out without a black eye...

Egyptian Museum

This weekends journey took me to the worlds second largest Egyptian museum, second only to the one in Cairo, Egypt (which seems fair). I got a ton of pictures so this will have more pictures than words for the most part.

Il Lingotto

 In Italy, Torino is the auto manufacturing capital of the country and has been since around 1910. Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is headquartered here. For a long time, they, like Ford, had an American acronym synonymous with their name. Ford had Fix Or Repair Daily and has actually become a more quality car in the last two or three years. Fiat, or Fix It Again Tony, has also had a similar shift in their quality from the days of constant disrepair to one of the better cars available in Europe (supposedly FIAT is making the jump across the pond in the next few years to try to get some of the American market place and capitalize on its demand for fuel efficient cars).

Luigi!

Asti

Once known as the town of a thousand towers during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, Asti (Ahs-tee, not ASS-tee) is now known best for its wines, including a dark red Barbera, a white Moscato (one of my favorites) and the sparkling Asti Spumante (which, by Italians is called just Asti to avoid being lumped in with the poor quality spumante from around the world). Asti first became a Roman colony in 124 BC (when it was a fortified camp) and rose to being one of the trading powers in Italy during the middle ages. By 1200, Asti was one of the richest cities in Italy. Their reign of self rule, like all of Italy, was short lived, with the power and banking issues dividing the city and making it weaker. By 1314, the Solaro family gave the city to Robert of Naples. It subsequently went through the hands of the Visconti, the Sforza, John II of Montferrat, the French and finally the Savoy family (It was actually a part of Beatrice of Portugal’s dowry so when Charles III of Savoy married her, it got included into their growing kingdom). The Savoy family held the city for a good while, with it becoming one of their more important strong holds during wars. The city was lost to the Spanish following the plague, which ravished the city and killed off large numbers of civilians (in about 1630). The Savoy family regained control fairly quickly and maintained control until 1703 then the French took Asti during the war of Spanish succession. It was reconquered in 1705 by Victor Amadeus II and was lost yet again in 1745 to the French, only to be freed yet again. In 1797 the Astigiani, enraged by the continuous military campaigns and by poor economic situation, revolted against the Savoy government. On July 28 the Repubblica Astese was declared. However, it was suppressed only two days later with the leaders of the revolution quickly being arrested and executed. The Savoy family was quickly kicked out of Asti, however, and the French retained control. Napoleon himself made a visit to the city in 1805 but was received so poorly by the citizens that he demoted the city. When the French empire fell, Asti returned to Piedmont (the same region as Torino, which, as you may remember, was run by the Savoy) in 1814 and became a part of Italy in 1861.

Getting Settled

Since we have finally moved in, gotten past most the awkward stage for roommates (I’m sure that more moments will come), and begun to try to figure out Torino, I can say that this has been an interesting experience thus far at the very least. The first night for dinner, we walked around Torino for a half hour starting at 7pm and everything was closed! Thinking we had missed dinner, we began to head back to the apartment thinking we weren’t going to get to eat that night when we saw a Ristorante and Pizzeria that was open. We headed on over and saw the door was open so we walked in. We were seated quickly and were the only people in the restaurant. We got handwritten menus because they are getting new ones printed (I came to find this out later) and it had some of their specialties and most popular items on it.

the Wine Room in Eataly

Move In Day

Move in day is always an interesting day. There is always this awkward shuffle type thing that happens when you meet a roommate for the first time and you are moving in to the housing. It its like an attempted show of power to see who will get what room, who gets what shelf in the fridge, where the heat will be set at... all of this is very important and seems quite highly correlated with your enjoyment (or saddness) in the living place. All of this is intense and stressful even before you add in small factors like foreign countries and things of that nature. When today started, I simply wanted to move in, meet my roommate and see how the next four months was going to play out.

Arrival!

Ciao Tutti!

I have officially arrived in Italy! It feels a little strange, walking off the plane, seeing a ton of signs in italian and kind of understanding most of them. Me and my roommate (still working on names, ill get there) dropped our stuff off and went for a walk around our hotel to try to fight off jet lag. its strange knowing that at 4.30 yesterday morning, I was waking up in reno and now its 18.25 the next day and I'm in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from home, listening to tons of other languages being spoken and very few of them being anything remotely like English (Ive heard Turkish, Giapponese, Italian (of course, Romanian...), all very interesting and very different. But before i delve too deeply into Torino, ill talk more about the journey across the ocean.

It all started at about 4.00 or 4.30 when I woke up to get ready for the airport. Molly and I met my parents at the airport at about 5.00 and we sat around chatting for a while. it was kinda strange knowing that i wouldnt see anybody familiars face for about a month (when molly makes the voyage to Scotland). Though it was sad to say good by to my family for six months, I know its going to be pretty awesome to see them again.

Departure

I have been working on this post for a few days and was waiting until I had a ton of time in SF to finish it... and it didnt really happen.

So the trip to Torino has officially begun in Reno. Molly and I met my parents at the airport around 5am this morning, got to talk one last good time for about 6 months (for the family that is, luckily, i get to see molly in a little over a month) and i boarded my plane bound for SF. I had, in my mind, the plan of getting to SF early, finishing this post, having lunch, meeting people but from the get go things took a detour. We taxi out of the gate and then proceed to just sit there for about 15 minutes because of mechanical issues. so the pilot has to call the maintenance people out to fix whatever issue there was, only to come back on and say something along the lines of 'we're gonna see if this thing just shakes itself out as we get going'- not exactly what you want to hear but oh well.

So i get to SF about a half hour later than i had planned only to see that the Lufthansa check in counter isnt open. Nobody seems to know when it opens so i just sit there and hang out, thinking it will open soon- nope. after an extra hour and a half, i began to see what Douglas Adams meant when he said that its no coincidence that the phrase 'as pretty as an airport' doesn't appear in any culture. Dont get me wrong, the SF airport isnt ugly but, after a short while of staring at the same few walls, its certainly nothing to brag about.

So with about 45 minutes to go before the line opens, I go stand in line. holy smokes was that a good decision. shortly after I got in line (I was about 10-15th in line) the line suddenly grows like crazy to well over sixty people. I have pictures and ill upload them in a little bit (the SF internet is a little slow and ive got about 9 minutes of free internet left so ill save it for another day).

Luckily, Security was a breeze (but i didnt get the whole body scanner thing, which would have been an interesting experience) and have yet to see any USAC kids like i had hoped. Im going to get some grub and run around as much as i can before i get to sit down for 11 hours and get to eat wonderful airplane food.

Leaving has been quite an experience in-and-of-itself. From a wonderful going away party, to seeing a ton of people that truly care about me and having to say good bye, to having to say good bye to Molly for a while has been a whole lot harder than i thought it would be. Flying alone for the first time has been an adventure, from wandering through airports that i dont know to seeing people trip over their luggage at top speed to the family with the matterhorn hats, its been funny but im coming to a quick realization that this is something that is much more fun to share.

My plane just pulled up and its huge. I have never been on planes that are all that large so this is going to be cool to be on a Double Decker plane. I hope that I dont get stuck next to someone who stinks! that would make for a long 11 hours to Frankfurt!

As i get down to the last 3 min of internet before im forced to sign off, i want to thank everybody who has supported me in this venture, from setting up and putting on an excellent going away party to family to helping me pack and get my life into a suitcase and so on, I wouldn't be here without you and Lets go to Italy!!!!!

Torino

I'll be living in Torino while studying abroad. Torino, as you can see to the left, is located in the northern part of Italy. Torino sits along the banks of the Po River. Historians place the "founding of Torino" at around 28 BCE, as a military camp for the Roman Army. As the Roman Empire did in many of its cities, they laid out a grid pattern which still exists today. Torino quickly grew and hit a peak of 5000 people within its walls. However, being in northern Italy wasn't as awesome as it is today. When the Holy Roman Empire collapsed, Torino quickly fell into the hands of the Lombards (hence the name Lombardy for the nearby region) then the Franks.

Italy 101

So in 8 days, I will board a plane to bound for the journey of a lifetime. Ill be headed to Italy for about 6 months but I wanted to giver everybody a background on Italy. I planned on starting this a while ago and having cool factoids and whatnot on the lead up to my departure, as well as play with this whole blogging thing so i can get used to it but, as Douglas Adams once said, "I love Deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by." But on with the short background...