Busy, Busy, Busy - March 14th - March 23rd

March 14th, 2008
The next week was again very busy! A couple of days after we went to Lucca, Pisa, and Cinque Terre, we went to the Medici Chapel, which is connected to the San Lorenzo church. We saw the Cappella dei Principi, which is the room where the grand dukes of the Medici are buried. It is an immensely elaborate room decorated with some very exquisite Florentine mosaics. From there we went to the New Sacristy, which was designed by Michelangelo Buonarotti. Several of his works are in this sacristy, including Night and Day, Dawn and Dusk, and a few sculptures of the Medici themselves. The simplicity of this room, especially after the Mannerist display of affluence, is incredible. Michelangelo did not complete the sacristy, and to this day there is “writing on the wall,” where Michelangelo drew some designs. After that we went into the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which was designed by the architect of the magnificent cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, Brunelleschi. The use of light in this church was my favorite part. There is not an enormous amount of darkness, but the windows are light. It fills the church. I don't really have any pictures from this day, because pictures were again not allowed.


March 15th, 2008
The next morning, Robbie and Mona, Mona Lee and Dr Garner, and Kyle were all in the kitchen making breakfast, a very unusual occurrence, since breakfast at the villa usually consists of cereal, fruit, milk or juice, and caffe latte.

Soon we found out that they were making a full American breakfast, complete with pancakes, bacon, and eggs. We were very excited to have these things that we had been craving for a few weeks.

March 16th, 2008
On Sunday after church we went to a soccer game. Firenze won the game, and it was a lot of fun… minus all the smokers in the stadium. Not quite Astros baseball, but it was still fun!


March 18th, 2008
That Tuesday we went to the Tuesday Market, where we were assigned a few things to buy. I bought a jar of “miele,” or honey, for the villa.


March 19th, 2008
On Wednesday after classes, we went to see the Brancacci Chapel and the Pitti Palace. The Brancacci Chapel is located in the Santa Maria del Carmine church. There are some very interesting frescoes there, painted by Masolino, Masaccio, and a few of their contemporaries, and was completed by Filippino Lippi.

After that we went to the Pitti Palace and saw the Palatine Gallery, but were unable to take pictures inside. It was here that we saw several paintings by Raphael and Titian, among others. Afterwards, a few of us went to Hemingway, a coffeeshop where Ernest Hemingway used to write. It was a little expensive, but well worth the atmosphere and the chocolate spoons!

March 20th, 2008
This was the day that the HUFS students (Harding University France and Switzerland) came to visit us! Only a couple came up to the villa, because they’d had a long day.

March 21st, 2008
We saw the rest of the HUFS group this day! We hopped on the bus, met them at another stop, and got off at yet another stop to catch another bus. From there we went to Santa Croce and the Bargello. Santa Croce is the final resting place of many influential people, including Michelangelo, Macchiavelli, and Galileo. Santa Croce also has some frescoes done by Giotto. After that we went to the Bargello, which houses several important pieces of art, but was another place where photography was forbidden. It houses the original contest panels for the “doors of Paradise” on the Baptistry, done by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi on the sacrifice of Isaac. Here also was Donatello’s David, which we had the enormous favor of witnessing its restoration. Recent discoveries have labeled this “David” as Hermes of Greek mythology, rather than the Biblical David. The myth has a similar theme to it, but with some major differences. In the myth, Hermes also slays a giant, the giant Argos, whose 1,000 eyes had been assigned to watch Io.

That night we went into Florence to see Verdi’s Requiem with the HUFS group. Afterward we had a reception for the world-renowned soprano, Christine Brewer. The Requiem was incredible! So much power filled the room. You could feel it from the first moment that the conductor walked into the room. At his entrance, the entire orchestra and choir stood. At the end of the Requiem, the audience was quiet for a full 20 seconds before a thunderous applause. That is respect for the music and the theme of the music, Judgment and final Redemption.

Talking with Christine was also wonderful. She had such a story to tell about herself and how she got into opera.

March 22nd, 2008
Dr. James, a communications professor at Harding, had been with us sinceat least the 18th, teaching photography and giving us some practical advice. The 22nd was the day to take his words to heart and use them in real life as we were split up into small groups and sent out over the Tuscan countryside. So began “Mission Impossible: Ravenna.” Our group went out to the town of Ravenna, by far the longest train ride away, but also one of the most beautiful and worthwhile places to go. We were given a very specific list of items to take pictures of, and we were determined to get every one possible. Ravenna is beautiful, and most known for its incredibly well preserved Byzantine mosaics, Dante’s Tomb, the Basilica of San Vitale, and many other incredibly well preserved works. Here are some of the pictures from that day.


March 23rd, 2008
EASTER DAY
From 2000-2007, every Easter was spent at the most incredible Christian youth camp ever, Camp Hensel. So for the first time in a very long time, I was completely unable to be there. Not that I was complaining. I was in Europe after all, closer to the actual location of the Crucifixion and Resurrection than I had ever been in my life. That morning we met for the last time with the church in Florence and sang our last Italian hymns (except for the immortal “Te Amo Con L’Amor Di Jesu.”) . We went home to the villa for the ceremonial “cracking of the big egg,” the Italian tradition of cracking open an enormous chocolate egg with a prize inside for the children. Some of the children from church and acquaintances of Robbie’s were there to get the gifts, we just wanted the pounds and pounds of dark chocolate. Mona had ordered a second egg, yet between the HUFS students, the HUF students, and all of the adults and children there, there was still a huge potful of chocolate left. After the festivities, we had a couple of classes, a devo at night, and said goodbye to our friends from France.

We Come! - February 24th, 2008 to March 11th, 2008

To continue the voyage, we pick up halfway through the Southern Italy trip... starting in Capri!

That night we stayed in Sorrento, but the next day we headed to Capri. Sorrento was a wonderful town for shopping... it was the cheapest place to get anything. I stocked up on scarves as gifts here. But since it was a shopping town, it wasn't the most picturesque. Capri, on the other hand...

Capri was one of my favorite places to visit. We took a boat tour around the island, including a rather pricey stop at “La Grotta Azzurra,” but it was something that was totally worth it.

Some of us afterwards went up into Anacapri, where the Villa San Michele is. It was the Villa of a philanthropic doctor, who had a taste for art and very interesting things. My favorite thing he had there was a sphinx from the time of Rameses II, dating back to 1200 B.C.!
Sorrento was a great town for shopping, since the prices there were about a quarter of anyplace else in Italy. The day after we went to Capri, we went to the Amalfi coast and Positano. It was a cloudy day, so we didn’t enjoy it as much as other groups have, but clouds and all it was still beautiful.
We got back to the villa on a Tuesday, but that Friday we were off again. This time it was our own planned travels. I went with a group of 5 other girls on what we called “the ultimate girlie trip.” We went to Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, and Venice. 6 girls, 7 full days on our own…

We took a night train to get to Vienna from Florence. We bought 24-hour subway passes, which turned out to be a very smart move. Once in Vienna, we went to the Schonnbrunn Palace to see the gardens.
When we got there, it was bright and sunny, though a bit cold. The further back on the palace grounds we moved, the more menacing the sky became.

By the time we got to the top of the hill, it was hailing. I don’t have any pictures of that, but here’s what we looked like afterwards:
Most of our plans for the afternoon were not able to happen, because we had to go back to the hostel to dry off and change. Finally we were dry and warm, and we went to the Albertina, stopping to do “something Mozart-ish” on the way.
The Albertina is a modern arts museum that houses quite a few works by Picasso and Monet. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum. We wandered through, and saved the best for last. Unfortunately, we did not pay enough attention to the time, because as we were entering the grand finale, the room where both Picasso and Monet’s works are kept, the guard came up to us and said “You cannot come in… it’s closing time.” We had 2 minutes. We did manage to see “Water Lilies,” but there was a whole room that we didn’t even see. The rest of the night we spent wandering the city, getting “kasekrainers” from a street vendor, listening to street musicians, and stopping for apple strudel and mélange (a type of Viennese coffee) at a café.
The next day we went to Salzburg for the Sound of Music Tour. We went around to the many different film locations and were able to learn about the history of the area at the same time. We saw the mansion where the back of the house and the lake scene were filmed, but we were not allowed to go inside, because the property now belongs to Harvard and is not open to the public. It was drizzling slightly, but we got a rainbow out of it!

It had been very windy, and trees had been knocked down. Unfortunately, because of that we were not able to go up to the gazebo from “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” and “Something Good.” We could see it, but not touch it or go inside it, because it was blocked off by a gate. We saw the abbey, though again not inside, and then we took a long trip to go see the church where the wedding scene was filmed. Although the movie gives the illusion that Maria is married at the abbey (which she was in reality), the wedding scene takes place at a church up in Mondsee, a good half hour drive from Salzburg. After the tour was over, we were able to go to the gardens where the children play and learn to sing. We stood on the steps and took lots of pictures in this part of the town.

Munich was our next stop. We used it as a base to go to Neuschwantstein castle, Dachau concentration camp, and a small town called Baden-Baden, as well as taking a day just to spend time in the city.

The first day we spent in Munich, we took the train down to Füssen, on the border between Germany and Switzerland, to see Mad King Ludwig II’s dream castle. It is the castle that both the Cinderella castle and the Sleeping Beauty castle in the Disney movies are based on. It’s set above a lake, high on a hill, and it’s gorgeous… and unfinished inside, as Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances while building the castle.

This was another place we were not allowed to take pictures inside, but it was beautiful. I was able to get a picture of the view outside the back on our way out. The castle far down below is where Ludwig grew up, “Hohenschwaungau.”
The next day we took a walking tour around Munich and just hung out.
It started snowing while we were on the walking tour. It was the first snow in two years.
The next day we devoted to seeing Dachau. The snow stuck, and left everything very white and very cold all over. It gave the already stirring place a whole new dimension as we experienced the camp with our gloves, coats, and good shoes… in the knowledge that they had none, nor any way to warm themselves. We saw so many things while we were there, each thing opening our eyes a little more. This picture is the poplar trees on the road where the prisoners were able to gather and talk between the barracks.

We were also able to go back and see the crematoriums. Just the sight of those and the things inside them were truly horrific and gave a whole new insight. After seeing that, we saw the memorials of the graves of the unknown and the “graves of ashes.”

The next day we spent in a completely opposite way. We went to a spa town, Baden-Baden, where we spent the day relaxing and shopping… except the half hour where we had to run to catch the train, because the buses we on strike. Welcome to Europe!

We took a train back to Munich and then took a night train back to Italy, via Venice. Waking up almost in Venice, and recognizing phrases in Italian was so refreshing after being in German-speaking countries where none of us even remotely spoke the language. We spent the morning and most of the afternoon shopping and sightseeing.

Mask shops and glass shops were rampant there in Venice. We found so much there! My personal favorites were these:

St. Mark’s Cathedral and Square were our destination as we walked and shopped through town. When we got there, we found yet another tourist trap. The church did not allow us to take pictures inside, so our main photos were of the outside and of the thousands of pigeons surrounding the area.
Somehow the seagulls found their way in too.
We went in and out of the church so quickly that we didn’t really get a chance to enjoy it. After that, we went around the corner to see the Ducal Palace and the Bridge of Sighs.
We went back rather quickly to catch our train back to Florence and were back in our beloved Villa later that night.

Two days after our free travel ended, we were scheduled to take another trip. Exhausted, travel-weary, and just plain pooped, we were in no mood to take a trip anywhere. But off we went to Lucca, Pisa, and “Le Cinque Terre.”
Our first stop was in Lucca, known for being the town of Puccini, composer of “La Boheme” and “Turandot,” and for being the only town in Tuscany to never be conquered by Florence, because of its wall, which has since been converted into a public park.

After a few hours there, we headed to Pisa, famous of course for the biggest architectural mistake in history… otherwise known as the leaning tower of Pisa. We did not tour the bell tower itself (that requires a reservation), but we did tour the church, including the Baptistry. They did an acoustics check in there, and there was an amazing echo that lasted for several seconds. After that we went into the cathedral and saw some of the artwork and important items.
After several very touristy photos, we got back onto the bus and proceeded to Cinque Terre.
Cinque Terre - words are not sufficient. Its beauty speaks for itself. “The Five Lands” are something you must experience for yourself. Even my pictures are mere shadows and with touches of color. I will say this: it has become my favorite place in the world that I have been to. Marble sits on the beach. The waves are like music on the rocks. The “Via Dell’Amore” is well worth the visit. Each turn brings a new view and a new adventure. Le Cinque Terre are five towns along the coast of Western Italy. They are all very small, and have charm and allure that few other places in the world truly have.