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Roomies!
Allison, Hannah, Cassie, and Amanda in our room in the castle We should have known after yesterday that this morning’s “simple” travel plans just couldn’t go as planned. We were supposed to get up, pack our suitcases and roll our suitcases all the way down the street to the Piazza de Italia where the bus from Montagnana would pick us up. So there we were standing on the street corner with all of our luggage and belongings at 10:00am waiting for the bus, that would never show. After 15 minutes of waiting Dr. Lees finally called the hostel in Montagnana and they told him that their bus couldn’t come up to the Piazza de Italia because vehicles needed a special permit to drive up the hill. So we had to haul our suitcases down the hill to the mini metro we took yesterday and get to the train station where we thought they could pick us up. So we hauled our suitcases across blocks and blocks of cobblestone streets, down stairs, on the mini metro, and down an elevator, and down a sidewalk to the train station.
Then we stood outside the train station for about another 20 minutes before Dr. Lees called the hostel again and they told
him that they couldn’t get into Perugia at all because of the permits. So this meant we had to haul our luggage back across the train station, up a ramp, up an elevator, back onto the mini metro, and out of the city where the bus would be waiting for us. To make the mini metro travel even more fun, they make you swipe a ticket to get in AND OUT of the mini metro stations.
All in all this took almost 2 ½ hours to figure out where we needed to meet the bus. So it was actually 12:30 before we all got on the bus and met Elizabetha, the owner of the hostel we are going to be staying at here in Montagnana. Then we headed out on the 4 hour bus ride to Montagnana.
We rolled in Montagnana at 5:00 and headed to our hostel. This hostel has two different parts. There is a more modern hostel that is down the street where they have Wifi, Laundry, and where breakfast is served, and then there is the castle watch tower where we are staying. We are staying in an old castle watch tower that is
Alexandra and the Vice Mayor
She even wore a "Is this heaven, no It's Iowa" t-shirt connected to the castle wall which goes all around the center of Montagnana. A tower without an elevator.
The boys got it lucky, they got to stay in the “lower” part of the castle where they are only 3 flights of stairs up and only 2 flights above the bathroom. Then in the other side of the tower, Becky and Charolette have the lowest room 3 flights of stairs up, then it’s me, Amanda, Cassie, Hannah, and Allison in a room 5 flights of stairs up, then Betsy, Anneliese, Rhiannan, and Traci 6 flights up, then Tori and Hannah in one room 7 flights up, and Dr. Lees next door also 7 flights of SUPER STEEP steel steps up! So needless to say, ALL of our luggage had to be carried up those steps! I managed to get both of my bags up in one trip and then ran back to help Dr. Lees with his bag for a while until John grabbed it and helped him up the rest of the way.
So after all of our luggage was up ALL of those steps, we all passed out and died of coronaries! Ok, so maybe
not… We had a little time to explore and get settled into our hostel. We can walk out to one area that still has the mechanical arms that used to raise and lower the bridge and open the gates.
Then we headed out to our first meal here in Montagnana, where we received our first VIP treatment. Most of our meal here have been planned out by Alexandra who has been Dr. Lees’ contact. Our first meal was across the town to the other gate where we got the chance to meet Alexandra, her son Will, and his friend Marco. Will and Marco were foreign exchange students who had spent the 2008-2009 school year in Des Moines, so they spoke English very well. Alexandra had even stolen Will’s “Is this heaven? No It’s Iowa” t-shirt to wear as she welcomed us to Montagnana. Before dinner we were also introduced to the Vice Mayor of Montagnana. Although he didn’t speak any English he was really delightful and Alexandra translated for all of us. We got to chat with the Vice Mayor, Alexandra, and the guys for a while before supper.
Supper was served in an inner courtyard of the
castle. We were one of the first people to have eaten there since it was renovated recently. It was another amazing 4 course starting with Prosciutto (kinda like ham) that is Montagnana’s specialty. Montagnana won’t even export their Prosciutto any place else because they are afraid that the quality would go down. We had eaten Prosciutto in Perugia but this was by far better!
As dinner started Dr. Lees was introduced to important person after important person. All of the city officials showed up to greet us to Montagnana.
And then the news crew showed up….
Apparently we Dr. Lees’s class visited Montagnana one day last year they begged him to come back, and so when he wanted to bring a whole class there for 10 days, the city is all a buzz! The local news station came out and interviewed Dr. Lees (Becky was just hoping he wouldn’t attempt to speak any Italian) and then they got a shot of us all sitting down the table and waving and saying “Chow Montagnana!”. They are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited for us to be here! They keep saying how much they want us to fall in love with Montagnana!
After we were done with supper all of us and our full entourage went up the tower next to where we slept. This tower is said to host a different ghost than the one said the inhabit the tower that we are staying in. The tower on the far side of town is said to have a lady ghost that the people who served us supper all said that they have seen and felt. Our tower is said to have a male ghost, who they like to call “Prince Charming”. We also found out that there is a youtube video of the female ghost that we will have to try and find some time when we get time to do more than just check email.
Check us out on YouTube!!!
So we hiked up another very tall tower and got some time looking out at the top of the tower and then we headed down a little bit and got to check out the view from atop the wall.
Montagnana is much, much smaller than Perugia. There are only about 400 people that live within the old medieval walls and about 10,000 people live outside the walls. It is very much a farming community, in fact the moat area around the castle wall is used to grow hay. There were large round bales laying there today that made me think of home. There is also a big horse race that takes place in the moat later on the summer that is a big celebration in Montagnana.
It is a little strange for us to be treated like important people here. We are truly getting to meet everyone important in Montagnana and I can’t help but compare it to what a small town like Cresco might do if 18 students and faculty from another country chose to spend 10 days in their community. I can only imagine the church potlucks and community BBQ’s we would put on and how every city official and anyone in town that spoke their language would be introduced to them!
Tomorrow morning we will have our “Official Welcome to Montagnana” by the Mayor and get a tour of the city. It will also be the prosciutto festival and tomorrow evening we will have another FANCY meal at the festival.
Although we discovered that the main hostel does have internet, we will hardly have time to get over there to use it with everything the town has planned for us! So I will try to post my blog updates as regularly as I can, but sorry if I start to get really behind!
Buene Noche!
Katelyn
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