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Published: March 24th 2008
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Impersonating a statue
This is something Hallie and I do regularly. We either mock the artwork by pretending what they would be saying or just pose in front of them. So our Semana Santa journey started with a short flight from Sevilla to Milan. We landed with a full day left and met up my friend Heidi's friend who volunteered to herd us around all day. Milan is a pretty big city with a deep passion for animal skins and money hoarding. I'm glad we saw the duomo (cathedral) and then peaced out asap.
Our next stop was Génova after a decently long train ride. We struggled to find our way from the train station to the hostel by speaking at Italians in Spanish but we were eventually rescued by an expatriate who picked up on our frustration. She led us to the bus stop on a leash and then patted us on the heads for doing a good job listening. The hostel was abusrdly clean and the overpowering smell of disinfectant was disconcerting. Our "free breakfast" was rationed as I imagine the WWII soldiers were fed: one croissant, one individual packet of jam and one beverage. I instantly pocketed as many jams as I could sneak and Hallie and I refilled our coffees as much as we could handle, hoping to explode with caffeine before being caught. We escaped
Saddest lion ever
This is sadder than what Simba looked like after Mufasa died. without being apprehended. We spent the rest of the day in Columbus' birth place by visiting Europe's largest aquarium (BUST. A 15 euro bust.) and then that night took a train to Cinque Terre.
Cinque Terre is a series of five small coastal villages along the Mediterranean connected by seaside hiking trails and extremely cheap train lines. The towns are, from north to south, Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Monorola and Riomaggiore. The following is my guide to the Cinque Terre towns:
Monterosso:
The biggest of the five, home to an American bar that features a FREE buffet of foccacia and chips during happy hour. After a day of 6 hours of hiking, Hallie and I stumbled in, bought one drink for 6 euro and stuffed our faces with as much free food as possible. Welcome to traveling on a budget.
Vernazza:
The most beautiful city of the five. We took a break here to gorge ourselves on Italian food. While waiting for ten minutes for our pizza to be cooked, we bought Italian pastries as a pre-meal dessert. We then consumed our pesto pizza in .79 seconds and decided to splurge on delicious gelato for our post-meal icing.
Corniglia:
We spent our first night here after eating in the home of a couple of Italians who decided to take us in and feed us. We were originally sitting outside of our intended hostel in Monterroso as my phone died after giving me just enough time to hear a message from our friends telling us to meet them in Corniglia. With no means of communication, we decided to hop on a train and just "bump into" Meghan and Patti in this coastal town of 500 people. Upon getting off the train, we were greeted by one dim road winding up a hill with a gradient of at least 45% to the city center. We trekked to the top and found ourselves in the middle of the village, left with no other option but to yell "Meghan. Patti. We're here." Just as we started calling their names, two of their Italian friends approached us and said, "You must be Meghan's friends. You are from Chicago as well, no?" Nothing could have ever worked out so ridiculously. We then were fed homemade foccacia and pesto, with garbanzo beans and pasta and wine from one of their PERSONAL vineyards, while listening
After my dip in the Mediterranean
It was so cold that people clapped for me. to Crosby, Stills & Nash and discussing American culture with a group of Italians.
Monorola:
Didn't offer much, other than some spectacular swimming coves that I, of course, could not deny.
Riomaggiore:
Eh. We stayed here one night.
After Cinque Terre had two nights in Hallie's friends apartment and one day in Florence. Our day was filled with "queue"ing in museum lines to see artwork. At the Accademia we saw Michelangelo's David, the most spectacular piece of art I have ever seen. Michelangelo didn't see himself as "creating" his sculptures but merely "liberating" them from the pieces of stone. The hallway leading up to the David featured his series of figures half-sculpted while still obviously within a large chunk of rock. It was gorgeous seeing the juxtaposition of the ruggedly finished sculptures and the perfectly-crafted David. Unbelievable.
We then waited in line at the Uffuzi to see Boticelli's Venus. At this point things got a little messy and I had a British man tell me that on "this continent" they do no behave how we do (saving a spot in line so that my friends could go get sandwiches). I think by "this continent" he meant
"this fat ugly body" and by "behave as you do" he meant "contribute to society".
That night we saw a Beatles cover band and then Julia and I hurried home to prepare for our eight AM train the next day. We crawled into our floorbed and said goodnight, expecting to sleep straight through for a good six hours before our early morning excursion to the top of the city before our departure to Rome. An hour into our sleep we had to get up to let Hallie in. She greeted us with the unpleasant news of her 11 euro journey by cab because the meter ran as she chatted. Unfortunate piece of information, but it didn't keep us from getting back to sleep. 45 min later, Brittany barreled in with a very ill Mandi. Apparently she needed to be put on the couch directly above Julia and my heads. It was a precarious situation, but I hoped for the best (not to wake up coated with vomit). The final piece of news stumbled in an hour later. The girl whose floor we were occupying had her entire purse stolen from her on the street and unfortunately we had to
listen to the ensuing crying and complaining for much longer than I cared to.
The next morning we woke up, jetted to the Piazza Michelangelo at the top of the Florence, took a train to Rome, saw the St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Trevi fountain, some other stuff, ate the worst pizza of my entire life, ate the best gelato, haggled a hotel owner down from 100 euro a night to 80 euro (split 4 ways) and then went to sleep.
We woke up the next morning at seven am to get to the Sistine Chapel early, stood in the wrong line for fifteen minutes with Irish and Belgian priests, sprinted to the right line, saw the Sistine Chapel and Vatican museums, sprinted to the train station and checked into our flight with 8 minutes to spare.
More stories to share from the journey but I can always just pepper our conversations from here on out with my little tales of Italian travels. If you can't tell, I am, like, super cultured now.
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