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| Sara's Trip to Rome |
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| January 21, Today we did a little walking tour of Rome. We went up to a supposidly famous fountain, which wasn't all that exciting but had an awesome view of the city (that's what the picture is from), and then we saw a famous church, I guess one of the first Renaissance style churches in the city. Anyway, it was cool. The other pics are of my room. |
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| January 22, Our first class trip was today, but it was a little different. We all took the bus together to the Victor Emmanual monument (he was the guy who reunited Italy in the 1870's), and got a little lecture on Italian history, and then we went over to see the forum (from above it sorta). That was really really cool. We just sorta turned around a corner and suddenly we were looking at ancient Rome. I was excited. We also walked through the Piazza Del Campidolglio (designed by Michaelangelo) that has the big bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius (I studied that a lot in art history). It's a copy that's in the piazza now, the real one was moved into a museum to protect it from all the Roman pollution. We walked by another church, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which I guess is really really old, old enough that it was used by some of the christian emperors and senators and stuff. We didn't go inside, but I want to now after looking at the guidebooks because there are some great pictures. Anyway, they just took us there because they knew we would want to see it soon, but the point of the day was our Obelisk projects. They split us up into groups of three and told us an obelisk to go find in the city. It's a little bit about getting us to see them, but more about letting us get used to wandering the city on our own, and learning how to get around and everything. Our obelisk was kinda cool, it's in the Piazza Minerva and it's sitting on top of a statue of an elephant by Bernini. Right behind it was this georgeous church, with a statue of Christ carrying the cross by Michaelanglo, so that was pretty cool too. And just behind the buildings of the piazza (and we could see part of it) was the Pantheon, so we went in there too. It's amazing, I still can't get over how huge the dome is and how they could have possibly built it. They still have mass in there, so I really want to go sometime. Then we were all freezing, so we came back, even though we could have stayed out all afternoon (our obelisk was only a couple blocks from the forum where we got the assignment, so the whole thing didn't take us very long). One of the pictures is of the forum (most of it, some of it goes to the right but my whole group was in the way:) ), one of Bernie (our professor in charge, he's from ucla and knows every classics professor I've ever had) and Dan (assistant professor, he teaches Greek so I won't have too much with him, just the parts he teaches of the City course), and one is our obelisk and the elephant on the left with the back of the Pantheon on the right. Dad, so you know, the church and obelisk are on page 108, the Pantheon is on 110-111, Piazza del Campidoglio is p.64-65, and the Victor Emmanuel monument is page 74, and S.M in Aracoeli is p.69 |
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| January 23 Today we went in a suburb of Rome (actually it might be within the city, it's either just outside or just inside) called EUR (p.266). It was build by Mussolini for the 1942 World's Fair (which never happened because of WWII), and it's supposed to look very modern, so it looks nothing like the rest of Rome. There are a couple of museums there. First we went to the Ethnographic museum (Pigorini) to see artifacts from pre-Roman Italy, from the neolithic on. It wasn't the most exciting trip, although there were a few cool things. Mostly it was just early pottery and weapons though, since that's mostly what people had. Then we went down a couple blocks to the Museo della Civilta Romana, which we didn't spend much time in, but was really cool. We only went in the first room of the museum, we'll be going back to see some other things, but they have a really incredible model of the city, showing what it would have looked like during the empire. It's amazing, and it was really fun to see because I've seen pictures of it so many times in all my classes (especially art history). It's a really great way to see how all the buildings related to each other within the city. You have to look down on it, but Bernie said that at the very end of the semester we'll get permission to go down to it's level and see it up close, which will be really really cool. Then we had a long (3 hours!) lecture on prehistoric Rome and the evolution of it from a village to a city. Sorta interesting, but I was definitly ready for it to be over. Not that many good pictures from today, but I'll put one of the cool model up. |
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| January 24 Nothing too exciting today, classes but no trips (how sad!). Actually it's a good thing, because it's been raining since about 11:30, so I'm not sure I would have wanted to be out in anyway. I did go out this morning and find a working atm and get through the Italian, which was good, since they were about to start bugging people about not paying the security deposit. I also luckily got that out of the way this morning before my first class (11) so it was dry (and actually kinda warm, it seemed like it was going to be a nice day). We had our first Art History and Latin classes this afternoon, and they both seem like they'll be okay. Our Art History professor made it sound like it's pretty hard to get a good grade in his class, but if I don't it doesn't go on my USC transcript anyway. And Latin seemed okay, there are people who know a lot more than me, but there are people who don't know as much too. It seems like it's going to be a reasonable amount of work, and although I really don't especially like Cicero, his style is pretty predictable and easy to figure out. So that's it for the day, I didn't take a single picture, but there's an Art History trip tomorrow, so I'll have some then. We're supposed to have gelato for dessert tonight, and most of us still haven't had it (there's a place around the corner, but it's still so cold!), so everybody's excited. |
| January 25 Today we went on our art history field trip back to a few of the places we'd gone on the first day with Bernie. We talked about the church of San Pietro just down the street from us and went inside and looked at some of the paintings. Then we went next door to the Tempietto, a tiny little Renaissance church that we had seen before. It's really cute, but we didn't have time to go inside, so I'm going to have to go back and see it again. We stopped at the fountain (the Aqua Paula) that we saw before, and because it rained all day yesterday but was really sunny today we had a great view of the city looking down the hill, so we took lots of pictures. Then we walked down the big staircase at the side of the churches that goes down the Janiculum hill that we live on into Trastevere. We went to the Villa Farnesina, which didn't look that exciting (I guess it used to have really pretty gardens, but now it's just the building, and the building wasn't anything special on the outside) but ended up being really cool. There are some beautiful paintings inside, the walls and ceilings are completely covered with frescos, and I guess they've been recently restored, because they were amazing. There's a really famous Raphael scene in one room that I sorta recognized, and it was beautiful. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but the sign wasn't that obvious and Bernie was (he isn't the art history professor, but he came along with us), so I took a few. They didn't come out all that well, but you get the idea. The art history lecture lasted an hour longer than it was supposed to, but it was pretty interesting so no one seemed to mind too much. After art history we all took a tour of the library of the American Academy in Rome, which we get to use if we need to, and then a couple of us went for a walk in the huge park just northeast of where we live. We were trying to find another place where you can take pictures of the whole city, but the park is so huge that we had no idea how to get there. We walked really far into it though, and it was really nice. There were tons of copies of classical statues throughout it, and a huge building that didn't seem to be anything, as far as we can tell, but the grounds were really well taken care of, so it must be something. It was fun exploring even though we couldn't find what we were looking for. I took a lot of pictures today, so I'm putting a lot here, even though I know I should save space for later. Oh well, I can always take them down. So going from left to right, top to bottom, the first is San Pietro, then the Tempietto, then the Aqual Paula, then one of the rooms from the Villa Farnesina, then Raphael's Galatea from the Villa Farnesina, then the building in the park that we don't have a clue about, and then at the bottom is a picture of the Centro. My room is the 2nd from the right on the third floor. |
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| January 26 Today was Saturday, so we slept in a little, which was nice. A group of us went out and had pizza for lunch, since that's the only food we know of in the area. Then I went out shopping with a few other people. I didn't really need to shop, but no one really wanted to sightsee, and I really need to get a sense of direction in the city and figure out where everything is, so I thought walking around with them would be good. So we wandered all over the place (we walked in a huge loop, from Piazza Venezia to Campo de Fiori and then along the river up to Via Del Corso where it is even with Piazza di Spagna (we could see the Spanish steps, but they were a ways east of us) and down Corso back to Venezia). It was a very long walk. So we came back here, and we went and got Chinese food for dinner (this may sound silly, but there really aren't a lot of options around here, and we don't want pizza for every weekend meal). It wasn't bad, and the woman was really really patient with us since we didn't know any Italian and didn't know what anything on the menu was. At least with pizza you can see what you're ordering. The chinese food really wasn't bad though, and it was cheap, so we're thinking that we'll probably end up back there. Now it's time to go do some homework, so we won't have too much to do tomorrow. The first picture is my shopping group, from left to right that's me, Charity, Cameren, Sarah M, and Naomi, and the second is looking down the street towards the Spanish steps, and you can see the crazy mob of people that were out shopping too (via del Corso is a big shopping street). |
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| January 27 We woke up really early this morning (which was hard, since we got to bed late) to go out to church. Liz's uncle is here visiting from Ireland, and he's a priest, so we planned to go hear him say mass (which would have been in English, too, so that would have been nice). We were supposed to meet him at the Spanish steps before mass, but the buses were running really behind, so by the time we got there, he wasn't there (but I've gotten to climb the Spanish steps now, although they didn't seem all that interesting to me). We walked around the city a lot looking for the church, but we couldn't find it and no one we talked to had ever heard of it. So we never did end up finding it. We ended up going to mass in Piazza del Populo (by this time we'd walked since Venezia, and really wandered around on the way, so we were too tired to walk any farther than where we ended up). The church we went to was Santa Maria dei Miracoli (Dad, it's on the map but not in the book). It was little but really pretty, it looked like it would be a huge church from the outside, so we were kinda surprised. The mass was in Italian, but mass is mass, so we were okay. They had papers that had all the prayers on them (they probably get lots of tourists, it's a touristy neighborhood), all in Italian, but still, it helped to follow along and be able to give the responses in Italian. The priest was this super old man, but he seemed really nice, and it was a pretty quick mass (no music). Then we walked back down the Corso to Venezia, which is a long walk, but wasn't that bad since we weren't in a hurry anymore. The Vatican museums were free today, but only open till 1:30, so anybody that was going to church couldn't really go, and most people didn't get up in time I'm sure, though I do know of at least one person who went. We're going back this Friday for art history, and there's nothing after art history classes Friday mornings, so, depending on how late it's open, we might hang around and go into the areas we aren't seeing in class. Okay, now it's really time to finish up the hw, we have a lot of reading for the City course, a ton for Art history (though that isn't till Thursday), and I have some latin left as well, so it's going to be a working afternoon. No pictures today (I didn't bring the camera for church, and even though we walked by lots of things, we were in a hurry so we wouldn't have taken pictures anyway). |
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| January 28 Today was our first real visit to the forum. Bernie gave us a short lecture this morning on the founding of Rome and when the very first things were built, and then we went to see anything archaic that we could in the Forum. Hardly anything is really that old, because it was all rebuilt by later Romans, but we could talk about which things dated back in some form or another. And in any case, it was a good excuse to get into the forum. The first picture is the temple of Vesta, next the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, which has a church in it now, and then the Temple of Saturn (which you can tell is really really high). We also saw the temple of Castor and Pollux, the house of the Vestal Virgins (though not much, they don't let you inside anymore), and a few other important (though not very interesting to look at) monuments that go back to the archaic period (if you care, the lapus niger, lacus curtius, and the regia). I have Latin this afternoon, and other than that I don't know what I'll do today. Maybe some art history reading (we have a ton this week). Tomorrow is a full day field trip, so I may not get pictures up tomorrow, depending on how late we get back. |
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| January 29 Today we went to two Etruscan cities, Tarquinia and Cerveteri. We left the centro at 8 am, but we had a charter bus, so that was really nice. Bernie let everybody sleep for a while, and then around 9 he started lecturing on the Etruscans. We got to Tarqunia around 9:30, and went to an Etruscan cemetery, where we climbed down into the tombs (stairs, not real climbing) to see the paintings. They are really amazing, but (very frustratingly) we weren�t allowed to bring our cameras with us. We went into about 10 tombs there, in small groups (they don�t let you in the actual tomb, you can only climb down the entrance way and look through the glass covering the door into the first room, so only a few people can go at a time). Most of them were reasonably large, but I�m still glad that I�m not claustrophobic. Everything that was in the tombs has been taken out, so all we were looking at were the paintings on the walls (and ceilings). After the cemetery, we went to the museum in Tarquinia where all the objects that were inside the tombs (the ones we saw and many others, they�ve found tons of these tombs) have been put. The sarcophagi are amazing, many of them have reliefs around the bottom, and the lids have life size (around life size anyway, some might even be bigger) sculptures of the people who were buried in them as if they were laying on top. There was also a ton of pottery, lots of it the pretty red and black pottery that the Greeks are famous for (the Etruscans did a lot of trading with Greece, a lot of the Greek pottery that still exists was actually found in Etruria), along with little sculptures and jewelry. But again, we weren�t allowed to bring our cameras inside, so I don�t have any pictures of that, either. I did by postcards though, but I can�t put those online. After the museum in Tarquinia (and after we ate lunch there) we drove back south (Tarquinia is north of Rome) to the site of Cerveteri. We first stopped in the museum there, which was a lot smaller, and didn�t have quite as much interesting stuff, but was still worth going into. We weren�t actually planning to go there, but we were making really good time, so Dan and Bernie decided that we might as well stop. Then we went to the second cemetery. These tombs weren�t painted, but they were really amazing too. They are huge tumulus tombs (meaning there is a whole bunch of earth piled on top, so they make little hills; some of the tombs at Tarquinia originally had tumuli on top but they were flattened out), either built or cut out of the natural rock. They also go underground, though not always as far, and these we could actually wander in and out of. Some of them are pretty small (still about the size of a big walk-in closet or something at a minimum), but some of them are huge, with several rooms. They have big benches along the wall (benches meaning there are places where they left the rock uncut to form them, not that they built them in or anything), which they would either put the body on directly (some of them have little pillows cut into the surface) or put the sarcophagus on. We really had to do some climbing to get into some of these tombs, they all had stairs cut in the rock going down into them, but they weren�t all in the greatest shape, and just getting to the top of the stairs was an adventure in some places. A lot of them seemed to be built right into a hillside, so we really had to scramble to get up to the doorway, or the top of the stairs if it then went back down inside the hill (some of them were just in the hillside). It was a lot of fun to scramble around and climb into all the tombs, and it was nice because they finally let us bring our cameras inside. It wasn�t easy to take all the pictures (not many of the tombs were lit at all, and even the ones that were weren�t very bright) but I got a few decent ones. I still ended up taking a ton of pictures today (182 to be exact), mostly out of the bus windows, since we were driving through Italy. I had to do that while I was trying to take notes in Bernie�s lectures, though, so I didn�t take quite as many as I would have liked. I was also able to take a ton in the cemetery, which was good since they didn�t all come out. The first picture was this morning out of the bus window. Next is a group picture we took in the courtyard in front of the museum in Cerveteri. 5 people are missing from the picture, but, from left to right: Front Row: Jon, Jon, Geneva, Andy, Naomi, Caroline, Molly, Dave Middle Row: Bernie, Adam, Liz, Jarrett, Alex, Jared, Diana, Johanna, Jon, Julia, Gavin, Sarah, Seth, Sarah, Charity, Brian, Dan Back Row: Brendan, Dave, Mike, Cameren, Suzanne, Suzanna, Sara, Me Next is a bunch of people looking out of a tomb (you can see how we have to climb). Left to right, top to bottom, it�s Brian, Jarrett, Charity, then Caroline and Adam, then Naomi and Suzanne. Then the inside of one of the tombs, then a picture of us in the cemetery (going clockwise, starting at the top, that�s Suzanna, Jane, Me, and Naomi). You can�t really tell in this picture just how hilly it is, but to get to where the people in the background are, we had to go down a decent ways below them and then climb back up. |
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| January 30 Nothing too exciting today, just classes. Not many classes either, just Latin (at 11:30) and then our discussion sections for the Ancient City class. We picked the topics for our major research papers in the discussion (we have to write papers and also give the class a presentation when we�re visiting whatever we�re talking about). I will be doing a mosaic (of a duck) from Hadrian�s Villa, which we will be visiting, but it�s actually now in the Capitoline museums, so I get to wait till we go there (April 30th) to give my presentation. I don�t actually have a clue what the mosaic looks like (well, actually I have a slight idea but I don�t know if I�m thinking of the right one), but I picked it because I�ll also get to research the way they made mosaics in general, and I think that�s interesting. And I have some mosaic experience anyway, although the last one that I researched was Byzantine. Anyway, that�s about it for today, all I did all day was homework. We have loads of reading for art history; I still have a lot to do. I think I�ll wait till I finish the Latin assignment for tomorrow though. We also went to a travel agent to try to buy train tickets to go to Carnival in Venice(sleeper train, only stay one day, since it's way too late to find a hotel), but the system was down, and the travel agent didn't seem to confident that we'd be able to get tickets this late (it's next weekend). So we'll see what will happen on that one. |
| January 31, Just classes again today, so nothing too exciting to report. Art history was really good, we're going to the Vatican museums tomorrow, and we'll be seeing a lot of Renaissance art, so that should be exciting. The lecture was really interesting today, it was all about the Sistine chapel (because he isn't allowed to lecture in there, so we had to get it all out of the way today, so tomorrow we'll only have lectures in the other parts of the museum). The Sistine chapel is really interesting (and for a lot more than just the ceiling). We didn't even talk yet about the whole wall behind the alter, which is also a Michaelangelo (the Last Judgement, it's beautiful), so I assume we will be in the future. Latin was normal, nothing exciting. She doubled the amount of homework we have for Monday, so that's not great, but I'm not going away for the weekend, so it will be okay. They're showing the first two episodes of "I, Claudius" upstairs in 15 minutes, and I've never seen it, so it's time to go. |
| February 1 Today was our Art History field trip to the Vatican Museums. I hadn't been to the Vatican yet, so I was really excited. The museums aren't as close as you'd think to St. Peter's, but we did walk by, which was fun. They still had the nativity scene and the christmas tree up, which is a little strange since it's February, but I was really glad I got a chance to see them. The museums are huge, and we didn't see that much stuff, so we definitly all want to go back. We weren't able to see much because we spent a lot of time looking at only a few things. For example, we spent the first 45 minutes in front of one sculpture, Michaelangelo's Pieta (actually a copy, the original is in St. Peter's but it's behind glass and you can't get very close, so we looked at the one that's easier to see; we'll see the original later in the course). We talked about a few other paintings and frescos, including one of Sixtus IV (who built the Sistine chapel, which is why it's the Sistine chapel), and then talked for a long time again on three separate paintings of Raphael's, all alterpieces (designed to go behind the alter in a church or little side chapel), to show his progression from Early to High Renaissance. There really was a huge difference in the paintings, and the last one is really famous. It's actually the last one he ever painted, and it isn't quite finished, but it's really hard to tell (the only way anyone but a really serious conservator would know is in one little corner which looks unfinshed). I didn't get a good pciture of it, it's just too dark of a painting in too dark of a room, but I put it up anyway in case you recognize it. Then we walked through a few more halls and rooms into the Papal apartments, which were frescoed by Raphael also (or at least, many of the designs were by him, a lot of the actual painting was done by his students). The picture I'm putting up is thought to actually be done in large part by Raphel though. Then we went into the Sistine chapel, where we weren't allowed to take pictures. I probably could have gotten away with taking some, the guards in there weren't paying too much attention, but my camera takes a long time to take a picture and I didn't want to risk getting kicked out or anything. I actually wasn't all that impressed by the Sistine chapel. All the paintings are beautiful (especially Michaelangelo's Last Judgement on the wall behind the alter, which no one ever talks about because the ceiling is so famous), but the room is just so full of colors and details that it's distracting. It really felt cluttered to me. But the ceiling really is worth all the fuss it gets, it's amazing. And it was very nice studying it in class, because we learned a few things that I never would have known otherwise. For instance, the popes would enter through the front door (not where they have tourists enter now, we enter behind and to the side of the alter), and then kneel down in one place on the floor, where a large red stone in the shape of a circle is inlaid in the floor. From that location, standing or especially kneeling down, you have the best view of the whole room... almost all of the ceiling and side wall frescos are in view, and the perspective is correct. So of course, we all went and kneeled down on this red stone, and it really does make a difference in just how correct the ceiling looks. And of course, I never would have known to do that on my own, so I think the class is already worth it (even if we do have hours and hours of readings every week). We tried to buy things out of the gift shop, but we saved that for the last fifteen minutes the museum was open, and that was of course when the gift shop closed. So I didn't get any postcards of anything. including the Sistine chapel, but we're going to be able to go back for the other class, and maybe again on our own, so I'll buy things then. I will probably have to go again without a class, because we only did a very little amount of the Renaissance art in this trip, and we'll only do some of the classical art in the next trip with the other class, so I want to go again for the Egyptian art, among other things. I thought about exploring St. Peter's or the area after the museum closed, but everyone was tired and hungry (we had to be at the museum at 9:15 to meet our professor, but there's no direct bus route, so we just walked, and walked really fast because we were afraid of getting lost and not making it on time, and then we walked through the museum, so anyway, we deserved to be tired even though it was only 2 in the afternoon), so we just went home. I took a ton of pictures again, but very few of them came out (pictures are allowed in all parts of the museum except the Sistine chapel, but only without flash, so I had to try to hold the camera really still). There are some good ones, and a couple that are just okay, but I'll put some on anyway. The first picture is the Nativity scene and Christmas tree in front of St. Peter's (which I still have to go in!), then two pictures of the Pieta, one farther away but with better lighting than the other (I found out that we actually could use flash on that sculpture, and I did take one,but it was lit the way it was supposed to be from the top to create shadow, so the flash ruined that, so I thought that these were actually better pictures). Next is the picture of Sixtus IV (he's the one sitting down), with his nephews, one of whom (standing in front of him in red) becomes Pope Julius II, who commissions Michaelangelo to paint the Sistine ceiling (Sixtus built the chapel, but the original ceiling is plain blue with gold stars). Then there are two of the Raphael alterpieces, the second and the third chronologically (of the ones in the museum, I'm sure he did more). The last one (the Transfiguration) is the really famous one that I couldn't get a decent picture of, so whenever I go back I'll buy a postcard of it. Finally, there's a picture of one of the Raphael frescos from the papal apartments, which seemed really beautiful, but the rooms were full of people and scaffolding, so it wasn't as nice as it could have been. So that was our day. No real plans for the weekend yet; our suggested visits are the church of Santa Maria Araceoli for Art History and the Villa Guilia museum for the Ancient City, so we'll probably do that, but we haven't picked times or anything. |
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| February 2 Today eleven of us decided to take a trip. We found something in the guidebooks worth visiting, so we hopped on a bus and rode (for an hour and a half) up to Lake Bracciano. It's this really cute little town over a big lake, with a huge old castle. We walked all over the place. First we went down to the lake, and took a bunch of pictures of the lake (and played with a dog that was there). We had heard that you could take a ferry across the lake to some of the towns on the other side, so we went to check that out, but I guess the ferry doesn�t run on the weekends. So then we had lunch at this cute restaurant right on the lake, which was really good (I had a seafood risotto), then hiked back up the hill (and this really was a hike) to go visit the castle. We took a tour of the castle, which of course was all in Italian (but it�s the only way you�re allowed in, they don�t just let you explore), so we didn�t get a whole lot from it. We did all get a kick out of walking into the room where the collection of Etruscan artifacts was kept and listening to her try to tell us about the Etruscans. Near the end of the tour we got to go up to the very top of the castle, which was why we had taken the tour in the first place, because the view from there was amazing. After the castle we walked back through the little town to the train station and took a train back to Rome. This of course doesn�t sound like a very long day, but the bus ride took a good hour and a half, and we did lots of walking, so it ended up being a long trip. We all had lots of fun, though, and it was nice to do something out of Rome The first picture is looking out the bus window after we got out of the city and suburbs, which was really cool. Then there's a picture of our dog, then of the castle from the lake, then of the lake itself (well, part of it, it was really big). Then there's a picture looking from the top of the castle down to the lake, and a picture of us all on top of the castle (except Susanna, she was taking it),and then a picture of the really beautiful church next to the castle. |
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| Febraruy 3 Nothing exciting today. I thought about going to the Villa Guilia, but everybody's pretty sick of Etruscan stuff, so I think it can wait. Anyway, I had plenty of homework to keep me busy for the day. So that's about it. Bernie's being really nice and letting everyone sleep in tomorrow morning because some of the guys are going to watch the Super bowl, which is in the middle of the night here, so breakfast isn't till 10. So that's about it for exciting news today. |
| February 4 Nothing exciting again. Sleeping in was nice, but that was certainly the most interesting part of the day. Actually, this mornings lectures weren't bad either. The second half of the lecture was on roads and aquaducts, and we got into a little bit of the details of how they actually were made, so that was pretty interesting. Then lunch, and then Latin, and just homework for today. We have another long day tomorrow, so I'm sure we won't try to do anything tonight. Sorry there's nothing interesting to report. |
| February 7 Today we went to visit the Forum Boarium (the cattle market), Forum Holitorium (vegetable market), and saw lots of temples. One of the temples was really fun, because the remains of it are under the church of S. Nicola in Carcere, so we got to crawl around (well, we didn�t have to really crawl, but it wasn�t a nice flat surface either) the church�s crypt to see the remains of the column bases and podium of the temples (there are actually 3, so we saw the right side of one, the left side of another, and all of the middle one that the church is right on top of). Art History was really interesting, we talked about one of the rooms that we had seen last Friday at the Vatican that Raphael painted. I sort of want to go back now, though, since there are two really amazing paintings that I hardly paid attention to when we were in there before, since I had no idea how important they were. So that�s about it for today, tomorrow�s art history trip is to Santa Maria del Populo, which I haven�t been in yet but is supposed to be a really cool church. The first two pictures are the round temple to Hercules Victor the and square temple (which isn't really square, but that's what I call it), to Portunus in the Forum Boarium. The next picture is the Tiber Island, which we walked around on and talked about a little, and isn't that exciting except that the bridges are really old (1st century) so that's fun. Then last is crypt under S. Nicola in Carcere; the back wall is part of the podium for one of the temples. |
| February 5 Today was a really fun day. We got up bright and early and started another really long trip. First we drove for about an hour and a half east to a church (San Cosimoto I believe) that I think is near Tivoli (I don't have a good enough map of Italy to be sure). We actually did talk a lot about some of the church stuff (there's a monastary, and a bunch of monks lived in some caves (that we saw) there, and things like that), because Bernie knows everything and we were being given a tour by a man there (translated by Shawna). The church was interesting enough, but not really exciting, other than seeing some of the caves. Some of them had really beautiful renaissance paintings, which is weird, but interesting since they don't look like anything from the outside. But we were really at this church because they have the enterence to part of the Aqua Appia, and we got to go inside. First we climbed down some very old, very steep stairs (I think they were the original ones used by the Romans to maintain the aquaduct), right on the edge of a really big drop to the river below. If I'm making it sound pretty scary, it really was, but it was also really beautiful and a lot of fun (the Indiana Jones theme is hummed quite a bit on these trips). So then we got to go into the aquaduct, and walk through it, which was really cool, although there were some serious spiders and cobwebs, and it was really dark, which you can't tell from the pictures because I used the flash, but it was pretty much pitch black except for our flashlights. There was also a bat, which I guess scared a couple of people, but he slept the whole time, and he was kinda cute. So we walked through the aquaduct for a while, then eventually turned around a walked back out the way we had come, and back up the steep and scary stairs, and out to the bus. It felt like a whole day by the time we'd done all this, but it was still really early. From there we drove a little ways (maybe 15 or 20 minutes, not too far anyway), to Horace's Villa. Horace's Villa (which wasn't really Horace's, at least not at the level of the buildings we were seeing, because they were about 80 years too late) is Bernie's big project, and it was his team who proved that it was too late to be Horace's. So he told us a lot about the villa and the history of excavation (but, considering that he probably knows more about it than anyone else, the talk was pretty short). We got to explore a little bit and eat lunch there, which was great since it was a really nice day and the area is beautiful. Then we got back on the bus, and had about another hour long drive east, to see an early (late 4th century BC) Roman colony (Alba Fucens, I don't know the name of the modern town). The town is about 70 miles away from Rome, and it's in the Apeninnes, so we were up reasonably high, though sorta in the foothills, but we had huge snow covered mountains in the background. It was a lot of fun driving there, because we kept going through tunnels and suddenly we went through one and came out with the huge mountains next to the bus. We first stopped at a church (another San Pietro, he's popular in Italy), which used to be a temple to Apollo (probably) and still uses the ancient foundations and some of the columns. After we explored that a little, we walked down the hill and saw the ampitheater there, which was fun since it's the first ampitheater we've seen in the class, and it was completely empty, so we got to play in it. After talking about it a bit, we walked over to the excavated part of the town, where there really are a lot of ruins (though certainly some reconstruction), but we got to see another forum (part of it), a basilica, some shops, and temple, and a bath complex. There isn't a lot remaining, of course, but you can really tell a lot of things about how it was used from what you can see. In the baths for example, part of the original flooring was there and part was missing, so we could see the area underneath where the hot air would circulate to heat the room. After Alba Fucens, we had about a two hour drive back to Rome. I made up for not taking a lot of pictures in the past couple days, because I somehow managed to take about 360 on this trip. I couldn't believe it. So I'm putting a lot up, but I'm making some hard decisions since I have to leave so many off. The first picture is us going down the stairs, and it isn't the best picture, but you can tell how close I am to the people who are so far below, so you can sorta get the idea of how steep it is. The blue you can see through the trees is the river/lake beneath us (there's a hydroelectric dam there, so it is a river, but it gets pretty wide and still and sorta looks like a lake). Then there's a picture of the aquaduct, so you can see what the inside of an aquaduct looks like (pretty much like the inside of a big dry concrete water slide). The spots on the picture are dust, there was a lot on the ground that we were kicking up, so most of my pictures are a bit spotty. Then there's a picture of our little bat, a little too dark (I couldn't really see exactly where he was until the flash went off, so I wasn't pointing exactly at him, so he only got a little of the flash, but that's probably good since the idea was certainly not to wake him up). Next is a picture of Bernie lecturing at Horace's Villa, then the long one is a panoramic of the view we had while we were eating lunch, then one of the mosaic floors of the villa, then there are three pictures out the bus window just because the area we were driving in was so beautiful, then there's a big picture looking down from the hill that San Pietro was on, then a close up of the remains of Alba Fucens, then the ampitheater. |
| February 6 Nothing too exciting again today, and no pictures. Just classes and a quiz (the one that we should have had Monday but was pushed back because of the super bowl). And it�s raining, but that doesn�t matter since we�re inside. Okay, it wasn't an interesting day so that's enough to write. |
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| February 8 and 9 Okay, so I have zillions of things to write about, so I'll try to get through it all quickly. First of all, the art history field trip this morning was to the church of Santa Maria del Populo. Lots of renaissance art, all beautiful but nothing really exciting. Then we left after art history for Siena. We took the train up, which took about three hours (on slower but cheaper trains, and because we had to switch in Chiusi because there isn't a direct train line from Rome to Siena). We got to Siena around 6:30, and then took a bus from the train station into the main part of the city. Once we figured out where we were (with help from the very nice bus driver who pointed it out on a map for us), we decided that the first thing to do was find a hotel. We had to wander around a little to find our way, but luckily the old city part of Siena is pretty small, so we found a hotel really quickly. The first one we went to was closed, but the second one had room for all six of us (one four person room, one two person), and it was about the same price as a hostel (there is, according to our guidebooks, a hostel in Siena, but it's supposed to be two kilometers out of the city, so staying at the hotel was a good deal even if it was a few dollars more). So we checked into the hotel, left our stuff there, and went out to walk around and find food. We found a cute restaurant that might have been a little touristy but was nice and totally empty other than us, so it worked out well. After dinner we wandered around the city a little bit. Siena is a really cute town, midieval cobblestone streets and buildings and it's really really clean (which was a nice change from Rome). We found Il Campo (the main piazza, they have horse races there every year and I guess Siena is sorta famous for it), and the Duomo (the main Cathedral, which, apart from the ugly black and white horizontal strips over a lot of it, is a really really beautiful Gothic church). We also found a little street party or something for Carnivale, which was playing incredibly loud music so we thought would be a big deal, but when we got there it was about 20 people dancing with a DJ. It was a little strange, but fun to run into. Then we went back to the hotel and slept, because we wanted to get a pretty early start the next morning. When we woke up, we ate breakfast (our bag dinners from the night before from the Centro) in the hotel and then checked out so we could wander around the city some more. The hotel was really nice and let us leave our backpacks in a closet, so we all grabbed our cameras (and passports and money and all the other things we shouldn't leave in the hotel, don't worry) and left. According to our guidebooks the first thing to open in the city was the museum next to the Duomo, but when we got there the Duomo itself was open too, so we went to that first. I really like gothic churches, and Rome only has one, so I was excited, but it has the ugly black and white stripes all over the inside of the church too, which was disappointing. But still, it was a really amazing church, so we looked around inside for quite a while, and spent some time in the gift shop (but we were good, we mostly just got postcards). Then we went into the museum, which was very cool, it was full of lots of old stuff from the church, really really old bibles and music books and relics and the like. We were also really excited to find out that you can go out to the very top of the museum (actually, the top of an arch that goes over the road leading to the duomo), which is really high and gives a great view of the whole area. We had been told to climb one of the bell towers (there are two major ones in the city, one at the Duomo and the other in Il Campo), but we were almost as high up as the bell towers themselves from this arch, and now all our pictures have the famous bell towers in them, so we thought that was good enough. Actually, it was probably really a good thing because the bell tower in Il Campo was closed when we went later to see the museum in that building (also closed). Since we were in Il Campo anyway for the museum, we decided to eat lunch there. We went into one of the little cafes and ordered sandwiches to go, and then ate sitting out in the piazza. It was really a lot of fun. There were a ton of people there, and a lot of little kids, all in costume and throwing confetti all over the place (for Carnivale). After we ate and watched people in the piazza we walked around to do some window shopping (and a little bit of real shopping, but again, we were all very good). We also tried to go to another museum (modern art), but it was also closed (it was not the weekend for museums). So we walked around and enjoyed the cute town a little more, then picked up our bags from the hotel, figured out how to get back to the train station, and got a train back to Rome. Okay, as for all the pictures: First is our hotel room in Siena (it was huge for a four bedroom room, we were lucky), then Il Campo at night, then the front of the Duomo at night, then Il Campo in the morning (from a slightly different angle, but you get the idea), then a picture of the cute streets and buildings in Siena, then the Duomo dome and belltower, looking through the arch that the next picture is of, which is where we took all the pictures of the city from, then a picture of the Duomo from the front (sorta), then five of us (Jane, me, Molly, Charity, and Johanna, Naomi is taking the picture) in front of it (look to the right of us and you can see the black and white prision stripe pattern), then the stairs we climbed to get to the top of the arch (they make you very dizzy because it's such a tight spiral and you are going so high), then Il Campo and part of the town from the arch (not all the way to the top yet, on top of the next-to-highest arch), then three of us on the very top now, with the Duomo behind us (Naomi, Jane, and me), then a better view of the Duomo, and then Il Campo at lunch time. So that was our very fun trip to Siena. |
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| February 14 Today was a very cool day. We started by looking at what's left of the Theater of Pompey. Unfortunatly, there isn't a whole lot left of the Theater of Pompey. In fact, all you can see is that the streets and therefore the buildings on them retained the shape of the theater, so the buildings curve around. It was not especially interesting. After that, however, we took a trip over to the Forum again, because we had permission to climb around in the Basilica Aemilia and Basilica Julia. That was lots of fun, just because we got to climb over fences when all the tourists in the forum didn't and walk around. Even though both are pretty open and visible, there was a lot that we could see from there that you just can't from walking around. In the basilica aemilia especially, there was a lot of the marble that paved the interior, which is all really brightly colored and really really nice, so it was really cool to get to walk around there. Then we walked over to Caesar's Forum, which was really exciting because we were getting tours. I guess it is open to the public to get tours, but probably hard to actually get, and all you can do is look down on it from the street level otherwise. There is lots and lots of stuff in this forum, a big temple to Venus and some republican houses, among other things. And there are all kinds of cool columns and marble pieces and parts of the top of the temple over the columns just lying around on the ground that we could go right up to. We really never figured out why the tour guide was letting us do all the things we did, we were comletely climbing around in the temple and going up and touching things and she never stopped us. Bernie said he'd never been allowed to be that close to all those things before. So we spent lots of time climbing around before we came back for lunch. Then we had more classes, but the morning was definitly the exciting part. Then we had another lecture after dinner, which wasn't very exciting. There are lots of pictures from today. The first is just a general picture of the Basilica Aemilia, then a picture of a couple of the different colors of marble that were used to pave the floor. The next picture is a close up of some of the paving where you can see a little bronze coin (the greenish blue (from Bronze disease) thing in the right of the picture) that was fused into the pavement in a fire in 410 ad. Next is a picture looking over down one of the side aisles of the Basilica Julia. Then a picture looking down into Caesar's Forum (on half of our group, we're too big to do lots of things all together). Then there's a picture of some of the big clumps of marble lying around inside the forum. The big column in the back was made out of a really beautiful marble that you can see if you look close enough. Then there's a picture of me next to one of the huge chunks from the top of the temple (if you look at the last picture, it's the part that you would see if you were standing in front of a column looking straight up). Next is a picture of the remains of some of the Republican houses that Caesar would have bought up to clear space for his forum. Then there's a picture of some of the columns put back up in one of the buildings (I don't actually know what that one is), and then the three standing (well, put back up in the 1930's) columns of the temple to Venus. Finally, the last picture is of Susanna because she was really sweet and bought everyone in the Centro a flower for Valentine's day. |
| February 13 Today was a nice relaxing day, just Latin in the morning, and then I didn't even go to discussion because all the masses we could find for Ash Wednesday are during our discussion time. I did have to spend part of the afternoon doing the outline for the major project, because those were due in discussion today, so I just gave it to Shawna before we left for mass. So we went to the little church right next door, which was nice. The priest seemed really cool; we all wished we could have understood him better. It's a little church, but it got a pretty good turnout so it was pretty crowded. And it finished right in time for us to walk into the Centro as the dinner bell rang. Then after dinner we had a lecture (short, and we didn't have to take notes or anything), by the woman who illustrated one of our textbooks and is a fellow at the American Academy this year. |
| February 12 Today was another long bus trip, though we never actually went all that far away from Rome. We started the day in Gabii looking at the remains of a temple to Juno, which were pretty extensive and easier to figure out than some of the temples in the forum since there was nothing but a temple to Juno there (there was a nearby town with a forum and things that they have excavated, but we didn't see any of that. Gabii is only 12 miles outside of Rome, which we were all very surprised to hear since it took us at least a half an hour to get there. After playing around in the temple for a bit, we went left Gabii and drove about 12 more miles out to Praeneste (modern Palistrina), to see a few things. There is a huge temple to Fortuna (that most of us remembered from other classes, it's a major one), and a museum, that has lots of interesting things from the temple and town, but has a huge and really famous mosaic of the Nile. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum, which was quite disappointing since the Nile Mosaic is amazing and the gift shop was closed, but if you want to look it up I'm sure you can find a picture pretty easily. Then we explored the rest of the museum for a little while, and then got back on the bus. We then drove to Lake Nemi, about twenty miles south of Rome, because there is a museum with replicas (they were burned in WWII) of two Roman ships which were found in the lake. When we got to the town above the lake, though, all the roads down to the shore of the lake, where the museum is, were closed because of the Carnivale events. So we stopped in a little piazza to get snacks, then got back on the bus and drove back to the Centro. As for pictures, the first is just a general one of the temple of Juno (there is a lot of stuff around it too, not as big or as well preserved (or maybe reconstructed, because there's a lot of that too). Then there was a little staged sacrafice in the temple. Then there's a picture of the temple of Praeneste, and then a plan of what the whole complex looks like. It's really a huge complex, but it goes straight up a hill so you can't really get a good view of it. And then there's a picture of Lake Nemi out the bus window, because that's the closest we could get. |
| February 11 We started off today with a very long (but surprisingly not boring) lecture this morning. Bernie lectured for about three hours, and then Shawna lectured for a little less than an hour right up to lunch time. We were talking about hellenization in Rome and lots of late republican and civil war history, and then Shawna's lecture was mainly on basic architecture terms and techniques, which we really needed since everywhere we go they tell us about in terms of the architecture and we didn't always know what they were talking about. After lunch I had latin, and that was about it for the day. |
| February 10 Not a very exciting day, but certainly a busy one. After spending the rest of the weekend away, and playing spades on the train while I should have been studying, I had plenty of work to do. So most of the day was spent reading and doing Latin. Certainly nothing interesting enough to have pictures of. |
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| February 15 All we had today was art history, but I managed to spend just about the whole day doing it. We got to sleep in a little (well, not really, breakfast was still at 8, but class didn't start till 10:15), because we had a 10:30 appointment to see something and we wanted to do that first. But we actually had to leave a little early (starting time for all the art history stuff is what time we have to meet Paul wherever were going, not at the Centro) because there was a bus strike from 10 am to 2 pm today. I've never actually heard of a four hour strike before, but that's how they do things here apparently. So anyway, we left around 9:30 and got to sit around and wait for Paul for a bit, then we walked to the church where we had the appointment. The church was probably open, but we were going into the side oratory to look at the frescos on the wall. They were interesting enough but not that exciting and it was freezing in there, and all we were doing was sitting and listening to Paul, so I was certainly happy to leave. After that we walked to the top of the Capitoline to go to the Capitoline museums and study the courtyard there that was designed by Michaelangelo. We went into the museum, but we really only talked about a few different paintings and then Paul was finished and we could go. We had tickets to the museum though, and it's huge and full of fun stuff, especially for classics majors, so a few of us stayed for a lot longer (there was no point in leaving right away anyway since it was around one when Paul finished and the strike was still going). We wandered all over the museum and saw lots of famous things, and I found the mosaic I'm doing my project on, which was also fun. So for pictures, just about everything I took was inside the Capitoline museum, and all classical things that I'm sure we'll see when the Ancient City course goes back, but we don't go till April 30th, so I'm glad I saw them now. So the first picture you probably recognize, it's the really famous Capitoline wolf (the wolf is ancient, the twins aren't, they're from the renaissance or something). Behind the wolf are the inscriptions that probably come from the triumphal arch of Augustus. Then there's the real Marcus Aurelius statue, there's a copy in the the piazza, but that one you can see without the glass so you can take pictures that don't have a reflection in them, but I thought I'd put one up anyway. The next picture is also pretty famous, it's the Dying Gaul, but I don't really know anything else about it. Then there is my dove mosaic, then the Capitoline Venus (they were really creative with the names of some of these. The next picture is a view out onto the forum where you can go underneath one of the buildings in the piazza and look out, which was lots of fun. Finally the last picture is from the roof of the museum, where the cafeteria is, and it's a big view of a lot of Rome and all the domes you can see. |
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| February 16 Happy Birthday Daddy! Anyway, today was fun. The reason I didn't go away this weekend (I had friends who went to Venice, so now I don't know when I'll go, but oh well), was that Shawna was leading a trip to see the pavement of Augustus' Horologium (the big sundial that marked the time and the date). There is only one section that they know to have survived, and they think that it is actually the only one that has, but I don't think they're sure since it's pretty big. Anyway, it's in the basement of a private building, so we had to get all kinds of special permission to go and they only let us go on a weekend, which is why it was an optional trip and not part of the class. It's really a small area, and you have to climb down a ladder to get to see it, so we had to go in small groups (of 4 people) and it would have taken a really long time with the whole class. So anyway, you walk down some stairs into the basement you can see the pavement about 10 feet or so below you, and there's a ladder going down so you can walk around on it, but the whole thing is covered in about a foot and a half of water, so most of us didn't walk around on it. It's a travetine floor with bronze inlay for the inscriptions and the line to mark the date/time. We were seeing the September section, which you can tell because there's an inscription (in Greek, because Greek is the language they used for science stuff) that says something about the trade winds ending, which was in September, so that's cool (I guess, I couldn't read it). So anyway, here are the pictures. The first one is in the courtyard we were waiting in while other groups were down there; there was a Roman sarcophagus that whoever owned the place was using to stack wood on that Bernie said the Getty center would probably pay a lot of money for (I wonder if he'd ever mentioned that to the owner). Then there's a picture of the little area we were in and the ladder going down, then me climbing down the ladder, and then pictures from when I was down there (standing on the lowest dry rung of the ladder, I didn't have the guts to wade in it). |
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| February 17 Today was another lazy day where I stayed at the Centro. All I did was go out to Greek food with Susanna (which was really really good) and do a little bit of homework. But that's okay, we've been so busy that a day off was a nice change. |
| February 18 Nothing interesting to write about for today either, just lots of classes. Well, really just two, but Bernie lectured for three hours, so it felt like lots of classes. But tomorrow is another full day trip, so I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures from that. So other than that, the only exciting thing from the day is the fact that I've finally gotten completely caught up with the website and I've actually written an entry for the day on the day it actually happened. |
| February 19 Today was an insanely busy day. It was another full day trip, but we stayed in Rome. That meant that we had to do lots more walking and we didn't get a charter bus, which was disappointing (no naps!). We started out at the Theater of Marcellus and the Temple of Apollo Sosianus (right next to each other). We go by these pretty much every day when we go into the city, because the bus that we almost always take (the 44) goes right by them on the way to Piazza Venezia. We didn't get very close to them, just stopped along the sidewalk, but we could still see a lot (of the Theater, the remaining parts of the temple are under scaffolding, so we couldn't see it really at all). Then we walked over to the Forum of Augustus, which was a lot of fun. Normally all you can do is see it from the street above (the street cuts right through the middle of it, so we were actually only seeing one end), but we got to go inside. The woman with us was a little more careful than the woman at Caesar's Forum, though, so we didn't get to really climb around anything, or to go up into the Temple of Mars, which was disappointing. Still, we got to wander around and see a lot. There's a small area where a bit of the side wall and a few columns, and the roof over them, are in place, so we got to stand under it (not directly under it, unfortunately, but on the ground next to the podium) and take pictures of the inside of the roof, which you'd never be able to see from the street (at least I don't see how, I haven't actually been there), so that was pretty exciting. After the Forum of Augustus we walked (past the Colosseum, which was exciting since I still hadn't been there) to the Auditorium of Maecenas. I'd never heard of it, and I get the feeling that not many people have since it was completely empty apart from us, but it was actually pretty cool. It's sorta small, but there is a semicircular staircase (which they originally thought was for seating, hence the auditorium thing, but now they actually think that water might have run down the center, so they aren't really sure), and all over the walls you can still see a pretty decent amount of wall painting. It's in pretty bad shape, but that means that they let you get really close to it and take pictures of it, so it's sort of a trade off. There were also a few remains of the various floors that had been there, so we could see those as well. After the auditorium we had lunch (in the little park around the building), and then we walked to a museum (the Palazzo Massimo). They didn't allow any pictures, which is really annoying since there is no good reason for not allowing photography (flash damages paintings, but you can turn the flash off) except to make more money in the gift shop. But anyway, I didn't get any pictures, but we saw a few cool and famous things that I'll mention even if I can't put pictures up. There's a very cool statue of Augustus with a toga over his head (not his face, just like a hood), from the Via Labicana (in case anyone has a Roman art book on hand to look it up in), and there are lots of paintings from rooms in different houses and villas around room. In a couple cases they took all the frescos off the walls and recreated the rooms, and even ceilings, so you can walk in (again, if you want to look it up, there's a really famous garden room from Livia's villa at Prima Porta). That was very cool, but you have to have an appointment and take a tour of that part of the museum, and they rushed us through pretty quickly. Then, even though everybody was pretty tired by this point, we went across town to another museum (Centrale Montemartini). This museum was really just kinda bizarre; it's in Rome's first power plant, so it's a display of a bunch of the original equipment from that with classical pieces from the overflow of the Capitoline museums mixed in. There were a few famous pieces there, though, and it was kinda cool to see classical sculpture with huge machines behind it. Plus, they let us take pictures (and even use flash) so I liked them for that. After that we were completely exhausted so we went home, Okay, pictures. There are a lot, I know, but I couldn't help it, we saw lots of cool things. So anyway, the first picture is the Theater of Marcellus. There are apartments above it (it used to be three levels) where people still live (we saw one woman cleaning windows), which I'm sure is one of the coolest places to live in Rome. Then there's the back of the wall Augustus built as the back of his Forum. It's made out of a fire resistant stone (same one as the temple at Gabii from last week), because there were so many fires in the area behind his forum and he didn't want them to spread to his buildings. Then there's a big picture of the forum. I couldn't stand back enough to take a decent picture of the temple from the front, so I'll have to go up onto the street sometime to try to take a few, and to see if I can get the whole forum into one shot. You can see the steps at the front of the temple and the right side where there are some columns and part of the wall standing. Then the next two pictures are looking up at the columns (50 Roman feet, which are pretty close to American feet, high). In the first one you can see the ceiling and the coffers with a flower in the center if you look closely enough. Then there's a picture of the left side of the forum. There were porticoes on either side of the temple, with a central exhedra in each that had sculptures of Aeneas and Romulus (I don't remember which side had which though), and you can see in the picture a few of the columns and the curve where the exhedra was on the left of the picture. Next is a picture of the Colossseum, which I'm sure you recognized, and then there are pictures from the Auditorium of Maecenas. The first two are pictures of the frescos on the wall. The first one is a regular picture, but I know it's impossible to tell what it is, so the second one is a detail of the first that I brightened up on the computer (so the color is wrong, but you can make out what it's a picture of at least). And then there's a picture looking at most of the auditorium (the back wall was there too, we came in a door on the side, but you're seeing all the interesting stuff). The rest of the pictures are from the Montemartini museum. The first one is a really famous statue (although I don't remember what it's called and we didn't talk about it), of some guy holding portraits of his ancestors (so it's not supoosed to look like he's holding real heads). Then there's a sculptural group that was in the pediment of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus. The last three pictures are just so you can see the weird museum with the mix of classical sculpture and big machines. My favorite is the one in the middle (I don't remember who the statue is of, I just thought it looked cool with the engine behind it). Okay, that's more than enough pictures for one day. |
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| February 21 Today wasn't supposed to be a very busy day, we just started with a lecture on the Ara Pacis (which is very very disappointingly closed, and they don't really know when it will open again but it won't be while we're here), and then we left to see a few other things. First we went to the Mausoleum of Augustus, but we had a bit of trouble getting everyone there; we don't all always fit on one bus, and today we only had one professor so splitting up was a problem, but after some people got on one bus, other people were stuck behind when the right bus didn't come again for a very long time. So anyway, everyone did get there eventually, and no one got lost, but it was crazy for a while. And by then, we were late. So we saw the mausoleum, but we didn't have a whole lot of time there (it's not open to the public, and the guard didn't mind us being late, but we still had to leave at the same time that we'd planned on). After the mausoleum we talked about the pavement in front for a while. Apparently it was used as a sort of drafting board to figure out the pediment of the Pantheon; I took pictures but you can't really see it (it's raining, so everything was wet and muddy). Then we walked to the nearby Horologium again. We stopped in front of the building where the remaining pavement is (and we just were) because there's a little diagram of the pavement there, and we looked at the obelisk briefly. Then we were supposed to talk about an aquaduct and the Baths of Agrippa, but we were really late by this time, so we had to just stop at the aquaduct really quickly, and we'll see the baths later. Okay, pictures. I actually took a decent amount, but it was raining and dark so I don't have a whole lot to put up. And one of the pictures is just of something we walked by. Anyway, the first tall picture is the column of Marcus Aurelius, which is what we just walked by, but I got a good picture, so I figured I'd put it up. Next to it on the top is the Mausoleum of Augustus (I don't know why it got blurry in the middle, it was fine till I uploaded it). Then there's a picture inside the mausoleum. This part used to be covered, but now the space in between two of the walls (there are 5 big concentric circles of walls, but there isn't a lot of space between the outer ones, this is in between 3 and 5 (5 being the innermost); wall 4 collapsed) where we were. Then there's a picture of the obelisk of the Horologium, and then the diagram showing the obelisk and the surviving pavement. Sorry it's from such a weird angle, I was trying to minimize the reflections off of it. After dinner, we had a really amazing talk by a woman who's translating Horace's poetry. She's a poet herself, and her translations were nothing like any of the others I've heard, they were really beautiful, especially when she was reading them, so it was a very very good talk. |
| February 20 We didn't do anything exciting for most of the day. But after dinner, we had another talk, this time by Phil (he's a ulca grad student who lives upstairs, he helped teach last semester but this semester he's busy doing projects for the Centro and for ucla). Anyway, his projects for ucla are on making virtual reality models of rooms in the House of the Mysteries at Pompeii and the House of Augustus here in Rome (that we don't get to go into because they are currently removing the asbestos that got in there somehow). So he talked to us about making the models (using digital photos of all the paintings on the walls in those rooms) and showed us the models a little. It was really interesting, and he told me he'd help me learn how to do a cheesy version of his cool models with quicktime with some of my pictures. I don't know when I'm actually going to have time to have him teach me, but it would definitly be fun, so we'll see. Okay, that was it for today. |
| February 22 Today we had our only all day Art History trip. We went and looked at two villas north of Rome. The first was the Villa Farnese, which was actually really cool, and we got to do a lot of fun things in. They let us go pretty much all over the place, even down into the basement where the kitchens of the villa had been and through a lot of the other rooms where people usually aren't allowed. Also, even though officially you can't take pictures, our guide really didn't care, so I got to take a lot. A lot of them didn't really come out (since many of the rooms we were in weren't really meant for tourists and the only light in them was from the windows and doors), but I have plenty that did. Then we went to another nearby villa to look at the gardens there (most of the buildings are closed, but there are lots of gardens and lots of fountains). And then we went home (this sounds short, but Paul talks a lot, so we spent a lot of time at each of these places, and they were a good hour and a half out of Rome. Okay, pictures: The first is a picture of the Villa Farnesina from the front. You can't really tell from the outside, but it's a big pentagon with a round courtyard in the middle (not very common for renaissance villas). The next picture is looking out from the villa toward the town that it would have governed. Next is a picture of the staircase inside, which was really beautiful (and also something that I don't think most people get to see) Then there is a picture of this really really cool ceramic fountain. It looked a little out of place (I certainly wouldn't have guessed that they did big ceramic fountains inside in the renaissance) but it was fun anyway. Then there's a picture of the fountain in the back (which was really cool), and then a view from the hill above the villa looking out over the town. Then there are two pictures (hiding at the bottome) from the other villa, the first just looking down on the gardens and fountain, and the second is a Renaissance sushi boat track (no, not for sushi, but it really is a moving channel of water in a dining table that they would put food in), so I had to put a picture of that on here too. |
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| February 23 Today four of us took a day trip to Assisi. We had a really good time, Assisi is really beautiful and such a cute little town. And we actually had plenty of time there, although I was worried about just trying to do it in a day. We left really early (well, 8:15 train, but that meant we had to leave here just after 7 because the bus to Termini is slow and infrequent, and we still had to buy tickets and things). The train takes a little more than 2 hours (we were lucky, we caught direct trains both ways, usually you have to change; they only run a few between Perugia and Rome each day). When we got there, we took the bus from the train station to Assisi (you really have to, it's on a pretty good hill and about 4 km away from the train station). We intentionally took the bus across town from St. Francis, so we could see the whole town on our way there and then leave from the bus stop (this isn't as long as it sounds, it's really small). So we wandered around the city for a while, which was great because we sorta stuck to roads that seemed mostly residential, not touristy, and they were really cute. We saw the church of Santa Chiara, stopped for lunch at a little pizza place that had great pizza and sandwiches, and kept wandering. We started walking up this little trail, which was going uphill but didn't seem too bad, and finally we ended up at the very top of the hill Assisi is on at the Rocca Maggiore, an old fortress built on the top. We hadn't planned on going up there, because it looked like a really long and high climb and we didn't want to spend all day doing it, but it was pretty easy. And it was definitly worth it, we had amazing views of all the way around the hill. We could have gone into the fortress and up to the top of the walls, but we didn't really want to spend the time and we could already see so much that it didn't seem necessary. So we stopped there and took pictures, then had to walk right back toward the church of S. Chiara (because that was the only way to or from the fortress), then turn around and keep trying to work our way back to St. Francis. We saw the Temple of Minerva (now a church, but the columns on the front were still there), ignored the Roman forum (we've seen plenty of them, and this one isn't very well excavated or anything), and finally (with lots of gift shop stops along the way) found St. Francis. We looked around in the church for a while, and found a very cool exhibit that had nothing to do with St. Francis but was really interesting anyway. It was a bunch of pictures from Ruters of the Pope, and they had obviously picked amazing pictures, either just really beautiful artistic ones or him with really important people, or really cute ones of him with little kids and stuff. Anyway, that was probably the most interesting thing we saw there, which is kinda sad since the church is of course a really big deal, but that was really cool. And then we were pretty tired, so we found someplace to grab some food for the train trip back and took a bus and then the train back to Rome. I didn't take quite so many pictures, but most of them came out well, so I'm still going to have trouble deciding what to put up. Okay, the first picture is the church of Santa Chiara. Then there's a picture from the spot where we stopped to eat lunch looking out over the lower part of the city and the towns around it. Then there's a picture of the path we wandered down to end up at the Rocca Maggiore. Next is a picture of part of the fortress itself. Then there's a picture looking out from the fortress over the city, then another picture where you can see about half the city (the other half being behind me when I took it, on the other side of the fortress). Then there's a picture of St. Francis from the fortress (the opposite side from the other two pictures). Next is a picture of the Temple of Minerva, and then finally two pictures of St. Francis, one from the front and one from the side. |
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| February 24 Today was just a working day, but I went out to find the church that my art history project is in (san Pietro in vincoli). The church was really hard to find (not all of the streets listed on the map actually seemed to exist) but I did finally find it, so I got to see the statue, and they actually let people take pictures, which is rare. There is a bunch of construction going on around the statue I'm doing (of Moses, by Michaelangelo) but the statue is still visible, so it will work out well enough. So I'll put a few pictures of the statue up, just so you can see it. It's in a huge tomb to Pope Julius II, but I'm supposed to focus on the statue and Paul will cover the rest of the tomb. The first picture on the left is the statue, then there's a picture of it where you can see the tomb around it. Actually, it's just the lower half of the tomb, the upper half has scaffolding over it, but in the third picture you can sorta get the idea of what it would look like when you see it from across the church (there shouldn't be anything in the middle though). Then there's a picture looking toward the front of the church (the tomb is on the right side wall at the very back of the church). Then the last picture is the chains that supposedly held St. Peter (which is where the name San Pietro in Vincoli comes from). |
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| February 25 Today was mostly a class day, but we did have a very exciting Sicily Orientation by Franco, to let us know what we'll be doing and everything like that. So I thought I'd put up the schedule that they gave us, so you'll know what we're doing every day (since I won't be able to put up any pictures for the week). I'm leaving the times off since I figure you don't care that much, but otherwise this is what they gave us. Friday March 1 Breakfast at Centro, leave at 7:30 on the bus for Velia (Salerno). Picnic luunch in Velia, Visit to the sties of Velia. Leave by bus for Paestum. Dinner and overnight at the Hotel Poseidonia (phone 0828 811066) (on the beach!) Saturday March 2 Breakfast at hotel; leave by bus for Naational Museum; Visit to the Archaeological Museum and sites of Paestum; lunch at hotel; leave by bus for Reggio Calabria; Dinner and overnight at the Grande Albergo Miramare (phone 0965 812444) Sunday March 3 Breakfast at hotel; Visit Archaeological Museum; leave by bus for Taormina; Visit to Taormina Theater; Leave by bus for Siracusa; Dinner and overnight at the Hotel Palace Helios (phone 0931 491566) Monday March 3 Breakfast at hotel; Leave by bus for Ortigia; visit to Arethusa Spring, Cathedral, Ionic Temple and Temple of Apollo; Visit to the Alter of Hieron II, greek Theater, Quarries, Ampitheatre; Lunch at hotel; Visit National Archaeological Museum; Leave by bus for Piazza Armerina; Dinner and overnight at the Hotel Mosaici (phone 0935 685453) Tuesday March 5 Breakfast at hotel; Leave by bus for Aidone; Visit Museum of Aidone; Leave by bus and visit Morgantina; lunch at hotel; Leave by bus and visit Villa del Casale; Leave by bus for Agrigento; Dinner and overnight at the Colleverde Park Hotel (phone 0922 29555) Wednesday March 6 Breakfast at hotel; Leave by bus for visit to Temples of Concord, June, Herakles, Zeus; Visit archaeological museum; lunch at hotel; Leave by bus for Selinunte; Visit to the temples and Acropolis; Dinner and overnight at the Hotel Alceste (phone 0924 46184) Thursday March 7 Breakfast at hotel; Leave by bus for visit to Cave di Cusa; Leave by bus for Marsala; Visit archaeological museum; Leave by bus for Motia; Visit Motia Island; Leave by bus for Segesta, Visit the theater and temple; Leave by bus for Palermo; Dinner and overnight at the Hotel Zagarella (phone 091 903077) Friday March 8 Breakfast at hotel; Leave by bus for visit to site of Solunto; Leave by bus for Monreale; Visit to the Cathedral and Cloister; Leave by bus for Palermo; Visit to archaeological museum; Leave for a walk on Baroque and Byzantine sites in the city center (Piazza Pretoria, Martorana, S. Cataldo, Cathedral); Leave by bus for Port of Palermo; Dinner and overnight on the ferryboat Tirrenia. Saturday March 9 Arrive by ferry at Port of Napoli at 7:30 am; Leave by bus for Rome; Arrive late morning in Rome |
| February 26 Today was another very busy day where we didn't leave Rome. We did plenty of things though, although we were actually finished a little bit earlier than usual. So first, we went to the Pyramid of Cestius, which is a little pyramid (well, little by Egyptian standards, is pretty big for a tomb in Rome) that some guy built as his tomb because Egyptian stuff was popular. It's a little weird to see in Rome, but we've driven by it before, so it's not that strange. Then we went to the Porta Maggiore, saw another tomb. This one is weird too, it was made by a man who made all his money by being a baker (apparently bakers could make a lot of money), so there are all kinds of reliefs of the process of baking and selling bread. It's a really weird shape too, although they don't really know what it's supposed to be. Then we actually looked at the Porta Maggiore, where a few aquaducts meet, and it crosses two roads so they wanted to make a big deal out of it, so it's a huge gate with inscriptions and things. Then we walked over to look at what's left (the podium) of the Temple of Claudius. Then really briefly at Nero's nymphaeum, which he built into the side of the temple podium instead of building the temple because he didn't like Claudius (it was finished after Nero's death though). Then we stopped for lunch, then went to the Arch of Titus, then to the Ludus Magnus (a gladiator training place and barracks next to the Colosseum), and then finally to the Colosseum. We talked a little at the colosseum and then they let us go to either go home or play around in the Colosseum more (since they'd paid our admission already). It rained a little but not too much, so it wasn't a bad day. It's really late and we leave for Sicily tomorrow and I stil have a bunch to do, so I'm just going to put the pictures up. I'll write explainations later. Sorry! |
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| February 27 Today was another general class day, getting ready for Sicily, and studying like crazy for the art history midterm. Not much more to say. |
| February 28 Art History Midterm! It was really hard, but everyone survived. This morning, we went to the Domus Aurea (Nero's big house for himself)). It was really amazing to be pretty much inside a Roman building. Some things were different, of course, but basically, we were inside the building. We also saw the Baths of Trajan today, which were built on top of the Domus Aurea (aka Golden House), which is why it's so well preserved. |
| March 1 Today we woke up bright and early and left for Sicily!! After breakfast (at 7!) we loaded up the bus and started a long drive down Italy. We stopped for a break and then for lunch in Paestum, where we ate in a little rest stop area (we had bag lunches from the Centro). After lunch we drove to a site called Vella,where there was a Greek colony (because the Sicily trip is mostly about Greek stuff, since it of course was a big influence on Rome). We walked around the site for quite a while, there was a lot to see. We went to the acropolis where there was a temple and a theater (up on a hill overlooking the coast, it was really beautiful), then down to a gate into the city and part of the original road, then down to look at the (later) Roman baths. Then, after we left Vella, we drove to our hotel in Paestum. We had a little time before dinner, so just about everyone walked down to the beach (the hotel was about a block off). Some people swam, most people just walked in the water a little and watched the amazing sunset. Then we walked back to the hotel and had dinner there (it was really good, but it was way too much food, they just kept bringing out courses). But anyway, it was a really good start to the trip. The first picture is part of the site of Vella (it was a huge site). This part is pretty much sea level (well, not sea level or it would flood I'm sure, but close). The next picture is from the acropolis of the town, so it is noticeably higher (and farther from the water). There was a temple up there, but there wasn't much left to see as a midieval tower had been built over it, so I thought the picture of the view was more worth seeing. And finally there's a picture of the amazing sunset we had on the beach at Paestum. |
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| March 3 This morning we had breakfast in our hotel again (where we didn't get to drink any coffee or tea because they used the tap water to make it, and the tap water in Reggio is salty, which is really really weird, so the coffee and tea were salty too), at 8, and then loaded all our stuff onto the bus and walked across town back to the Reggio Museo Archaeologica. We first went down to look at two famous bronze statues (Greek, probably from around the mid 5th century bc) that were found off the coast of Reggio Calabria (which is why they survived, pretty much any bronze on land was melted down and reused). Shawna talked about those statues for quite a while, and about the process of casting bronze, and then we were on our own to look around the rest of the museum. It's a pretty big museum, so we spent a decent amount of time there, and then it was onto the bus to take the ferry over to Sicily. It's about a half-hour trip across the straights of Messina (where Scylla and caribdys were said to be (and I know it means I'm a horrible classics major, but I don't have a clue how to spell those)). We got to get off the bus and walk around the ferry, which was great. It was sort of a cloudy day, but it wasn�t cold or really bad weather or anything, and the trip was beautiful. The ocean was a really bright bright blue, so that was loads of fun. And then we piled onto the bus and drove off the ferry (to the tune from the Godfather, thanks to Adam's cell phone). As we drove onto Sicily, Franco told us that he had the first 'Franco Surprise' of the trip for us, so instead of going straight to our first destination, he pulled the buss off in Messina at a church. We were actually a few minutes late, which was a bit of a problem for this surprise, but we caught some of it. Apparently, Messina has the biggest mechanical clock in the world, at some old church, and since it was right around noon, we were able to see (part of) the clock�s show. I guess it's a big deal for the town to go Sunday's at noon to see this, so it was pretty cool, even though we did miss about half of it. Then we got back on the bus and drove to Taormina, which is a really really cute down o near the coast. We had lunch on our own in Taormina, and had a little big of time to look around, and then we met at the Greek theater to look at it. It was a huge Greek theater, but basically everything we were looking at (apart from the basic layout) was Roman and a lot later. Still though, it was a really large theater built into a hill, overlooking the coast and Mt. Etna. We actually couldn't see a whole lot, because the clouds and the fog never really lifted so we could only see the really nearby coast and part of Etna, but the clouds made everything really beautiful too, so it worked out well. After looking at the theater, we had a little more time on our own to wander around the city, so we did a little wandering and tourist shopping, and got some gelato (Sicilian gelato is supposed to be the best in Italy, and it seemed like it to me, although (despite the fact that it's totally sacrilegious) I have to say that gelato doesn't seem all that different from ice cream at home to me). Still, the Sicilian variety does have a notable difference, and it is really pretty good stuff. After our free time we met back at the bottom of the hill (we'd had to hike up a LOT of stairs to get into Taormina, because the bus had to stop at the bottom of the hill), we got on the bus and started the drive to Syracuse. The drive took quite a while (I guess we hit some major traffic), so we were a little late getting to Syracusa, but we did get there eventually, and checked into the hotel and had dinner there. We didn't have a Franco walk at the end of the night, because the hotel was sorta far away from anything, and definitely far away from anything interesting, so we had a movie fest in our room after dinner. |
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| January 21, Today we did a little walking tour of Rome. We went up to a supposidly famous fountain, which wasn't all that exciting but had an awesome view of the city (that's what the picture is from), and then we saw a famous church, I guess one of the first Renaissance style churches in the city. Anyway, it was cool. The other pics are of my room. |
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| January 22, Our first class trip was today, but it was a little different. We all took the bus together to the Victor Emmanual monument (he was the guy who reunited Italy in the 1870's), and got a little lecture on Italian history, and then we went over to see the forum (from above it sorta). That was really really cool. We just sorta turned around a corner and suddenly we were looking at ancient Rome. I was excited. We also walked through the Piazza Del Campidolglio (designed by Michaelangelo) that has the big bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius (I studied that a lot in art history). It's a copy that's in the piazza now, the real one was moved into a museum to protect it from all the Roman pollution. We walked by another church, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which I guess is really really old, old enough that it was used by some of the christian emperors and senators and stuff. We didn't go inside, but I want to now after looking at the guidebooks because there are some great pictures. Anyway, they just took us there because they knew we would want to see it soon, but the point of the day was our Obelisk projects. They split us up into groups of three and told us an obelisk to go find in the city. It's a little bit about getting us to see them, but more about letting us get used to wandering the city on our own, and learning how to get around and everything. Our obelisk was kinda cool, it's in the Piazza Minerva and it's sitting on top of a statue of an elephant by Bernini. Right behind it was this georgeous church, with a statue of Christ carrying the cross by Michaelanglo, so that was pretty cool too. And just behind the buildings of the piazza (and we could see part of it) was the Pantheon, so we went in there too. It's amazing, I still can't get over how huge the dome is and how they could have possibly built it. They still have mass in there, so I really want to go sometime. Then we were all freezing, so we came back, even though we could have stayed out all afternoon (our obelisk was only a couple blocks from the forum where we got the assignment, so the whole thing didn't take us very long). One of the pictures is of the forum (most of it, some of it goes to the right but my whole group was in the way:) ), one of Bernie (our professor in charge, he's from ucla and knows every classics professor I've ever had) and Dan (assistant professor, he teaches Greek so I won't have too much with him, just the parts he teaches of the City course), and one is our obelisk and the elephant on the left with the back of the Pantheon on the right. Dad, so you know, the church and obelisk are on page 108, the Pantheon is on 110-111, Piazza del Campidoglio is p.64-65, and the Victor Emmanuel monument is page 74, and S.M in Aracoeli is p.69 |
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| January 23 Today we went in a suburb of Rome (actually it might be within the city, it's either just outside or just inside) called EUR (p.266). It was build by Mussolini for the 1942 World's Fair (which never happened because of WWII), and it's supposed to look very modern, so it looks nothing like the rest of Rome. There are a couple of museums there. First we went to the Ethnographic museum (Pigorini) to see artifacts from pre-Roman Italy, from the neolithic on. It wasn't the most exciting trip, although there were a few cool things. Mostly it was just early pottery and weapons though, since that's mostly what people had. Then we went down a couple blocks to the Museo della Civilta Romana, which we didn't spend much time in, but was really cool. We only went in the first room of the museum, we'll be going back to see some other things, but they have a really incredible model of the city, showing what it would have looked like during the empire. It's amazing, and it was really fun to see because I've seen pictures of it so many times in all my classes (especially art history). It's a really great way to see how all the buildings related to each other within the city. You have to look down on it, but Bernie said that at the very end of the semester we'll get permission to go down to it's level and see it up close, which will be really really cool. Then we had a long (3 hours!) lecture on prehistoric Rome and the evolution of it from a village to a city. Sorta interesting, but I was definitly ready for it to be over. Not that many good pictures from today, but I'll put one of the cool model up. |
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| January 24 Nothing too exciting today, classes but no trips (how sad!). Actually it's a good thing, because it's been raining since about 11:30, so I'm not sure I would have wanted to be out in anyway. I did go out this morning and find a working atm and get through the Italian, which was good, since they were about to start bugging people about not paying the security deposit. I also luckily got that out of the way this morning before my first class (11) so it was dry (and actually kinda warm, it seemed like it was going to be a nice day). We had our first Art History and Latin classes this afternoon, and they both seem like they'll be okay. Our Art History professor made it sound like it's pretty hard to get a good grade in his class, but if I don't it doesn't go on my USC transcript anyway. And Latin seemed okay, there are people who know a lot more than me, but there are people who don't know as much too. It seems like it's going to be a reasonable amount of work, and although I really don't especially like Cicero, his style is pretty predictable and easy to figure out. So that's it for the day, I didn't take a single picture, but there's an Art History trip tomorrow, so I'll have some then. We're supposed to have gelato for dessert tonight, and most of us still haven't had it (there's a place around the corner, but it's still so cold!), so everybody's excited. |
| January 25 Today we went on our art history field trip back to a few of the places we'd gone on the first day with Bernie. We talked about the church of San Pietro just down the street from us and went inside and looked at some of the paintings. Then we went next door to the Tempietto, a tiny little Renaissance church that we had seen before. It's really cute, but we didn't have time to go inside, so I'm going to have to go back and see it again. We stopped at the fountain (the Aqua Paula) that we saw before, and because it rained all day yesterday but was really sunny today we had a great view of the city looking down the hill, so we took lots of pictures. Then we walked down the big staircase at the side of the churches that goes down the Janiculum hill that we live on into Trastevere. We went to the Villa Farnesina, which didn't look that exciting (I guess it used to have really pretty gardens, but now it's just the building, and the building wasn't anything special on the outside) but ended up being really cool. There are some beautiful paintings inside, the walls and ceilings are completely covered with frescos, and I guess they've been recently restored, because they were amazing. There's a really famous Raphael scene in one room that I sorta recognized, and it was beautiful. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but the sign wasn't that obvious and Bernie was (he isn't the art history professor, but he came along with us), so I took a few. They didn't come out all that well, but you get the idea. The art history lecture lasted an hour longer than it was supposed to, but it was pretty interesting so no one seemed to mind too much. After art history we all took a tour of the library of the American Academy in Rome, which we get to use if we need to, and then a couple of us went for a walk in the huge park just northeast of where we live. We were trying to find another place where you can take pictures of the whole city, but the park is so huge that we had no idea how to get there. We walked really far into it though, and it was really nice. There were tons of copies of classical statues throughout it, and a huge building that didn't seem to be anything, as far as we can tell, but the grounds were really well taken care of, so it must be something. It was fun exploring even though we couldn't find what we were looking for. I took a lot of pictures today, so I'm putting a lot here, even though I know I should save space for later. Oh well, I can always take them down. So going from left to right, top to bottom, the first is San Pietro, then the Tempietto, then the Aqual Paula, then one of the rooms from the Villa Farnesina, then Raphael's Galatea from the Villa Farnesina, then the building in the park that we don't have a clue about, and then at the bottom is a picture of the Centro. My room is the 2nd from the right on the third floor. |
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| January 26 Today was Saturday, so we slept in a little, which was nice. A group of us went out and had pizza for lunch, since that's the only food we know of in the area. Then I went out shopping with a few other people. I didn't really need to shop, but no one really wanted to sightsee, and I really need to get a sense of direction in the city and figure out where everything is, so I thought walking around with them would be good. So we wandered all over the place (we walked in a huge loop, from Piazza Venezia to Campo de Fiori and then along the river up to Via Del Corso where it is even with Piazza di Spagna (we could see the Spanish steps, but they were a ways east of us) and down Corso back to Venezia). It was a very long walk. So we came back here, and we went and got Chinese food for dinner (this may sound silly, but there really aren't a lot of options around here, and we don't want pizza for every weekend meal). It wasn't bad, and the woman was really really patient with us since we didn't know any Italian and didn't know what anything on the menu was. At least with pizza you can see what you're ordering. The chinese food really wasn't bad though, and it was cheap, so we're thinking that we'll probably end up back there. Now it's time to go do some homework, so we won't have too much to do tomorrow. The first picture is my shopping group, from left to right that's me, Charity, Cameren, Sarah M, and Naomi, and the second is looking down the street towards the Spanish steps, and you can see the crazy mob of people that were out shopping too (via del Corso is a big shopping street). |
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| January 27 We woke up really early this morning (which was hard, since we got to bed late) to go out to church. Liz's uncle is here visiting from Ireland, and he's a priest, so we planned to go hear him say mass (which would have been in English, too, so that would have been nice). We were supposed to meet him at the Spanish steps before mass, but the buses were running really behind, so by the time we got there, he wasn't there (but I've gotten to climb the Spanish steps now, although they didn't seem all that interesting to me). We walked around the city a lot looking for the church, but we couldn't find it and no one we talked to had ever heard of it. So we never did end up finding it. We ended up going to mass in Piazza del Populo (by this time we'd walked since Venezia, and really wandered around on the way, so we were too tired to walk any farther than where we ended up). The church we went to was Santa Maria dei Miracoli (Dad, it's on the map but not in the book). It was little but really pretty, it looked like it would be a huge church from the outside, so we were kinda surprised. The mass was in Italian, but mass is mass, so we were okay. They had papers that had all the prayers on them (they probably get lots of tourists, it's a touristy neighborhood), all in Italian, but still, it helped to follow along and be able to give the responses in Italian. The priest was this super old man, but he seemed really nice, and it was a pretty quick mass (no music). Then we walked back down the Corso to Venezia, which is a long walk, but wasn't that bad since we weren't in a hurry anymore. The Vatican museums were free today, but only open till 1:30, so anybody that was going to church couldn't really go, and most people didn't get up in time I'm sure, though I do know of at least one person who went. We're going back this Friday for art history, and there's nothing after art history classes Friday mornings, so, depending on how late it's open, we might hang around and go into the areas we aren't seeing in class. Okay, now it's really time to finish up the hw, we have a lot of reading for the City course, a ton for Art history (though that isn't till Thursday), and I have some latin left as well, so it's going to be a working afternoon. No pictures today (I didn't bring the camera for church, and even though we walked by lots of things, we were in a hurry so we wouldn't have taken pictures anyway). |
| January 21, Today we did a little walking tour of Rome. We went up to a supposidly famous fountain, which wasn't all that exciting but had an awesome view of the city (that's what the picture is from), and then we saw a famous church, I guess one of the first Renaissance style churches in the city. Anyway, it was cool. The other pics are of my room. |
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| January 22, Our first class trip was today, but it was a little different. We all took the bus together to the Victor Emmanual monument (he was the guy who reunited Italy in the 1870's), and got a little lecture on Italian history, and then we went over to see the forum (from above it sorta). That was really really cool. We just sorta turned around a corner and suddenly we were looking at ancient Rome. I was excited. We also walked through the Piazza Del Campidolglio (designed by Michaelangelo) that has the big bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius (I studied that a lot in art history). It's a copy that's in the piazza now, the real one was moved into a museum to protect it from all the Roman pollution. We walked by another church, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which I guess is really really old, old enough that it was used by some of the christian emperors and senators and stuff. We didn't go inside, but I want to now after looking at the guidebooks because there are some great pictures. Anyway, they just took us there because they knew we would want to see it soon, but the point of the day was our Obelisk projects. They split us up into groups of three and told us an obelisk to go find in the city. It's a little bit about getting us to see them, but more about letting us get used to wandering the city on our own, and learning how to get around and everything. Our obelisk was kinda cool, it's in the Piazza Minerva and it's sitting on top of a statue of an elephant by Bernini. Right behind it was this georgeous church, with a statue of Christ carrying the cross by Michaelanglo, so that was pretty cool too. And just behind the buildings of the piazza (and we could see part of it) was the Pantheon, so we went in there too. It's amazing, I still can't get over how huge the dome is and how they could have possibly built it. They still have mass in there, so I really want to go sometime. Then we were all freezing, so we came back, even though we could have stayed out all afternoon (our obelisk was only a couple blocks from the forum where we got the assignment, so the whole thing didn't take us very long). One of the pictures is of the forum (most of it, some of it goes to the right but my whole group was in the way:) ), one of Bernie (our professor in charge, he's from ucla and knows every classics professor I've ever had) and Dan (assistant professor, he teaches Greek so I won't have too much with him, just the parts he teaches of the City course), and one is our obelisk and the elephant on the left with the back of the Pantheon on the right. Dad, so you know, the church and obelisk are on page 108, the Pantheon is on 110-111, Piazza del Campidoglio is p.64-65, and the Victor Emmanuel monument is page 74, and S.M in Aracoeli is p.69 |
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| January 23 Today we went in a suburb of Rome (actually it might be within the city, it's either just outside or just inside) called EUR (p.266). It was build by Mussolini for the 1942 World's Fair (which never happened because of WWII), and it's supposed to look very modern, so it looks nothing like the rest of Rome. There are a couple of museums there. First we went to the Ethnographic museum (Pigorini) to see artifacts from pre-Roman Italy, from the neolithic on. It wasn't the most exciting trip, although there were a few cool things. Mostly it was just early pottery and weapons though, since that's mostly what people had. Then we went down a couple blocks to the Museo della Civilta Romana, which we didn't spend much time in, but was really cool. We only went in the first room of the museum, we'll be going back to see some other things, but they have a really incredible model of the city, showing what it would have looked like during the empire. It's amazing, and it was really fun to see because I've seen pictures of it so many times in all my classes (especially art history). It's a really great way to see how all the buildings related to each other within the city. You have to look down on it, but Bernie said that at the very end of the semester we'll get permission to go down to it's level and see it up close, which will be really really cool. Then we had a long (3 hours!) lecture on prehistoric Rome and the evolution of it from a village to a city. Sorta interesting, but I was definitly ready for it to be over. Not that many good pictures from today, but I'll put one of the cool model up. |
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| January 24 Nothing too exciting today, classes but no trips (how sad!). Actually it's a good thing, because it's been raining since about 11:30, so I'm not sure I would have wanted to be out in anyway. I did go out this morning and find a working atm and get through the Italian, which was good, since they were about to start bugging people about not paying the security deposit. I also luckily got that out of the way this morning before my first class (11) so it was dry (and actually kinda warm, it seemed like it was going to be a nice day). We had our first Art History and Latin classes this afternoon, and they both seem like they'll be okay. Our Art History professor made it sound like it's pretty hard to get a good grade in his class, but if I don't it doesn't go on my USC transcript anyway. And Latin seemed okay, there are people who know a lot more than me, but there are people who don't know as much too. It seems like it's going to be a reasonable amount of work, and although I really don't especially like Cicero, his style is pretty predictable and easy to figure out. So that's it for the day, I didn't take a single picture, but there's an Art History trip tomorrow, so I'll have some then. We're supposed to have gelato for dessert tonight, and most of us still haven't had it (there's a place around the corner, but it's still so cold!), so everybody's excited. |
| January 25 Today we went on our art history field trip back to a few of the places we'd gone on the first day with Bernie. We talked about the church of San Pietro just down the street from us and went inside and looked at some of the paintings. Then we went next door to the Tempietto, a tiny little Renaissance church that we had seen before. It's really cute, but we didn't have time to go inside, so I'm going to have to go back and see it again. We stopped at the fountain (the Aqua Paula) that we saw before, and because it rained all day yesterday but was really sunny today we had a great view of the city looking down the hill, so we took lots of pictures. Then we walked down the big staircase at the side of the churches that goes down the Janiculum hill that we live on into Trastevere. We went to the Villa Farnesina, which didn't look that exciting (I guess it used to have really pretty gardens, but now it's just the building, and the building wasn't anything special on the outside) but ended up being really cool. There are some beautiful paintings inside, the walls and ceilings are completely covered with frescos, and I guess they've been recently restored, because they were amazing. There's a really famous Raphael scene in one room that I sorta recognized, and it was beautiful. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but the sign wasn't that obvious and Bernie was (he isn't the art history professor, but he came along with us), so I took a few. They didn't come out all that well, but you get the idea. The art history lecture lasted an hour longer than it was supposed to, but it was pretty interesting so no one seemed to mind too much. After art history we all took a tour of the library of the American Academy in Rome, which we get to use if we need to, and then a couple of us went for a walk in the huge park just northeast of where we live. We were trying to find another place where you can take pictures of the whole city, but the park is so huge that we had no idea how to get there. We walked really far into it though, and it was really nice. There were tons of copies of classical statues throughout it, and a huge building that didn't seem to be anything, as far as we can tell, but the grounds were really well taken care of, so it must be something. It was fun exploring even though we couldn't find what we were looking for. I took a lot of pictures today, so I'm putting a lot here, even though I know I should save space for later. Oh well, I can always take them down. So going from left to right, top to bottom, the first is San Pietro, then the Tempietto, then the Aqual Paula, then one of the rooms from the Villa Farnesina, then Raphael's Galatea from the Villa Farnesina, then the building in the park that we don't have a clue about, and then at the bottom is a picture of the Centro. My room is the 2nd from the right on the third floor. |
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| January 26 Today was Saturday, so we slept in a little, which was nice. A group of us went out and had pizza for lunch, since that's the only food we know of in the area. Then I went out shopping with a few other people. I didn't really need to shop, but no one really wanted to sightsee, and I really need to get a sense of direction in the city and figure out where everything is, so I thought walking around with them would be good. So we wandered all over the place (we walked in a huge loop, from Piazza Venezia to Campo de Fiori and then along the river up to Via Del Corso where it is even with Piazza di Spagna (we could see the Spanish steps, but they were a ways east of us) and down Corso back to Venezia). It was a very long walk. So we came back here, and we went and got Chinese food for dinner (this may sound silly, but there really aren't a lot of options around here, and we don't want pizza for every weekend meal). It wasn't bad, and the woman was really really patient with us since we didn't know any Italian and didn't know what anything on the menu was. At least with pizza you can see what you're ordering. The chinese food really wasn't bad though, and it was cheap, so we're thinking that we'll probably end up back there. Now it's time to go do some homework, so we won't have too much to do tomorrow. The first picture is my shopping group, from left to right that's me, Charity, Cameren, Sarah M, and Naomi, and the second is looking down the street towards the Spanish steps, and you can see the crazy mob of people that were out shopping too (via del Corso is a big shopping street). |
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| January 27 We woke up really early this morning (which was hard, since we got to bed late) to go out to church. Liz's uncle is here visiting from Ireland, and he's a priest, so we planned to go hear him say mass (which would have been in English, too, so that would have been nice). We were supposed to meet him at the Spanish steps before mass, but the buses were running really behind, so by the time we got there, he wasn't there (but I've gotten to climb the Spanish steps now, although they didn't seem all that interesting to me). We walked around the city a lot looking for the church, but we couldn't find it and no one we talked to had ever heard of it. So we never did end up finding it. We ended up going to mass in Piazza del Populo (by this time we'd walked since Venezia, and really wandered around on the way, so we were too tired to walk any farther than where we ended up). The church we went to was Santa Maria dei Miracoli (Dad, it's on the map but not in the book). It was little but really pretty, it looked like it would be a huge church from the outside, so we were kinda surprised. The mass was in Italian, but mass is mass, so we were okay. They had papers that had all the prayers on them (they probably get lots of tourists, it's a touristy neighborhood), all in Italian, but still, it helped to follow along and be able to give the responses in Italian. The priest was this super old man, but he seemed really nice, and it was a pretty quick mass (no music). Then we walked back down the Corso to Venezia, which is a long walk, but wasn't that bad since we weren't in a hurry anymore. The Vatican museums were free today, but only open till 1:30, so anybody that was going to church couldn't really go, and most people didn't get up in time I'm sure, though I do know of at least one person who went. We're going back this Friday for art history, and there's nothing after art history classes Friday mornings, so, depending on how late it's open, we might hang around and go into the areas we aren't seeing in class. Okay, now it's really time to finish up the hw, we have a lot of reading for the City course, a ton for Art history (though that isn't till Thursday), and I have some latin left as well, so it's going to be a working afternoon. No pictures today (I didn't bring the camera for church, and even though we walked by lots of things, we were in a hurry so we wouldn't have taken pictures anyway). |
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| March 26 Today I headed out by myself to spend the day in Orvieto. Orvieto is about an hour and a half north of Rome, and (luckily for me) it�s really easy to get to because it�s on the Rome-Florence train line, so there are tons of trains and no switching or anything, which is very nice. My guidebook said to basically see the Duomo (the main cathedral), and then just to walk around the cute town, and a few other things that were worth doing. Paul had also talked about Orvieto in class, and I guess some years the Art History class has actually gone there, but because we left for Sicily on a Friday, we lost the extra art field trip. So anyway, I took the train and got to Orvieto at around 10:30. The train station is at the bottom of the hill, and the old (and interesting) parts of the town are at the top of the hill, but they have a cool little railway thing you can ride up to the top, and the bottom of that is right at the exit of the train station, so I rode that up to the top, and then walked around. The old part of Orvieto is really small, I think I actually walked up and down it a couple of times over the day., so it didn�t take long to figure out where I was and where I wanted to go. I went to the Duomo first, and looked around there, and then I walked over to a tower that you can climb to see the whole city, which was really cool (and totally not crowded, it was only me and two really nice women from Germany (who spoke English) because the entrance was under construction, and it didn�t really look open, but I had time to wander around so I figured I�d go and check, and it was open, so I got to go). Then I walked to pretty much the other end of the city to see another church that was in my guidebook and I had seen from the tower, which has a really interesting bell tower of its own (but you can�t climb that one). Then I ate lunch, and walked over to the other edge of the city to see another church, which ended up being closed. So I walked back over to the Duomo, because I hadn�t gone inside one Chapel (you had to have a ticket, and it wasn�t open yet when I first went). But when I got there, the whole church was closed, (because everything in this country (though usually not churches) closes for at least an hour or two sometime between 12 and 4). The piazza that the church was in was full of other museums, and all the ones that were really interesting was closed, but the Archaeological museum was open, so I went in and spend about an hour looking at more Etruscan stuff, because there was nothing else to do. When the church opened, I went back and bought a ticket for the side chapel. I�m really glad I did, because we�d looked at some of the frescos in Art History and I didn�t even know (well, remember, I�m sure Paul had told us) that they were there. So then I wandered around the city a little more, just because it was cute, and then I started to leave. When I got back to the side where the little rail thing was, I realized that there was a big section of the midieval fortress and walls left (which was in my guidebook, but I somehow hadn�t noticed it). The city had turned the top of the fortress into a park, so it was really nice to walk around and look out of the watchtowers and see the huge city walls and everything, in this really pretty park. So after I walked around there for a few minutes (it was nice, but it wasn�t large), I went back down the hill, and caught the next train back to Rome. I took a lot of pictures again (of course), but most of them were of the Duomo, so I don�t need to put that many up. The first two pictures are of the Duomo from different angles. It�s kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but it was really colorful and really really pretty; it�s totally understandable why it�s sort of famous. Then the next picture I just thought was cool, it�s the back of the clock I passed as I was climbing the stairs (lots of stairs) of the tower. The next picture is looking out over part of Orvieto (just a little part, the tower was basically in the center of the city and the top of the tower was relatively large, so I couldn�t get too many pictures without moving, so I can�t stitch them together to make a big picture of it). The Duomo is in the very left of the picture, though from that angle it doesn�t look quite so interesting. Then there is a picture of the bell, which I got to hear twice while I was on top of the tower, because it goes off every 15 minutes. It�s also really loud, so it was a little frightening when it started the first time� when you�re that high up in the air you don�t want to get startled and jump! But anyway, it wasn�t loud to the point of really hurting your ears or anything, so it was okay. Then there�s a picture of the church of St. Andrea with its cool octagonal bell tower. Then, (when I was at St. Andrea, actually, you can sort of see it in the foreground in the right of the picture) I took a picture looking back at the bell tower. The next picture is from one edge of the city, looking across a little dip in the ridge to another part of the city. Then there�s a picture of the Duomo later in the afternoon, where you can see the light shining off the mosaic tiles. As beautiful as it had been in the morning, it was really amazing with all the light reflecting off of it. Then the last picture is the rail thing (as you can see, a funicolare in Italian). You can sort of see the tracks leaving the building, and then at the top of the hill you can see (well, sort of see, sorry about the sun) the fortress walls at the top of the hill). |
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| March 31 These are pictures from the Easter mass at the Vatican. The first is just a picture of St. Peter's, next is a picture of where the pope sits, then a picture looking behind me at all the people who were there (it's hard to tell, but the whole area was totally packed), then there's a picture of the pope during mass (look closely), then a picture of the priests giving communion so you can see how they did it, and finally a picture of the pope while he was driving around. He got closer to me than that, but he was going really fast, so my camera wasn't ready again. |
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| April 1 Today we went and saw a few quick things, first a couple arches in the city, and then the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, which is here. It wasn't too exciting, but I took pictures so I figured I'd use one! |
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| April 2 Today we saw things around the edge of the city (which meant we got a tour bus even though we didn't go very far!). We started at the baths of Caracalla. This first picture is from the Mithraeum underneath the baths (like a church, only they believed in the god Mithras... otherwise, pretty darn similar to Christianity... Dec 25 is the birthday of Mithras... their big ceremony is a meal where they have bread and wine turned into flesh and blood (of the bull Mithras killed, but still, you can see the similarity), etc. The next picture is actually in the baths of Caracalla (Mithrea are underground). Then there's a picture of a really big tomb on the Via Appia, then a picture of the remains of a villa (of the Quintillii, if you're interested), and finally a picture of some of the arcades of an aquaduct at the aquaduct park (called that because there are 7 of the major Roman aquaducts all running through it). |
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| April 4 Today we went to the baths of Diocleation. This is the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which was built into the baths, and retains the basic structure (and domes) of many of the main bath rooms. |
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| April 5 Today's Art History trip looked at more churches (surprising, huh?). This is a picture of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is both really beautiful and has my obelisk in front of it, so I like it and thought it was worth having a picture of. |
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| April 6 We left today (way too early for a Saturday morning) on the Campania trip. We stopped around 8 at the site of Anzio, where there were imperial villas from Nero on, which the first too pictures show (they were built right up to the water, so there have been erosion problems). Then we stopped in the next town of Nettuno, to see the American WWII cemetary, which the third picture is of. After these we drove to Sperlonga, where we saw the remains of Tiberius' villa and famous grotto, which is in the last two pictures. |