Bagnaia: Villa Lante

This past Wednesday we took a bus to Bagnaia to visit the Villa Lante. We had a perfect day to tour gardens with temperatures reaching 70! Villa Lante is a pleasure garden that stretches up a slope and uses gravity to make water flow through various water features. You begin the tour at the most structured and formal garden that creates a maze of hedges.

There were many beautiful plants that were just beginning to bud and bloom.

This water feature is meant to be a table...the trough in the middle is used to float wine bottles and to keep them chilled.

The garden had a great number of fountains of enormous scale.

This handrail twists back onto itself and channels a cool stream of water that you could dip your hand into as you ascended deeper into the grounds.

The source of the water comes from a grotto that is the most natural and rugged feature. It is supposed to symbolize our primeval beginnings and the belief that all life is dependent on water.

The sunlight was filtered through centuries old deciduous trees and the water features added to the humidity making a very cool microclimate.

The garden was filled with little caricature carvings that helped to funnel the water.

The slope creates a sense of mystery by blocking views into the adjacent gardens.

My favorite part of the day was when I left the formal garden and roamed the 'wild side' of Villa Lante. Here in Castiglion there is not a lot of open green space. For a few minutes, I got to escape the built environment and linger in nature. I wish I had a blanket and a picnic lunch to make a perfect day complete. In the afternoon we travelled to another garden. Stay tuned for another blog post...I took too many photos and to do each garden justice I decided to split up the images.

Orvieto, Perugia, Montepulciano and Pienza!

The week before Easter we went on our field trip Orvieto, a hilltop town near Rome. This is the location of the other K-State Italian Studies program, so after our tour we spent the afternoon with our fellow K-Staters. The program there is a little different in that those students live in apartments in the city and their study center is only open until 5 PM. Even though Orvieto is beautiful, I am glad that I chose to study in Castiglion. One reason is that because Orvieto is closer to Rome, it has more tourists. Castiglion is relatively untouched and very much Italian.

Our next field trip was to Perugia. This happens to be one of my favorite cities that we have visited. The original Medieval town was taken over by a "naughty Pope" and he enclosed the town with brick, blocking almost all sunlight. To enter into the historic center, you have to go up escalators that take you through the ruins.

Perugia is a sprawling city with beautiful views from all sides. On a clear day you can see all the way out to Assisi. This is also the town that Amanda Knox was studying abroad in. It is hard to imagine that such a beautiful city could have been the scene of such a horrific crime.

In Perugia, the stone has a wonderful color. Not quite the pink marble from Assisi, but a warm stone. The historic center has been nicely preserved and few cars are allowed inside.

Perugia also has a modern city that is navigable by the new Mini Metro system. We hopped off one of the stops to see some "great architecture." These buildings were designed by Aldo Rossi and the picture above is of a bank.

This building on the opposite side of the piazza is a multi use building, with shops on the lower floor and residential units above. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed by yet another famous modern architect. The piazza and buildings were very sterile.

This past Wednesday we visited Montepulciano and Pienza. Montepulciano is famous for its great tasting wines...and all you Twilight fans, this was one of the filming locations for the movie.

It started out as a foggy day. We visited a Renaissance church and spent about an hour inside sketching its perfect proportions. Then we moved on to Pienza for my favorite part of the day.

Pienza is a utopian Renaissance town that was created by a man that later became Pope Pius II. The hills around the town have remained untouched since the days when Renaissance painters first captured their beauty. This is also where parts of The English Patient were filmed.

My favorite part of the trip was the lunch that was provided for us through our program. We had unlimited Montepulciano wine, which is very drinkable; three kinds of bruschetta; a delicious, generous portion of white lasagna; three types of meat: chicken, roast beef, and pork sausage; and then for dessert, tiramisu. I was nearly full after eating the lasagna, but somehow managed to fit a little bit more into my stomach. After lunch I sat on a park bench overlooking the valley below basking in the golden sun. It was nice to finally have some decent weather on a field trip day!

Buona Pasqua!

Buona Pasqua or Happy Easter! In Italy, Easter is kind of a big deal; in Castiglion, it is an even bigger deal. The town of Castiglion Fiorentino has maintained some of the Easter and Holy Week traditions since the 13th century...which is the 1200's! During that time, Italian religious culture was more tuned to the afterlife rather than their life here on earth. The fear of the afterlife made it necessary to do a lot of penance and pilgrimages. Processions throughout the medieval towns allowed for a replacement of lengthy pilgrimages. This past week, three processions were scheduled: one each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Good Friday. The Passion is reenacted on Thursday on a rocky hillside. Due to uncooperative weather, one of the processions and the Passion play were canceled. I had the opportunity to be an actor in the Passion as a member of the Jewish tribunal and later, by removing my hat, a member of the crowd. We didn't get to perform, even after a rescheduled showing on Easter Sunday.

The processions are organized by brotherhoods, three of which are still active in Castiglion. They are not a religious order, but the members serve the Church as volunteers. The three different brotherhoods wear different colored robes and are affiliated with a church in town. The Company of Misericordie is affiliated with Chiesa San Francesco and they wear black robes. They were originally founded in Florence during the Plague to assist the sick and dying. To provide protection from the contagions, and to provide anonymity while performing works of mercy, the members donned long robes and pointed hoods that covered the face entirely except for the eyes.

The Company of Jesus is affiliated with the Chiesa il Gesu. Members of this order wear blue robes. The last company, the Company of St. Antonio, are also affiliated with the Chiesa San Francesco. Members of this order wear white robes. Despite their resemblance to the robes of the KKK, the robes and orders have no relation to a sect, they were founded for a social purpose, much like the Knights of Columbus. Unlike the Knights of Columbus, men and women and even children can belong to a brotherhood. Oftentimes, whole families belong to the brotherhood.

The processions are led by a different brotherhood each night. Each brotherhood has three crosses carried by volunteers. Each member of the brotherhood carries a wax torch and they process in silence. Only the muffled sounds of soft-soled shoes and the rustle of long robes and rosaries fill the streets.

Some extra penitent souls walk barefoot. The processions begin at the church associated with the brotherhood leading the procession that evening. They wind their way through town pausing to say prayers of the rosary at all of the churches they pass along they way. Many of the streets in town are very steep and the men carrying the crosses were struggling. This added to the extremely moving experience.

On Wednesday, I watched the procession as it went past Santa Chiara and then met the procession at its ending point in the Piazza San Francesco. It was rather eery knowing that the man behind the robe was looking at me while I was looking at him. I didn't know whether to smile or to remain somber to show my appreciation.

The torches drip wax onto the stones of the streets. Even now, a week later, you can still trace the path of the processions through the town.

On Good Friday I participated in the procession starting at the Chiesa il Gesu, which is next door to Santa Chiara Study Center. The townspeople follow after the band of Castiglion, playing somber marches with only a little discord.

The band is preceded by a statue of Jesus that dates from the Middle Ages. The Easter Vigil Mass begins at 11:30 pm. We arrived an hour early and weren't able to get a seat in the main nave of the church, we were stuck 6 on a pew in the side aisle. The Mass goes on for about a half hour. At midnight, with the sounds of cymbals and a band, the enormous two story main doors of the church are thrown open and 6 men in blue robes run in carrying a statue of the risen Jesus with a banner flapping along behind. From our vantage point, we couldn't see the men carrying the statue. We could only see Jesus with his arm outstretched and the banner flying in mid-air. At the same time, firecrackers are set off in the piazza outside the church. These weren't any sort of normal firecrackers...they were military strength diversionary artillary! The Mass continued along just as any normal Easter Vigil after that. Only one person was baptized at the Vigil.

Holy Week and the events leading up to Easter were very special here in Castiglion and I felt very privileged to have been a part of the processions and to have been invited to be in the Passion play. The whole town was abuzz with making Easter a special holiday and Easter Monday is a national holiday, so we didn't have classes. It was a very relaxing weekend and very moving.

Spring Break: Northern Italy

After a very blustery trip to Venice, the girls from K-State headed out in search of a Spring Break paradise. Our travels began with a short jaunt to Vicenza. The famous architect Palladio was very active in that region and we were determined to see some of his work.

We learned a lot during this trip...you really need to do your homework. We were told that you could see all sorts of Palladio's work with just a short walk through town. However, we had all of our Spring Break luggage with us. Luckily we all had backpacks, but they were quite heavy. After a little bit of a wild goose chase, we made it out of town on a bus to see the Villa Rotunda. Unfortunately, we hadn't researched the opening hours and arrived a few minutes past the afternoon closing for siesta. Chris Curtis, a boy from K-State joined us for this part of the journey. Ever the optimist, he quipped, "Once you've seen one side of Palladio, you've seen them all." This picture was taken through the iron gate and luckily for us, each side of the building is identical. We returned back to the train station to continue our journey to "fair Verona where we lay our scene..."

We found our hostel and ditched our bags as soon as we could. We only had an evening in Verona and so we were eager to fit as much in as possible. One of the attractions of Verona is that is the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This balcony is supposedly Juliet's balcony and hundereds of lovers flock here each year to pin love notes on the walls.

Our next day was spent travelling to Milan and exploring the city in the later afternoon. We visited the Duomo, one of the first Italian Gothic churches that we have been inside. The height of the interior was very impressive and much taller than all of the churches we had been to. Adjacent to the Duomo is the famous Gallery with shops like Prada...and McDonald's. We ate dinner on top of Rinascente, a department store with rooftop views of the Duomo. Unfortunately they were doing renovations, and our views were extremely limited.

For something that is used so often and in such an industrial way, the train station in Milan is truly beautiful. The lobby is made of carved marble and has such a sense of grandeur. It recalls a different era when the train was king of transportation. The train shed is made of steel and glass and was quite revolutionary structurally for its time.

We finally arrived in Riomaggiore, one of the towns considered part of the Cinque Terre. All five towns are located rather remotely on the coast and only the trains connect all of the towns, as the mountains are too rugged and treacherous. We rented an apartment and when we checked in, we found out that we had been upgraded to a top floor apartment with views of the marina. Later walking around the town and looking at postcards, we found our terrace on the postcard for Riomaggiore! We opened up the shutters and windows and were lulled to sleep by the sounds of waves crashing on the rocks below. We had a kitchen and we were able to cook a few dinners there, something that was both economical and a lot of fun. Rick Steves would be proud of us, as he highly recommends cooking for yourself and consuming regional specialties. The region around Cinque Terre is known for creating pesto, so we had both red and green pesto with pasta.

The Cinque Terre is also a national park and there are hikes that connect each of the towns. They vary in difficulty from being able to take a baby stroller to some pretty steep climbs. We only hiked to the next two towns and then I took the train back. The first portion of the hike is only supposed to take 20 minutes, but we stopped and took a lot of photos, so it took us much longer.

The world really is a small place because we rounded a bend in the path and found one of our fellow K-Staters from the Orvieto study abroad program watercoloring. We ran into that same group of K-Staters the next day at the beach in Monterosso. We saw that there was someone swimming in the freezing cold Mediterranean and wondered what crazy person would be out there only to realize that we knew him!

The sunsets were very beautiful and we were able to sit on our terrace and soak up a few rays. I really am a fan of Italian shutters. They allow air to come into the room but keep a lot of the light out, allowing for privacy. Shutters also create a sense of life for a building facade, as the shutters are almost never in the same position.

The towns of the Cinque Terre are very colorful. The boats and the buildings are in much brighter hues than in Castiglion Fiorentino. The color of the water also changed greatly depending on the light, from bright blue to a deep blue to a shade of grey.

We ended our Spring Break with a few days in Florence. We took that time to get to know some of the backways of the city. We also climbed the dome of the Duomo. I am not really claustrophobic or afraid of heights, but the climb up and down is not one that I would want to do on a daily basis. We were in Florence for the Spring Equinox and met our History of Science professor, Giovanni, to witness the Equinox at the church Santa Maria Novella. The cosmographer of Cosimi de Medici set up a series of solar experiments to more accurately determine time. He discovered that the Julian calendar was off by 12 seconds a year, which adds up over the course of 1,000 years. Thus, the Gregorian calendar was implemented.

Our last night in Florence we went to a restaurant recommended by our hotel called Trattoria il Trebbio. It was the best meal that I have had while in Italy. It took us over two hours to eat it, as the service is conveniently slow. I ordered gorgonzola ravioli and was stuffed by the time that my pork steaks arrived. It was a family run affair and a bit of a one man show. The maitre'd was seating people, taking reservations, taking orders and serving food. We were seated right away and only a few minutes later they were telling people it would be an hour wait. We were pleased to see that local Florentines were eating at this restaurant, unlike all of the other tourist traps that we had been to before. As we got our bill, I was going to tell the maitre'd how great everything was. I got out, "This was the best..." before he wrapped his arms around me and plopped two fat kisses on either of my cheeks. Rather red in the face, I realized that the poor man had been running around and was glad that somebody appreciated his hard work. I will definitely be going back.

We had many wonderful adventures and learned a lot by trial and error. I feel more prepared for my aftertravels when I will be leaving Italy for other parts of Europe. However, we were very glad to arrive back "home" at Sta. Chiara. I also gained a new appreciation for my country and the freedoms and liberties that I have taken for granted.