Certified

Right before Christmas break the school staff and some guests gather and have kapustnica, the traditional cabbage soup I've mentioned before. This year, as we were having coffee and dessert, the headmistress presented the American teachers with a certificate declaring us competent, official kapustnica cooks (and then she made the mayor shake our hands). The certificate made my day, and I like the very proper wording and the official school seal. So here's a picture of my nearly-one-of-a-kind certificate.


I guess this means I have to make kapustnica when I go home, though.

A Fortnight in Italy, Part 5

Milano
The last city we visited had our last major art experience. We went to see The Last Supper in the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and it was bigger than I thought it would be. You buy your tickets in advance, and when you pick them up they tell you to come back about ten minutes before your entrance time. First you wait, in a group of about 25 people, in a room off the foyer; then you all go into another small waiting room for a minute, then another one; and in each room the doors open automatically before you file in and then close automatically and pause a moment before the next set of doors opens. It’s like an airlock. I was a little surprised they didn’t try to disinfect us somehow. Finally they let you into the old refectory, where The Last Supper is on one wall and a painting of the Crucifixion is opposite it. It’s pretty amazing to see the stylistic differences between the two paintings. The Crucifixion scene looks very medieval compared to the more famous one. In The Last Supper I liked James, whose arms are spread out and looks like he’s saying, “Wait, what?” in response to Jesus.

Practical tip: If you need internet and your hotel/hostel doesn’t provide it, there’s a bookstore with internet access on the Piazza Duomo. Go in, buy an internet card (€5 for an hour) at the cashier, and take it up to the second floor to use the computer while looking at the Duomo.

Real tip: Go to the roof of the Duomo. This is not a tower, this is walking around on the actual freaking roof. It was fantastic. I never knew I wanted to walk around the roof of a cathedral until I was up there. The views of the city are fine; the views of the architecture are the best. I mean, how many times do you get to look down at a Gothic window? I loved that I could hear the organ and smell the incense up there, even though I was outside.
Milan has a monumental cemetery and I nearly went there just to have gone to a cemetery in every city we spent at least a whole day in. By the time we got to Milan, though, I was burnt out on traveling and sick to boot, so I chose not to visit the cemetery. I’m very grateful that we didn’t get sick until the end of the trip.

And Home
Coming home was easy—so easy that at one point Robin said, “Something has to go wrong.” But nothing did, from Milan all the way back to Tisovec. The EU and the Schengen Zone make traveling easy, but anticlimactic; no one so much as looked at us funny in the Bratislava airport, let alone checked our passports.

And now, in a month I will be on “spring” break, on a trip three years in the making, where my passport will definitely get stamped and I’ll make up for the lack of castles visited in Italy.

A Fortnight in Italy, Part 4

VeneziaIndiana Jones! Marco Polo!

The last time I was in Venice I was but a callow youngster, and I only got to spend part of a day there. This time I had a lot of time to get lost and explore.

On the first full day I went straight to San Marco to revisit the basilica. The water was a little high in the morning, extending a few feet past the entrance, but the staff had already set out the walkways, and that was the only experience with acqua alta that I had the whole time. The basilica was, just as I recalled, full of gold and mosaics. This time I also visited the Treasury, made up of items brought to Venice after the Crusades. There are lots of relics (some of the more gruesome relics I’ve seen, including bits of jaw with teeth attached) and reliquaries and chalices.

After the basilica I went next door to the Doge’s Palace and had a look there. The basilica was originally the doge's chapel, if you can believe that. The doge was more of a figurehead in the Venetian Republic, rather than having real power, but the position was still important. The palace has the largest painting on canvas in the world, and other opulent and extravagant decorations. My favorite was the hall with the maps. The palace was also the site of the justice system, so the prisons are connected to and underneath it, and you can pass through the famous Bridge of Sighs, just as prisoners used to do. The admission to the palace was actually a ticket to all of the museums on the Piazza San Marco, so I went in them, too.

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to see how far I could walk around the perimeter of Venice. Eventually I got to Sant’Elena, one of the islands furthest to the east that you can reach on foot. There’s a big park on the island, and in the park is a free public toilet that was nicer than a few toilets I paid to use. Listen, a nice, free toilet is nothing to scoff at. It didn’t seem like I could walk along the northern shore, so I had to cut back into the “interior,” where I went into the church where Vivaldi was baptized.

Vaguely heading back towards the hostel, I came across a square called “Il Milion.” That got my attention, since it was one of Marco Polo’s nicknames when he returned from the East. And then I saw it: a plaque high on a building that said something about being the site of Marco Polo’s house. Or something, you know I don’t speak Italian. Then I found a restaurant nearby called “Osteria al Milion” and decided that I couldn’t not eat dinner there, so I lurked around until it opened and then had veal liver sautéed with onions. That was the first time I’d eaten dinner in a real restaurant by myself. On our second and last full day in Venice I did some errands and discovered that T-Mobile doesn’t exist in Italy. Keep that in mind. Then, around 11:15, I bought a 24-hour transportation pass. I was planning to ride the vaporetti (water buses) a lot, and, at €6.50 for a one-way trip, I wouldn’t have to take too many rides to make the €18 24-hour pass worth it. The first stop I planned was the “floating cemetery.” San Michele is an island, walled all around, where dead Venetians are buried. Nowadays people can only lease plots for a period of 12 years. There are some famous residents, too: Igor Stravinsky is in the Orthodox section, and Ezra Pound is in the Protestant section.

From San Michele I took the vaporetto to the next stop, which was the island of Murano. I did some window-shopping, and bought a few souvenirs, and went in a church with cool glass chandeliers. I rode the vaporetto the rest of the way around Murano, then took another boat to San Giorgio. The Chiesa San Giorgio Maggiore, named for my favorite saint, claims to have the best views of the lagoon from its bell tower. I second that claim; see below for proof. There just can’t be better views anywhere else. It was magnificent, especially as I was there a little before sunset. I headed back to what I think of as the “big island,” the one with St Mark’s, and then walked up to the Accademia Bridge and back down to Santa Maria della Salute before riding the vaporetto most of the way back to the hostel.

First image from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, all rights to Lucas, Spielberg, etc., no copyright infringement intended.

A Fortnight in Italy, Part 3

Pisa
Pisa is only about an hour from Florence, so on the afternoon of the first we took a train to see one of Italy’s most iconic sights. It would be nice to spend a little more time in Pisa, because I liked the look of the town as we walked through it from the train station. The tower didn’t look like I thought it would; for one thing, it’s not terribly tall, and for another, in pictures you never see all of the buildings around it. The tower is right next to the cathedral, with a museum and the baptistery nearby. The four buildings are in a grassy area, rather than a paved square, so it’s called the Campo dei Miracoli, the Field of Miracles. To go up in the tower you must buy tickets 15 days in advance, and we just missed the cut-off before we left. But looking at the thing, I don’t think I would’ve been at all comfortable climbing it. Because it leans. I have enough problems with anxiety over falling down stairs that are not slanted.
But of course Pisa is most well-known for being the home of Marco Polo’s co-author of sorts, Rustichello da Pisa. That is what it’s famous for, right?

A Fortnight in Italy, Part 2

Firenze
Florence is a beautiful city on the Arno River. Its most famous building is probably the Duomo (cathedral), also called Santa Maria del Fiore, whose dome was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Florence also has several outstanding museums, including the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery.

There are several copies of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David around Florence, but the real thing is in the Accademia. I only have one picture, since photography is not permitted and I had to sneak the one while we were sitting behind the statue, but I really wish I could have gotten a picture of his expression, which to me seems to say, “Kill a giant? Ain’t no thing.” David is one work of art that is still awe-inspiring in person. As you walk towards him, the gallery is lined with Michelangelo’s “unfinished” sculptures of human forms awakening from blocks of marble. The contrast between them and David at the end is striking.

While we only had to wait a very short time to get into the Accademia in the morning, we waited nearly two hours to get into the Uffizi Gallery in the afternoon. The gallery is in the former offices (uffizi) of the Medici family. Once inside I got separated from the others, and somehow totally missed the room with one of the museum’s most famous pieces, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The terrace of the gallery does have a good view of the Palazzo Vecchio, though, and tons of other classic art, including an exhibit on Caravaggio featuring the shield decorated with Medusa’s head.

There are a number of rivers that cross the Arno, but the coolest one is the Ponte Vecchio. It’s lined with shops, most of them selling gold and other jewelry, and it’s still very Renaissance-like. I liked walking across it at night, when the shops were covered with wooden shutters.

We ate dinner one night at a place Rick Steves recommended (Robin has great faith in Rick, and I find I do, too), calling it “disturbingly cheap.” We got to the restaurant a few minutes before it opened, and we were the only non-Italians there. The menus were typed with the day’s date. That was definitely the most authentic Italian dining experience I had.

The next day I went to the Chiesa Santa Maria Novella, right by the train station, and then went to check out a fortress nearby on the map. The Fortezza da Basso was doing a good job, since it was indeed a big building that I couldn’t get into. After that I tried to wander to somewhere else, but I found myself trapped in orbit around the train station, Santa Maria Novella, and the Duomo. Every time I thought I’d gotten away I’d turn a corner and see one of them in the distance. Finally I escaped, though I don’t know how; and in escaping I succeeded in getting lost. I couldn’t even find myself on the map. When I was starting to get just a little concerned, everything was made right when I found a cemetery. This was another English cemetery, and even though it wasn’t as cool as the one in Rome, it did have Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s grave. Eventually I found where I was on the map and headed back to the hostel, passing the synagogue and going into a church called Sant’Ambrogio, which had a few frescoes (like the one at right) from the 14th and 15th centuries that had been covered over the years and were discovered in the ’80s or ’90s. They were amazing. Then I very quickly went through Santa Croce (below), a basilica with monuments to a number of Florentine luminaries, including Dante and Machiavelli. I knew that my fellow medievalists would have good ideas about Florence, and one of them recommended that I go to San Miniato al Monte. I’d never heard of the church, but it was well worth the trek up a hill. Really, the view alone would have been worth it; but the Romanesque interior was amazing, with a number of frescoes, and a mosaic above the altar. Surrounding the church on three sides was the Porte Sante cemetery, one of the stranger cemeteries I’ve visited. There were both regular graves and mausoleums, and there were terraces with mausoleums built atop other mausoleums. I spent some time walking on a road through the hills before descending and watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks from a bridge.
I had gelato for dinner twice in Florence. They are supposed to have the best gelato in Italy, after all.

And here's my favorite picture of Dante, from where he stands with an eagle outside Santa Croce. Oh, Dante, don't look so disapproving. Gelato for dinner isn't that bad.

A Fortnight in Italy, Part 1

[I have made the executive decision to split this description into separate cities, because it would be quite long otherwise. I think there will probably be five parts total. Ready? Go.]

Per lor maladizion sì non si perde,
che non possa tornar, l’etterno amore,
mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde.
Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio Canto III lines 133-5

I hadn’t planned to go to Italy this year, or even thought about going; but events occurring in their usual fashion meant that that was where I went, with Robin and one of her friends. Although this was the third time I’d been to Italy, it was by far the longest I’d spent there, and it was a church- and art-filled two weeks.

Roma e Città del Vaticano
My first impression of Rome, from standing outside little Ciampino Airport, was that it reminded me of Spain. It was the pine trees. My second impression, from riding the bus into the city, was that Rome seemed weird, but look! Ruins just lying around! The third impression, when we arrived outside Termini train station, was that there are lots of people, and lots of kinds of people, in Rome, which borders on overwhelming when you’re coming from Tisovec, or even Bratislava.

On our first full day in Italy we left the country. Robin had reserved tickets for Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, and technically Vatican City is its own country. After picking up the tickets in Rome proper, we went to the Vatican, peeked inside St. Peter’s, and went to the Vatican Museums. There is a lot of really, really world-famous art in Italy, and we hit the ground running looking at it all. The Vatican has Raphael’s School of Athens and, of course, the Sistine Chapel. That ceiling is covered in paintings. The room was full of people staring up and trying to sneak furtive photographs, and guards intermittently yelling, “NO PHOTOGRAPHS!” As much as I appreciate technology, the bad thing about living in the Information Age* is that we’ve seen the famous works of art all our lives, reproduced on mouse pads and towels. For me, the impact of the Sistine Chapel was lessened by this inundation of images; but that of other works of art wasn’t.

We stood in line outside the Basilica for four hours before Mass, and it rained for at least half of that time. Although I was wearing my most waterproof jacket, I finally broke down and bought an umbrella. (I didn’t need it any time after Christmas, but I’m proud that I got it all the way back to Tisovec.) Mass started at 10 and they started letting people in at 8:30, and the group we’d formed in the line managed to stick together through the crush and find seats quite near the front. We were also close to the middle aisle, and so we had a good view of the procession when it entered, and of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. I WAS AT MASS WITH THE POPE IN THE VATICAN ON CHRISTMAS EVE. And it was brilliant. Most of the service was in Latin (with some readings and prayers in different languages, including Italian, German, French, Polish, and Tagalog), and I’ve always wanted to go to a Latin Mass; and I was proud of how much I understood. Before we split up, someone in the group suggested we meet for lunch on Christmas, so we’d have some kind of “family” with each other.
After a leisurely Christmas morning, when we stopped by the Trevi Fountain to toss in some euro pennies and ensure we’d return to Rome, we met everyone else at the Spanish Steps. Then, with the guidance of Robin’s Top 10 Rome book, we had a delightful late lunch at restaurant #8, where I had homemade strozzapreti al ragu, in part because I remembered hearing somewhere that strozzapreti means “strangled priests,” and an excellent pear mousse for dessert.

On Boxing Day I ventured forth and went in three interesting churches. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri looks almost like a cave from the outside, even though it’s in the middle of the Piazza della Repubblica. Inside it’s part church, part exhibition on Galileo “E pur si muove” Galilei. The church of Santa Maria della Vittoria has Bernini’s sculpture of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa; on my first lap around the church I totally missed seeing it, noticed a note on the door about it on the way out, and went back through to see it. Della Vittoria’s across-the-street neighbor is the church of Santa Susanna, and, intending to take a look, I walked up to the door at 9:55 to find that the church is the home of the American Catholic congregation in Rome, and that they had a service at 10:30. As rad as Mass was, nothing beats being able to sing Christmas hymns in your own language, so I was really happy to have found an English service.

After church it was time to look at some old stuff. I crossed the Tiber (Tevere) to Castel Sant’Angelo, but determined I didn’t want to spend €8 to go inside, since there was nothing on the sign that seemed that interesting. Also, I remembered how boring Castello Sforzesco had been in Milan the previous winter. I re-crossed the river, got some gelato for lunch, and went to the Pantheon, the temple-turned-church. There was scaffolding on the front façade—I think there’s a rule that says there must be scaffolding on some major sight in every European city at all times—so it didn’t look as impressive as it must have normally. But on the inside, that dome! With a hole in it! Who leaves a hole in the middle of the roof of their temple? For thousands of years? And of course the dome is like mathematically and engineeringly perfect. This is my first real taste of ancient Rome, and it’s a good one. Also, Raphael is buried inside.
The next ancient thing I found was the Area Sacra. It’s like a square, but instead of having a fountain in the middle, there’s an excavated area with the ruins of four different temples. This looked more like my imagination said ancient Rome should look, with columns and those pine trees. Lots of cats live in the Area Sacra. Lots of cats live in lots of public places in Italy, actually. I don’t blame them; if I were a cat in Rome, I’d hang out among the ancient temples, too.

I started wandering again and found myself near Trajan’s Forum, then walked down the Via dei Fori Imperiali, which is lined by ruins on both sides. It’s a little hard to believe all the ancient ruins are really real. In the Fora, it looks like someone just left set-pieces around after filming a movie. If you wander far enough down the street, all of a sudden the Colosseum is there. It kind of sneaks up on you, somehow, even though it’s a large building. On the way back up, I went in the Basilica dei Santi Cosma e Damiano, the oldest church in the Forum. It’s from the sixth century. Just sayin’. Later that evening I went back to take some pictures of the Colosseum at night. The metro isn’t kidding, calling the stop “Colosseo”; when you walk out of the station you’re directly opposite the thing.
(Obviously there were tons of priests and monks and nuns in Rome at Christmastime. There are also tons of scooters, too. Ciao.)

On the last full day in Rome it was time to see some dead people. Or at least a higher concentration of dead people, as you can’t help but find a lot of graves when you go into as many churches as I did. I took the metro down to the stop called “Piramide,” so named because when you go out of the station and look to the left, there’s a pyramid that some nutbag leader or other built for himself. It’s not Giza-scale, but it’s a fair-sized pyramid nonetheless.

Behind the pyramid is the “English” cemetery, English in this sense (and in Florence) meaning non-Catholic. I stumbled on the cemetery online, saw that some English authors are buried there, and decided to check it out. It is now one of my favorite cemeteries in Europe. There were graves from people of lots of different countries, and rather more princesses than I’d seen buried anywhere else (and more cats). It was fascinating to think about how people were born in other countries and ended up dying and being buried in Italy, mostly in the 19th century. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ashes and John Keats, “one whose name was writ in water,” are buried in the cemetery.

For some reason I really wanted to see the Appian Way, so I walked for a while until finally I found it. Nowadays there are two Appian Ways: the Via Appica Antica and the Via Appia Nuova. On Sundays, the Antica is closed to car traffic, and people walk or bike it. During the week, I would not advise walking it, because within the first few miles there are walls on both sides of the road and the drivers act like they’re from the country that spawned Lamborghini and Ferrari. I braved the road because I was trying to get to some catacombs.

Heading the direction I was, the first ones you reach are the San Callisto catacombs. I darted up the long drive, happy to be safe from the motorists of the Appian Way. Walking up that drive was the closest I got to ancient Rome, I felt; there were fields, and trees, and the city in the distance. When I reached the catacombs and went on a tour, I found that they were somewhat creepy. The combination of being an ancient burial place, underground, and with dark, empty recesses made it a little bit scary. The guided tour only goes to the first two levels; the third and fourth levels are closed to visitors. They’ve moved nearly all of the remains from the first levels down further into the catacombs, except for a few still on display under glass.

Inspired by walking along this path, that night I broke down, went to a movie theater, and watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in Italian.

*Happy New Year! 2011 is officially The Future. Where is my flying car?

Winter Break: Short Version

The whole story is going to be a beast, so here's the convenient list form. This post is sponsored by three-quarters of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Cities:
Rome
Vatican City

Florence

Pisa

Venice

Milan

Food:

pizza

pasta

panini

actual salad

gelato

lasagna

Chinese food

Churches/cathedrals/basilicas:

San Pietro

Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

Santa Maria della Vittoria

Santa Susanna

Santi Cosma e Damiano

Santa Maria Maggiore

Santa Maria del Fiore

Santa Maria del Carmine

San Frediano in Cestello

Santa Croce

Santa Maria Novella

San Miniato al Monte

Sant'Ambrogio

San Marco

San Giovani Battista

San Giorgio Maggiore

Santa Maria della Salute

Duomo

World Heritage Sites:

Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie

Historic Centre of Rome

Historic Centre of Florence

Piazza del Duomo, Pisa

Venice and its Lagoon

Super-famous works of art:

School of Athens

Sistine Chapel ceiling

Ecstasy of St. Theresa

David

The Last Supper