More backpacking fun
The adventures just keep coming...
Jenna and I only had another couple of days in Rome, but, naturally, we took full advantage of them. Both of us were pleasantly surprised by how much we really liked the place - it didn't just seem like another noisy overpopulated city to me.
We spent Tuesday morning in the Vatican Museum feeling a bit overwhelmed by the endless art and religious icons surrounding us. The Sistine Chapel is at the very end of the museum and by the time we reached it we were almost oversaturated with everything we had seen. Very impressive, though. I also loved seeing Raphael's School of Athens - I've looked at the copy in Old Cabell plenty of times, but the original fresco sure is a beauty, too. (How fitting that I then ran into two other Wahoos inside the Museum!)
Next on the list was St Peter's, of course, but moments after Jenna and I had entered the piazza and begun looking for the line we were all instead ushered out, thanks to some sort of audience with the Pope. Again, Jenna and I apparently have a knack for being in the right place at the right time, and so although we never made it inside the Basilica (either that afternoon or when we tried again the next morning) we were instead able to witness the unexpected and huge start to the European Catholic Youth conference, or some such thing. It was all very nationalistic, actually, with most kids sporting their country's flag (generally German - guess it's because of the Pope's nationality?), but definitely a sight to see. Music, cheering, flags... to be truthful, it didn't quite hit me with an overwhelmingly religious sense. The whole thing felt more purely festive than anything else, and when I looked at St Peter's and thought about the historically so-much-more-than-religious nature of the Catholic church, I wasn't all that surprised.
Later that Tuesday evening Jenna and I wandered back across the river and made our way to the Pantheon. I felt so close to home (er, school), and on a spot right between the front of the building and the fountain of the piazza, the two of us made a reality of something we had discussed for a few days. Armed with only an empty gelato cup (you should have seen the guy's incredulous look when we went into a nearby gelateria and asked for just that - ha!) and some harmonies, we opened our mouths and joined the ranks of Rome's many street musicians. We were really well received - people were smiling and taking notice!, and I could barely believe my ears as I heard the impossible sounds of applause and, yes, coins clinking into that gelato cup.
I think we managed to prove yet again just how universal music can be with that awesome experience. We tried our hand at it the next day but the timing (mid-day, smack dab in the brutal heat) was a bit off so we didn't stick around as long. Still managed to clear a few euros; all in all enough for a bottle of wine and pasta at dinner one night. The next time Jenna and I go back overseas, we've decided that we're going to sing our way through Europe. With a bit more practice it can be a seriously lucrative endeavor. Hurrah!
As for the rest of Rome, we saw a terrific view of the Roman Forum and beyond from atop the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele, met up with my friend Marco for a few brief minutes (one of the Italian guys that I met last summer in Amsterdam), visited the Colosseum, found a charming and very local pizzeria on a random side street (the best place to go when you're looking for good food, of course), saw some Caravaggios in a couple of different churches, were dazzled by the Trevi Fountains on two different occasions, enjoyed a cocktail near the Spanish Steps, and managed to become locals at a cafe a block from our hostel (the guys that worked there had our orders memorized after the first day). It's not called the Eternal City for nothing... there were at least a thousand more things we could have done, but for a (first?!) brief visit I think we succeeded at getting the most out of our trip.
From Rome we headed to Sicily. That island was definitely a different breed of Italy than anything else we had really seen up til then. We stayed in a hostel in Catania and got taken out by some of our roommates that first night. The main function of our trip there was to see Mt Etna, and Jenna and I managed to do that by going on a fascinating guided tour by a geologist who really knew his stuff. I had always thought of Mt Etna (the largest active volcano in Europe, by the way) as one gigantic crater, but as we saw first hand, the volcano is actually made up of a good 250 or so craters. It's created an almost alien landscape; we couldn't get over the miles of lava covering the earth, or the lava tunnels we actually got to go into, or the mini-eruption we witnessed from afar.
After that geology adventure we went to the beach with our new hilarious Danish friend, Hannibal, and enjoyed the water, the sun, cocktails and the random salsa band that came out of nowhere. The three of us went to dinner together that night, and what was almost a disaster (rain, waitresses ignoring us, etc) ended up perfect when a live band started playing in the piazza below, our new waitress brought us not only extra bread and the olive oil she had forgotten to bring out at first, but also a complimentary dessert that she had made just for us. It was so thoughtful, and the best way possible to end an already delicious meal.
Back at the hostel, me, Jenna, Hannibal and another guy who works there ended up sharing a bottle of wine at the hostel's very own wine bar. This place was amazing - it was carved out of lava and located underneath the building. There's even a small stream running through it, and it felt completely like a cave. A candle-lit, lava-lined, wine-filled cave, at that. Classy, no?
Updates on the last few days of our travels are coming soon...
Jenna and I only had another couple of days in Rome, but, naturally, we took full advantage of them. Both of us were pleasantly surprised by how much we really liked the place - it didn't just seem like another noisy overpopulated city to me.
We spent Tuesday morning in the Vatican Museum feeling a bit overwhelmed by the endless art and religious icons surrounding us. The Sistine Chapel is at the very end of the museum and by the time we reached it we were almost oversaturated with everything we had seen. Very impressive, though. I also loved seeing Raphael's School of Athens - I've looked at the copy in Old Cabell plenty of times, but the original fresco sure is a beauty, too. (How fitting that I then ran into two other Wahoos inside the Museum!)
Next on the list was St Peter's, of course, but moments after Jenna and I had entered the piazza and begun looking for the line we were all instead ushered out, thanks to some sort of audience with the Pope. Again, Jenna and I apparently have a knack for being in the right place at the right time, and so although we never made it inside the Basilica (either that afternoon or when we tried again the next morning) we were instead able to witness the unexpected and huge start to the European Catholic Youth conference, or some such thing. It was all very nationalistic, actually, with most kids sporting their country's flag (generally German - guess it's because of the Pope's nationality?), but definitely a sight to see. Music, cheering, flags... to be truthful, it didn't quite hit me with an overwhelmingly religious sense. The whole thing felt more purely festive than anything else, and when I looked at St Peter's and thought about the historically so-much-more-than-religious nature of the Catholic church, I wasn't all that surprised.
Later that Tuesday evening Jenna and I wandered back across the river and made our way to the Pantheon. I felt so close to home (er, school), and on a spot right between the front of the building and the fountain of the piazza, the two of us made a reality of something we had discussed for a few days. Armed with only an empty gelato cup (you should have seen the guy's incredulous look when we went into a nearby gelateria and asked for just that - ha!) and some harmonies, we opened our mouths and joined the ranks of Rome's many street musicians. We were really well received - people were smiling and taking notice!, and I could barely believe my ears as I heard the impossible sounds of applause and, yes, coins clinking into that gelato cup.
I think we managed to prove yet again just how universal music can be with that awesome experience. We tried our hand at it the next day but the timing (mid-day, smack dab in the brutal heat) was a bit off so we didn't stick around as long. Still managed to clear a few euros; all in all enough for a bottle of wine and pasta at dinner one night. The next time Jenna and I go back overseas, we've decided that we're going to sing our way through Europe. With a bit more practice it can be a seriously lucrative endeavor. Hurrah!
As for the rest of Rome, we saw a terrific view of the Roman Forum and beyond from atop the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele, met up with my friend Marco for a few brief minutes (one of the Italian guys that I met last summer in Amsterdam), visited the Colosseum, found a charming and very local pizzeria on a random side street (the best place to go when you're looking for good food, of course), saw some Caravaggios in a couple of different churches, were dazzled by the Trevi Fountains on two different occasions, enjoyed a cocktail near the Spanish Steps, and managed to become locals at a cafe a block from our hostel (the guys that worked there had our orders memorized after the first day). It's not called the Eternal City for nothing... there were at least a thousand more things we could have done, but for a (first?!) brief visit I think we succeeded at getting the most out of our trip.
From Rome we headed to Sicily. That island was definitely a different breed of Italy than anything else we had really seen up til then. We stayed in a hostel in Catania and got taken out by some of our roommates that first night. The main function of our trip there was to see Mt Etna, and Jenna and I managed to do that by going on a fascinating guided tour by a geologist who really knew his stuff. I had always thought of Mt Etna (the largest active volcano in Europe, by the way) as one gigantic crater, but as we saw first hand, the volcano is actually made up of a good 250 or so craters. It's created an almost alien landscape; we couldn't get over the miles of lava covering the earth, or the lava tunnels we actually got to go into, or the mini-eruption we witnessed from afar.
After that geology adventure we went to the beach with our new hilarious Danish friend, Hannibal, and enjoyed the water, the sun, cocktails and the random salsa band that came out of nowhere. The three of us went to dinner together that night, and what was almost a disaster (rain, waitresses ignoring us, etc) ended up perfect when a live band started playing in the piazza below, our new waitress brought us not only extra bread and the olive oil she had forgotten to bring out at first, but also a complimentary dessert that she had made just for us. It was so thoughtful, and the best way possible to end an already delicious meal.
Back at the hostel, me, Jenna, Hannibal and another guy who works there ended up sharing a bottle of wine at the hostel's very own wine bar. This place was amazing - it was carved out of lava and located underneath the building. There's even a small stream running through it, and it felt completely like a cave. A candle-lit, lava-lined, wine-filled cave, at that. Classy, no?
Updates on the last few days of our travels are coming soon...
posted by Kendall Singleton | 1:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home