The End of Italy!

(April 13 - Ostia Antica)

The Ruins of Ostia Antica

The Theatre

Murals on the floors of shops often signified the merchants trade

Nick mixing drinks at the ancient tavern

Me and Nick wearing sweet bathing suits on the Ostia Antica beach

The group on the beach at Ostia Antica

(April 16 - Naples - the beach day that never was)

Mount Vesuvius

The nice end of Naples

Laying out on the Naples "beach"

The Castel Dell'Uovo (Egg)

Naples fountain

The group in front of the Castel Nuovo

The Castel Nuovo

The sun setting on the train ride home from Naples

Loyola kids as airport refugees

The only plus side of the 22 1/2 hour bus ride - the Swiss Alps

Hello all! I realize that these blogs have taken a while to compile and that Italy happened nearly a month ago and yet I’m still dwelling on it, however, this blog will finally finish off our spring break trip and I’ll finally be able to get back to current events (after a couple more catch up blogs).

Our first trip outside the city was the 13th, when we traveled to the ancient city of Ostia Antica. Ostia Antica was the port city which led up to Ancient Rome. Now-a-days the ancient city has been preserved, and in addition it is a thriving coastal city for the residents of Rome.

We spent the morning touring the ruins of what once was the center of trade for the Roman Empire. The old city had just about everything from an ancient tavern to a theatre to gladiator training facilities. It reminded me of the Roman Forum except it was a little bit better preserved. Once we finished appreciating the ruins, we headed out to the shoreline to relax and enjoy the coast. Though it wasn’t terribly warm, the group gathered on the beach for lunch in the sun nonetheless. We spent most of the afternoon just lying around lazy with cool breeze coming off the spring shoreline.

As I mentioned earlier, we finished our time on Fr. Linnane’s (Loyola’s President) bill on the 14th, and by the 15th we were left on our own in Rome. However, though we were off the bill, for the most part the group stuck together in the same hostel and traveled together to most of the same cities. In addition, the Ireland group was just beginning their trip in Italy the weekend we were leaving so we were able to spend some time with our northern brethren before heading back to Leuven.

On the first day off, we spent most of the day just walking around the city taking in sights we hadn’t yet seen. Liam, Tim and I met up with Ireland contingent and headed out to see two Basilicas: St. John Lateran and St. Mary Maggiore. After walking for a good amount of distance during the day, we headed out to meet up with both the Ireland and Rome study abroad students. We spent the night in Rome’s college hot spots and enjoyed a great bit of Roman craic (Irish word meaning “good fun”).

The following day was an early morning and a planned trip to Sperlonga, however, due to an… interesting… twist of events we ended up in Naples. I’m not going to go into details, but I’ll give you a hint: there were two trains to Sperlonga, both with Naples as their final destination. One was a local train that cost 6 euro and got you to Sperlonga in an hour and a half. Another was an express train which cost 56 euro and got you straight to Naples in an hour. Guess which one we took?

That’s right we ended up in Naples in an hour and 50 euro in debt. As the famous adage by John Steinbeck goes: “the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry” – I suppose that’s what we get for letting Mighty Mouse plan our trip to Sperlonga (though I doubt Mickey would have made the same mistake).

There were 7 of us who got on the wrong train, 7 of us dressed in bathing suits and sandals (prepared for a day at the beach), and 7 of us instead, walking around touring Naples in the rain. Trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation, Chase, Nick, Morgan, Leah, Matt Shaw, Katie, and I, bought a map and began touring the city. Now I’m not sure if Naples is a hot spot for tourists or not (and by “not sure” I mean “I’m pretty sure people only go there so they can take a boat across the coast to the gorgeous island of Capri or the coastal city of Sorrento”) or if we may have missed the main touristy area (we didn’t), but Naples was not much of a city to see. We wandered to most of the big name things on the map, and weren’t much impressed with what the port city had to offer.

One of the few highlights from the unplanned trip was that the Castel Nuovo was in the middle of a festival week where the entry was free, so we were able to tour the Castel which protected the harbor for the perfect college student price. After we finished inside the castle, we headed to the coastline and got the most out of the Italian sunshine on the rocky (understatement) coast. Soon enough, we were back on train to Rome. The only down side being that the local train back (in comparison to the express train we took down) was a three hour ride – adding a long ending onto an already long day. However, I suppose these types of unfortunate events are a small price to pay for traveling the world.

Our final day together in Rome was on Saturday the 17th. I took a small group of people into the Traversere neighborhood which is famous for having good food at cheap prices. We spent most of the afternoon there and then headed out to sit by the Colosseum to enjoy our last couple of hours in the warm Italian sun.

However, to say our trip was over on our last day in Rome would be a bit of an understatement. On our last night in the city, the fateful Icelandic volcano began its first batch of eruption disruptions – cancelling our flight home. We were destined from there to spend the night sleeping in the airport – which was set up like a refugee camp (I thought for a second we were at the volcano eruption site). We then met with Dr. Forni (who had been stuck in the city since Thursday when she was scheduled to head home) and began our 22 ½ hour bus ride back to Leuven. We left at 6 am Sunday morning and arrived at 4:30 am Monday. Needless to say we were a bit delusional and though it was a long day to say the least, I suppose it will make a good enough story to tell the grandkids one day!

Rooftops in Rome

(April 9 – April 12)

The Colosseum

Sitting in front of the Colosseum on the last day

The Vittorio Emmanuel II Monument

Trying to look tough from the top of the Spanish Steps

View from the Spanish Steps

Fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps

Matt Shaw's b-day dinner

The ladies in Paletine Hill

The Gentlemen (sans Nick)

The Roman Forum

Matt and I in front of the Colosseum

The Gentlemen in the Colosseum

Interior of the Colosseum

Gaulli's ceiling in Il Gesu

The inside of St. Peter's Basilica

Nick and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

The Vatican

Castel San'Angelo

Most of the group in front of the Trevi Fountain

Night time on the rooftop

The echoes of laughter danced through the vacant hallway and down the flight of marble stairs – I could hear them coming from two flights below. Following the heartfelt sounds of my compatriots, I strolled down the last corridor and out into the open air rooftop terrace. A significant group had gathered on the highest floor of the hotel and begun eating “family dinner.” As I dragged a plastic green patio chair around the table, the setting sun in the distance colored the sky gold and the first signs of starlight began to poke through the darkening east end. From our vantage point high in the night’s sky we could see several of the domes of Rome – lighting up as darkness passed. However, the loss of light and the chill in the air did very little to dampen our spirits. I sat there staring at the fellowship of the people around me – chatting, eating, passing food, sipping wine – and it kind of hit me all at once: this is what it’s all about.

When I walked into my first meeting for the Leuven study abroad program, I recognized two faces: Matt Cunnane, and Liam. Matt I knew from our sketch comedy group, but I didn’t really know him outside of rehearsals, and Liam I had taken one class with, but we had some mutual friends in common. In terms of people I knew before I left, that was about it. So the idea, that 8 months later, I would be sitting under the Roman stars, laughing with a group of people at “family dinner” – that is basically what this experience has meant to me in a nutshell. I came here with a group of strangers, and created a family. We spent just about every night up on that rooftop, and for me it was some of my favorite memories of Rome.

The scene above was from our time in Rome in our hotel Albergo del Sole, which was right on the edge of Campo del Fiori – a college hotspot which we learned about from our Loyola friends studying in Rome. This trip to Rome was my fourth to the center of history and art in Europe and I must say the city never fails to amaze me. With each visit back to it, I grow fonder of the pure history that just exudes out of it.

This trip was actually the second time I took the Loyola study abroad trip through Rome (As my family followed Marc around when he was there 7 years ago). This time around we did many of the same touristy things. On the first day we took a walking tour through the city stopping at a number of locations, but mainly the following: the Theater of Marcellus (where Caesar was killed), Capitoline Hill (the hill of the palaces), the old Forum, Trajan’s Market, the Colosseum, Constantine’s Arch, Circus Maximus (the old chariot raceway), Bocca della Verita, and the Forum Boarium. After the exhaustion of traveling for the day, we took it easy at night and ate dinner on the rooftop and then spent the night walking to the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon.

On the second day, we had a group tour of the Vatican Museum which ended with a tour of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Both the ceiling and his last judgment are amazing spectacles to take in – Michelangelo, while also a genius, was a perfectionist and the images on the Sistine Chapel are the largest testament to that. In the afternoon we took a walking tour of the Area Sacra di Largo, the Pantheon, and the Jesuit churches: St. Ignazio, and Il Gesu, which both are famous for Gaulli’s illusionist paintings (in one he painted a fake dome which looks real, in the other a ceiling which appears to opening up to the heavens). At night we headed out to dinner and then to the Campo to celebrate Matt Shaw’s birthday at midnight.

On the 11th, Tim, Liam and I got up early to catch mass at Il Gesu – which even though it was in Italian was worth the time spent inside the beautiful Jesuit church. Though I wasn’t able to follow the mass, I spent most of my time admiring the innate beauty of the masterfully decorated church and of Gaulli’s masterpieces. Following the Mass, we met up with the rest of the group for our tour of the interior of the Colosseum. After touring the oldest stadium in the world, we headed out to tour the Roman Forum (which they recently started charging for a tour – something that hadn’t occurred in my first 3 trips to there). Afterward it was my first time up to Paletine Hill. For the rest of the afternoon we relaxed and then went to dinner to again honor Matt Shaw’s b-day.

The day after the birthday bash, we had an early morning walk to the Vatican for our tour of St. Peter’s Scavi (the underground burial grounds which lie below the Basilica). Enroute to the scavi, we stopped at San Luigi Dei Francesci to view three Caravaggio paintings. I was captivated by Caravaggio’s “The Calling of St. Matthew,” and the use of the lighting in the artwork to make it look just like the sunlight from outside was coming in across the small side chapel in which it resided, I described it in my reflection paper as the following:

The dull yellow light glowing from the small half moon window cascaded across the side chapel, illuminating everything in its path – the altar, the candles, the communion rail, all coated in the early morning sun. As I stood staring into the Contarelli Chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi Church in Rome – I gazed up at Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew (1599-1600), on the wall and followed the light from the window onto the painting. Glancing back and forth between the painting and the piece of paper which told its story, I began to notice something peculiar. Something was different about this painting than the other ones we’d seen and I could not quite put my finger on it. My eyes darted back and forth, from paper to painting, paper to painting – then it hit me. It was the light.

The Scavi was an amazing experience for most of the group as it is the location of the burial place of St. Peter. Following the Scavi, a large contingent of the Loyolites headed over to the Spanish steps and out to the outskirts of the city.

The following day we spent traveling to Ostia Antica (which I will describe in the next blog). Wednesday was our last day in Rome on Loyola’s tab, we headed out to the Galleria Borghese to view the masterful works of Bernini including his David and Apollo and Daphne. With the tour finished, we had finished our last group activity in Rome – and as a result our last activity as a total group abroad. The following day we were on our own and touring around Italy alone (which I will describe in the next blog final blog).

Day Trips in Florence

(April 7 – April 8)

Castello Del Trebbio and the Tuscan countryside

Matt and I

Self explanatory

The Siblings at the second vinyard

Family time drinking wine

Bottle of wine from the second vinyard

Family Shot

Wine vines (say that 5 times fast)

The Group gathered at Castello Del Trebbio

Kevin and I in Castello del Trebbio

The Piazza in Siena

Siena

Siena group

Siena Duomo

View from the rooftop

Storytime atop the tower

The beginning of the sunset

Liam and I (the sun was in my eyes...I swear I'm not that creepy)

Siena rooftops

Not only did Florence provide us with a beautiful city to reside in and explore, it also served as a great launching point for a pair of day trips that we took: one to the small town city Siena, and another to Chianti country for a wine tour.

First things first, I’ll discuss with you the trip to Siena. As I stated in my last blog, on our third day in Florence, we spent the morning in a museum and then half the group divided and headed out to Siena for the afternoon – not really knowing what to expect of the small city. In retrospect I suppose that my lack of expectations played into my greater appreciation for the tiny jewel in the Tuscan countryside.

Siena was about an hour and a half (2 hours with the rail traffic) from Florence, and about 15 of us headed out to see it. After taking an event-filled, accidental trip around the city via bus, (one where I got to test a bit of my Italian) we headed in through the opposite side of the city wall.

Our first stop once we were inside the city walls was the center of town, Il Campo. We arrived in the warm afternoon sun and spent the first hour in the city just relaxing and eating lunch on the brown stone piazza. After relaxing and taking a group photo we made our way over to tour some of the city.

The warm sun beating off the narrow back alleys creates the aura of small town Italy that is something that can rarely be described and really only felt. Once we finished in the Campo, we made our way from the campo to the Duomo. We bought a ticket which gave us access to the Duomo, the Crypts, the Baptismal, and the Museum. After spending a significant amount of time in the cathedral, which was checkered black and white – it reminded me of the Genova Cathedral – we headed into the museum. Our time in the museum was relatively swift, as we shuffled from room to room. However, the highlight of our trip was following the museum experience.

At the tail end of the museum was a large vantage point which provided spectacular views out of the Siena roof tops. We sat in the sunset’s rays for nearly an hour enjoying each other’s company sharing laughs and stories and watching the Italian countryside lit up by the orange solar rays. Our trip to Siena finished with an interesting finale which was marked by our decision to “walk back” – the train station is harder to reach than we imagined – and the two hour ride back provided a much needed rest after a long day of sightseeing.

The day after Siena, the Loyola Crew (my family included) set out on the annual Chianti wine tour. Our tour bus, was guided through the Italian countryside by our infamous long-haired tour guide Todd Bolton – who provided us with an array of knowledge not only about the history of Italy and the process of wine making, but more interestingly about the very aspects of Italian wine that we would be experiencing in the Tuscan region.

Our trip included two wine and olive oil producers and a stop in between for lunch. We learned about the many qualities of the Italian wine and about the history of the wineries in which they were produced. The first stop at Castello del Trebbio, which was originally an outpost for the Pazzi family who were the nobles that were the major rival for the Medici family in Florence who periodically attempted to dethrone the Medicis – even taking an attempt to kill off the Medici bloodline while the Medici brothers were receiving the Eucharist at mass.

The second vineyard was a much smaller family owned place in which we were able to get a behind the scenes look at both the process of growing the grapes, wine making, and wine storage. The little place we visited had a great selection which Todd Bolton navigated us through with care. The wine tour was an enjoyable and relaxing activity for the group and proved to be one of our most cherished moments from the trip – I mean what’s not to like about being picked up and dropped off at fancy wineries for free?

However, the day after the wine tour, we boarded a bus and headed south of Florence to the capital city Rome. Unfortunately the end our time in Florence also bid the end of my time with my family, who I was sad to see go – though don’t feel too bad for them, they spent 12 days traveling through Italy also!