Perugia

For my last day trip out of Rome, I went to visit my friend from school who is studying in Perugia, Italy. It was only about 3 hours away and the town was so pretty.  It was really old medieval buildings with great views over the Umbrian landscape.  At the trainstation, I had to take the "mini metro" to get up to the old town.  Since it was small, we walked around the whole town.  In the center, there was a fresh market selling different kinds of olives and cheese.  I'm glad I made it to Perugia because it was on my list of places to go and it was nice seeing a familiar face!

Video of Pope Speaking

Here is a video of the Pope speaking from his balcony on Easter!!

Easter Weekend in Rome

This past week has been crazy in Rome because of Easter, and now the impending Beatification of Pope John Paul II.  My friend Caroline was still here on Friday so we woke up really early to go to the Vatican and the Vatican Museums.  We had tried to go two times previously but it had been too crowded so we got to St. Peter's at 7am and then waited for the museums to open at 9.  It was a struggle waking up so early but finally seeing the museums was worth it.  Plus, that early in the morning St. Peter's Square was almost completely empty.  The Vatican Museum was amazing.  I had been there once before a few years ago but I forgot about what was inside.  My favorite statue was the Belvedere Torso which is an ancient statue that later became influential for Michelangelo.  The museums were huge, with a whole room of tapestries, maps, and Raphael rooms which were so colorful.  The Sistine Chapel was great too, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

Original Augustus Statue

Belvedere Torso

Raphael Rooms

On Friday night I went to the Stations of the Cross with two of my friends.  It was at the Colosseum and it was so packed we had to stand really far away in order to see anything.  The Pope was there reading out all the different stations.  It was really nice because there was special lighting on all of the monuments and everything looked pretty.

On Sunday I went to Easter Mass at the Vatican.  We had to get there at 7:30 am because there were going to be so many people.  I didn't even expect to be let in, because we didn't have an official ticket but once they let in a bunch of people with tickets they started letting in people without tickets.  Once people were let in, they started sprinting to the seats, so we ran too because we didn't want to stand.  Lucky, we got seats in the front row of the second section back so we were really close.  Once the Mass started, there was a big procession of all the Swiss Guards and then finally the Pope came by on the Popemobile.  He was so close and I couldn't believe it!  He said the whole mass, which took about two hours.  Then he disappeared for a few minutes and then reappeared on a big balcony of St. Peters and said "Happy Easter" in about every language.  People from certain countries would cheer when it said it in their language.  It was crazy how many people came to Rome from all over the world just to go to the Easter mass.  It was one of the best experiences I have had here, because there were just so many people, tens of thousands, crammed into St. Peter's Square.  There were even huge screens set up on different streets so people could watch from there too.

The Pope giving out communion

The Pope on his balcony

Marmore Falls & Carsulae

I had a really busy weekend since it was Easter in Rome, more of which I will write about later.  On Saturday, my program here hosted a hiking trip to the Marmore waterfalls, which are in Terni, Italy in Umbria.  The falls were actually built by the ancient Romans in order to bring more water to the aqueducts.  They can be turned on and off, which I thought was kind of weird, especially since we saw them get turned off towards the end of the trip.  When the water was on, however, they were amazing!  We hiked up to the top of the mountain where we could look at the falls from above and the water was so strong that it was basically raining the entire hike because the mist was so heavy.

After the waterfall, we went to Carsulae, which is another archaeological site in Umbria.  There wasn't much left in Carsulae except for a lot of building foundations and some famous arches.  There was an amphitheater and a stadium but they were really overgrown.

Sightseeing

Since I only have 10 days left in Rome, I have been trying to cram in everything that I still want to see.  I am really sad to be leaving and I wish I had a little more time, maybe another month.  I have seen so much here but I am disappointed about going home without seeing everything.  My friend Caroline came to visit last week.  She is studying in London and it was great because I got to do a lot of things I hadn't done yet.  We went to Piazza Navona several times, which is one of my favorite places here because it is always so lively.  We also went into a lot of beautiful churches, that I can't remember the names of but I should have written down.  One had a lot of famous sculptures and paintings done by Caravaggio, Michelangelo, and Raphael and we just happened to stumble across it.  I have been trying to go into as many churches as I can.  There are over 2,000 so I obviously can't see them all but some actually have really famous artwork inside that you would never know about without going in.

For my art class, we went to Sant'Ivo which was designed by Borromini.  It was really beautiful and I would have never found it because it was through an archway and couldn't be seen from the street.  Instead of having a dome on top, there was a spire that twirled around.

I also went to the Museo di Roma in Trastevere which had a photography exhibit on Neorealism that I really wanted to see.  The photographs were really nice, except the museum didn't really have anything else in it so I was kind of disappointed.

The next day I visited two more churches with my art history class.  The first one was San Clemente which was originally built by Constantine.  There is a baroque church there now but archaeologists discovered remains of the ancient church underneath.  We got to go three levels under the church and walked around old rooms and hallways.  On the second level was a medieval church that had used the ancient foundations to hold up their church.

After that we went to San Giovanni in Laterano, which is actually a Papal church and is considered to be part of Vatican City.  The original church on the location was originally built by Constantine as well.  Inside the church was beautiful and I am really glad I got to go see it because it was on my list of things to do.  Also, the front doors of the church are the original doors of the building that the Roman Senate used in antiquity.

Spring Weather

The past few weeks in Rome have been really nice, in the 70s every day.  This weather has made my on-site classes much more pleasant and I have seen a lot of new sights throughout Rome.  For one of my art classes, we went to the Botanical Gardens of Rome, which was actually really close to where I live but I never knew about.  The Botanical Gardens were really peaceful.  There were plants and trees from all over the world.  There was a Japanese garden and in one of the greenhouses, an inside rainforest had be re-created.

Since it was nice out, some of my friends and I decided to visit a lot of monuments in the middle of the night.  We went to the Vittorio Emanuel monument, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. It was really cool seeing all the monuments at night because it was so quiet and empty.

For my art history class, we went to the Baths of Diocletian.  I thought we would be able to walk around the bath complexes, like the Baths of Caracalla, but apparently a basilica is now at the site.  The basilica has used a lot of the walls and bricks from the baths so we were still able to get the general idea.  We then walked over to one of the national museums (I think Rome has five total).  Inside, we saw original frescoes that were in Roman villas.  They were beautiful and still had most of their color.  The Romans liked to put nature themes inside their houses so they could feel as though they were always outside.  The frescoes had colorful pictures of forests and hills.  After that, we saw statues from the Imperial portraiture period.  My favorites were the "Discus Thrower" as well as the statue showing Augustus in robes.