Prague

Prague- November 26-28th, 2011

Prague was amazing. If any city can get you in the Christmas spirit, it is Prague. The night we arrived, we realized how beautiful Prague was, even at night- everything was lit up, and the streets were lined with gas lamps. We got there late that night, so we got some dinner and headed to bed. I have to say, the currency exchange here was odd at first! They do not use Euros, they use Czech Crowns. Basically the exchange rate was about 25 crowns = 1 euro. Taking 3500 crowns out for the weekend sounded odd, but it was really only 130 euros! I quickly became accustomed to the exchange rate, and I actually liked their currency.

Although it was very cold that Saturday, we ventured out for the entire day. Our first stop was the Christmas festival in the main square (this was the first day of the festival). Everything was covered in decorations and lights, and a giant tree sat in the middle of the square. When we first entered the square, I saw the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life. It was like a small horse or a wolf, but it wasn’t… at least I don’t think it was. We saw four more of these strange dogs this weekend so we decided they are native to the area. We shopped at the vendors and listened to the Christmas music for a while before heading up to a monastery up on a hill overlooking the city for lunch. Apparently the monastery is a well-known brewery in the area so for lunch we all grabbed a beer and some goulash at the monastery’s restaurant- it was good! Later that day, we walked around the Prague Castle and adjoining church, and then we headed back down the hill where we went to the main square again to see it at night, and then to dinner. Being in Prague is like being in a fairytale- everything seems like it is straight out of a movie.

The next day we decided to sleep in a little. Once we woke up, we headed to the Prague tower, and went to the top to see the main square from above. Prague was even more beautiful from that view than it is on the ground… which is saying a lot. One thing I noticed about Prague was how clean it was. Every building looked freshly painted and the streets were clean- however maybe I feel this way coming from Italy, which is not clean. After we climbed the tower, we grabbed some sausages and my first Trdelnik of the weekend. Best served warm, Trdelnik is sweet dough covered in honey, wrapped around a metal bar, and slowly spun over a flame until crisp and golden. The little dessert cylinders were roasting on every corner. The outside is coated in sugar and almond pieces- It was finger-licking, mouth-watering goodness. The perfect treat on a cold day. I proceeded to eat three more of these this weekend. We started calling them turtlenecks because we didn’t know how to pronounce them- they are kind of a turtleneck shape too! After lunch, we headed to the Dancing Houses by Frank Gehry. These were a little less impressive than I imagined them to be, however after being in a historic city, seeing a very modern building was a little shocking. I like seeing pictures of this building away from this site, however being situated on a busy intersection takes away the interest of the site. We walked back into town along the river (hopefully burning some of the calories from the two Trdelnik’s I consumed earlier) and stopped in a few shops along the way. Later that day we stopped by the Alphonse Mucha museum’s gift shop. We didn’t want to pay the 200 crowns to get in to see an artist we didn’t really know much about, so we decided we could see some of his art from the posters in the gift shop. I actually like his work, very Art Nouveau. To finish our day, we continued to shop around some of the vendors and we grabbed dinner from a vendor at the Christmas festival. We didn’t have a ton of crowns left, so we had to be wise with what we spent our money on for dinner, but we succeeded in spending all of our crowns down to the penny.

The next morning I was sad to leave such a beautiful place. It was a really nice trip—my last trip of the semester :(- but it was a good one. I have one more week of hard work in studio before heading home on the 11th!

Thanksgiving!

November 24, 2011

We had the largest Thanksgiving meal I have ever had/probably will ever have in my entire life. Everyone was in charge of making one dish, so we all gave our ingredients to Sylvia (Villa coordinator) and she ordered them all to the villa. It was funny because they do not have the same type of ingredients/food in Italy that we have in the states. Marshmellows are not like marshmellows we have.. they were special marshmellows in fruit shapes. Sweet potatoes are not orange... they are white, so our sweet potato caserole was white potatoes with pink and greek and blue marshmellows on top.. it looked a little odd, but it sure did taste good! They dont have graham crackers to make cheesecake crusts, so I used coookies. The peanut butter comes in a tiny jar, so when they only had one jar at one store, they had to go to another store to find more. Cream of mushroom soup is a rarity, so we were a little short in that department for the greenbean caserole. Our turkeys were the size of a small elephant.. we had two. For the rest of our menu, we had stuffing(oh they dont have stuffing here, so we cut up all the ingredients ourselves), twice baked poatatoes(but they dont have baking potatoes, or cheddar cheese), brocolli, asparagus, sweet bread, corn pudding(corn does not come in cans either), chicken wings and soup, cranberry sauce, sangria, wine, cheesecake, pumpkin pie(they could only find two cans, so they suggested we cut up our own pumpkin to make this), apple pie, buckeyes, chocolate/coconut pie.. and that is all I can remember. Basically, everyone made one of their favorite dishes, and the entire thing was very impressive, amazing really, given our cooking circumstances.. and the oven that has no temperature settings. It was fun to share our Thanksgiving with the Italians who work at the villa and their families!

Milan.... again

Milan Day Trip: November, 22, 2011

On our last day trip we went to Milan again. While we went to see older architecture in the first trip, this trip was solely new, contemporary architecture. We went to two different fair grounds in Milan, both of which have modern structures, and we went to two very cool museums. One was a design museum in the Palazzo del'Arte, and it was a design museum full of different kinds of chairs. There was so many different chair designs, and the fun part was that you could test most of them out. They had a bunch of other furniture, light fixtures, and ceramic desings around the gallery as well. One of the "chairs" looked like a bunch of green foam sticks sticking up from the ground in a big room that had windows opening up to the sky. We finally figured out that it was supposed to be like giant grass, and you could lay on them. It was supposed to mimic laying in the grass and looking at the clouds. I felt like an ant in the giant grass! The other museum was the Novecento museum which was located right next to the duomo. This was full of famous art my nineteenth century artists... another cool museum to see. I am sad that day trips are over! I really enjoyed traveling to all of the small/large towns around Genoa... a very neat part of this program!

Como

Como Day Trip: November 15,2011

Our day trip last week was to Como, Italy. Most people know this town for its beautiful lake sandwiched between Italy and the Swiss Alps. Architects(mainly those in Italy) know this town for its rationalist architecture(basically fascist architecture). We did a roundabout tour of the architecture in this town mainly all created by Guissepe Terragni. Personally, I was more impressed by the lake more than anything, and this cool tree we found in the middle of a main square- the rationalist/fascist architecture does not really hold my attention very long. I would like to come back here someday to enjoy the lake more(preferably in the summertime... it was very cold!) Only one more day trip left!

Caserta

Caserta, November 13th, 2011

Our final day was a half day visit to Caserta, which the best way to describe this is the Versailles of Italy. Apparently they used this castle to film Star Wars: Phantom Menace- however this didn’t really mean anything to me. The gardens of Caserta were huge, but not as huge and magnificent as those at Versailles. On the flip side, I was more impressed with the interior of Caserta than I was of Versailles. Maybe this was because it was more clear what rooms served what purpose. It might also have been because we had a guide, and it was not nearly as crowded as Versailles was. After taking a tour of the castle, of which we maybe saw one eighth of, we went into the gardens for a few hours. One part of the gardens that I was extremely impressed with was what they call the “English garden”. This garden was less uniform and had a more romantic feel. It was full of exotic plants and ponds, and everything grew naturally, it was not as pristine as the main part of the garden. At three, we finally left for our seven hour journey home. Even though the beds at the hotel the night before were heavenly, I was glad to get back to the villa and settle in once again.

Pompei

Pompei, November 12th, 2011

With two days left in our final week long trip, we went further south to visit Pompei. Once again, Pompei was something I had studied throughout school, so I was excited to see it in person. Pompei was a city that was destroyed by the volcano Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD and was preserved by the volcanic rock throughout the centuries. Pompei was different than other ruins I have seen because it is more intact and you can really see how these people lived in their everyday lives. It was a lot easier to imagine people living in this place than it was in Rome and in Athens when visiting those ruins. There were many homes preserved, full of mosaics and frescos on the walls which would not have been preserved without the volcanic rocks. It was really neat to see a clear network of streets in this city with functional buildings surrounding them, such as thermal baths, homes, markets, churches, kitchens, bathrooms etc. I have to say, although these ruins do not have as much meaning and significance as those in Rome and Greece, they were the most interesting to me just for the fact that you can see functional spaces of a city existing so long ago. That night we stayed in Naples, which I have to say, I wouldn’t want to explore much other than my hotel room. Driving through the city, it just seemed extremely dirty with trash flying everywhere and stores closed. Our hotel room was amazing though- the best hotel room of any I stayed in throughout Europe.

When in Rome...

Trip Three: Rome November 8th-11th, 2011

After a morning of train rides, we finally arrived in Rome around lunchtime. After arriving in our hotel (on the same block as the Pantheon), we had to grab a quick lunch in order to make it to the Coliseum and the Roman Forum before they closed their doors at 3:30. On our walk to the Coliseum, it started raining a little, but not too hard. I was thinking I should buy an umbrella from one of the street vendors, but I thought for sure that it would stop raining if I bought one. Once it started raining little harder, I quickly bargained for an umbrella, and it ended up being the best three euros I have spent in a long time. Right after we entered the Coliseum, it started down pouring and it didn’t stop until six that night. The Coliseum was pretty much how I expected to be- big and impressive. It was really cool to see but it was a bit hard for me to imagine what it was like in its hay day. We walked around the Coliseum for a while before heading out to visit the Roman Forum… once again in the rain. The Roman Forum is something you should visit when it is nice outside. I was too busy watching where I was stepping to really take in the sites as well as I should. Once again, I had a hard time visualizing how the site would be fully constructed, as most of the ruins are very eroded, but it was really cool to think that the ancient Romans walked in the same spot surrounded by the same buildings that I was walking in at the time. After visiting these two sites, we walked back to the hotel to get dry clothes on and to rest for a little before dinner.

infront of the forum

Our second day in Rome started with the Pantheon quickly followed by the Piazza Navona. The Pantheon was really neat to see after studying it in many classes, and I though the inside of the Pantheon was beautiful- it amazing they could build something like this so long ago. After the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona, we went to roughly ten churches around the city designed mainly by Borromini and Bernini, some of which included the Chiesa di Sant’Andrea Del Quirinale, the Chiesa di San Carolino Alle Quattro Fontane, and the Chiesa di Sant Maria della Vittoria. I couldn’t tell you which one was which, as they all had similar characteristics, but each one was beautiful! We also passed by the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps which were less impressive then I thought they would be, and swarming with tourists. After a day of walking ALL over the city, I was glad to be back at the hotel and able to kick off my shoes!

sketching at the Parthenon

the group on the Spanish Steps

Our third of four days in Rome started out bright and early with the Vatican museum. I was eager to see this museum after hearing so much about it and studying it throughout school. My favorite parts of the museum were seeing Raphael’s work, and of course the Sistine Chapel. I have to say, they were nothing as I imagined them to be. While I did enjoy them, for some reason I imagined Raphael’s works, such as The School of Athens, to be in a much bigger room than it was in, along with his other works. I also imagined them to be a lot bigger, even though they were pretty big. The Sistine chapel was also really neat to see, however I thought it would too be a lot bigger than it was. I thought the room itself would be double the length and width and the ceiling would be a little higher. Although the size of the room was a little disappointing, the Michelangelo’s paintings did not disappoint me. They were as grandiose and magnificent as I was told they would be, and the amount of paintings covering the walls and ceilings of this chapel, along with the rest of the Vatican museum, was amazing. I have never seen such a ornamented place, ever. After the Vatican museum, we headed to St. Peters Basilica which I honestly did not know a whole lot about. I remember studying it in my art history classes, but it kind of blended with some of the other buildings I had studied. Once we arrived, I immediately remembered the square in front of the basilica (with all of the pillars), but I still did not remember the building itself. Upon entering however, I was blown away. Maybe I was so blown away because I didn’t really know what to expect, but I have to say, this is definitely tied for first (with the Sagrada Familia) as one of my favorite churches. I don’t think you can explain this place to anyone; they really have to see it in person to understand the enormity and opulence of it. The size, ornamentation, paintings, sculptures… everything… was over the top and amazing. After the basilica, we got lunch and made our way to the EUR which is home to many of the Fascist architecture buildings we studied in our Italian Rationalism class. These buildings were the opposite of what we had seen earlier this day. While they were interesting to see, they did not blow me away like St. Peter’s. The coolest Rationalist building we saw was probably the Palazzo della Civilta Italiana which is the building I picked for a paper and project for this class. So while we were visiting it, I was able to take many pictures of the now vacant building (but I could not go inside).

outside St. Peters

inside St. Peters

EUR building

Our last day in Rome (11-11-11… yes I made a wish at 11:11am) was dedicated to contemporary buildings. We started by seeing the Palazzetto dello sport, which was an Olympic stadium used in Rome’s 1960 something Olympics. While the building itself was not that impressive, I was impressed that it was built so long ago, and the design is still contemporary and interesting. After that, we headed to the Maxxi museum, which was designed by Zaha Hadid. This museum housed art all from the 21st century, so some of the art was really odd, and made me wonder why it was art. While the art was not too impressive to me, I thought the design of the building was interesting and it was fun to be in that interesting of a space. I need to take a look at Zaha Hadid’s contemporary art museum in Cincinnati now and compare them. After the Maxxi, we went to the Auditorium Parco della musica by Renzo Piano. This is a complex of three auditoriums housed in individual blobs (the best description I can think of). Although I call it a blob, they were beautiful blobs, especially the interior of them, and more specifically the largest auditorium. They were all engineered to have the best acoustics possible for the space, therefore it was amazing that such an interesting space could be made to have such good acoustics! Towards the end of the day, we visited the Ara Pacis museum by Richard Meier, and then we headed to see the Campidoglio by Michelangelo.

inside the Maxxi museum

inside concert hall