Il Mio Viaggio a Sud Italia

My week in Southern Italy was nothing less than fabulous! Each semester we have one planned group trip that coincides with our lectures and tours class, so this past week, all 49 of us, plus, Dr. Prebys, Dr. Economopolous, and Dr. Hansen set out for 5 days of tours and exploring in Pompei, Napoli, Paestum, Cuma, Amalfi, and Capri.

We left early Tuesday morning for Pompei, where we saw the excavations of the whole ancient city. Much unlike what we have previously seen (somewhat isolated ruins without a lot of context), Pompei is an actual city of ruins that really lends itself to better idea of how life once was there. We saw excavations of houses, amphitheaters, public baths, and stores, among other things. We divide the group in half and switch between professors, so my group had the art history teacher, Dr. Economopolous for the beginning of the Pompei tour. Turns out that as we were walking in past the ticket office, some of the guards saw her Rome tour guide identification card. Apparently it's a law in Italy that people who are not authorized tour guides in particular areas can't give tours there; so because she is only licensed in Rome, they questioned her about leading all of us girls through the Pompei excavations. We had to help convince them that she was there as a professor, and not an official tour guide, and we were, in fact, her students, so that they didn't call the Carabinieri (division of the Italian police)!

Tuesday evening we arrived in Naples, which was our home base for the 5 days of the trip. We stayed close to the train station in what we all deemed a kinda sketchy area of town. Dr. Prebys assured us that the Rome program has been staying at this hotel for 30-some years and we were perfectly safe, but even so, we were a little shocked about how different it was from Rome. I think some of the professors and Miss McHugh had instilled into our heads that we had to be very conscious of our belongings in Napoli, so we were a little over-paranoid haha. Near our hotel there were very few restaurants, so we stayed very close and ended up going to the same pizzeria right across the street most of the nights for dinner! Every night we were exhausted from our tours that by the time we returned to the hotel, we wouldn't want to explore anyway (we actually ended up going to bed before 10 every night....quite a nice change!). 

On Wednesday, we had another early departure for our second day of tours, which, I have to say was one of my favorites. We did the Amalfi Coast drive which was ABSOLUTELY STUNNING! Seriously, it was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life. Miles of hilltop towns, colorful buildings, panoramaic views of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Talk about paradise. We had to split our group up into 2 buses because the roads on the coast are so narrow that they don't allow large buses. At several points during the drive, the road gets so narrow that cars going one way have to pull over and wait to make room for cars going the opposite way to pass. More than once, we would come almost head-on with another vehicle, often bigger trucks or other buses like ours, and the drivers would have to maneuver their way past each other on the steep and narrow road. Our bus driver was a champ so we clapped every time he managed one of those crazy maneuvers. Thankfully, we got to enjoy the experience from the back of the bus, taking in the beautiful views and capturing pictures as we went along. The entire drive lasted a few hours, plus about an hour-long stop in the town of Amalfi for lunch, shopping, and exploring the coastal town. Amalfi is known for its limoncello, so we went into this cute shop and bought adorable limoncello in painted bottles shaped like the boot of Italy :) I also bought my second wall cross in my collection (my first was from Assisi) at a cute ceramic/mosaic shop there. It is made out of the gold mosaic tile that covers the facade of the Amalfi Cathedral. The shop owner offered me a "special price" which is a phrase I hear all too often in all these tourist cities, especially Roma, so I bargained with him a bit and got a pretty good deal for such a pretty cross. I can't wait to keep collecting crosses from all the places I visit as reminders of my travel! The man who sold me the cross was a super nice man who spoke very little English, so we did our best to communicate with him in Italian. He had to repeat himself slowly a few times, but for the most part, Cara, Anna, and I had a pretty coherent conversation with him. He was asking us about the outcome of the election in the US and who had been elected into the "casa bianca"....so crazy that on election day in America (and my first election as an eligible voter), there I was in Amalfi, chatting with an Italian man about American politics! These are the small moments that I treasure about this experience.

In love with the Amalfi Coast!

Narrow windy drive along the Amalfi Coast



Amalfi Cathedral

After the Amalfi drive, we headed for Paestum for tours of the temples and excavations there. The highlights there are definitely the three, largely intact, preserved temples from the Greeks who settled there. After seeing so many excavations, we are beginning to understand and recognize various architectural and artistic styles from different regions and time periods. Paestum is especially notable because of the Greek influences combined with the local Italian style.

A nice surprise during our trip to Paestum :)

On Thursday we stayed in Napoli where we visited the Archaeological Museum, one of the largest museums in the world (you can imagine our excitement about that!). Dr. Prebys informed us that the museum has over 1,000 custodians. The morning tours consisted of many student presentations on statues, paintings, and mosaics. Although the museum was interesting, after a few hours the majority of us were going a little stir-crazy so we made the best of it by taking pictures imitating all the statues :) In the afternoon we went to Cuma, which was probably my least-favorite tour as it was pretty much just a cave having something to do with Roman and Greek mythology (I honestly tuned out many of the student presentations, oops ;)), which I'm going to be honest, is not my cup of tea! But we survived and ended up getting a free afternoon after the tours.

This is what happens when we go to too many museums...

Friday we went to the Capodimonte Museum, another huge museum located in the grand Bourbon Palace in Napoli. I enjoyed this museum much more than the one on Thursday because we saw mostly Renaissance-era paintings with religious subject matter. The paintings made me excited to take the art history course with her next semester, seeing as the focus is away from B.C. era architectural ruins and toward Renaissance-era painting and sculpture, which I feel is way more relatable and interesting, especially since I can recognize the religious figures and stories depicted in the paintings. We saw several original Caravaggios and Michaelangelos. Another highlight of the Capodimonte was seeing the original palace rooms decorated fully with art and furniture. It reminded me of seeing the White House rooms, but on a much grander scale and with so much more history. 

After the museum on Friday we spent the day in the downtown area of Napoli along the waterfront, which was worlds apart from the area where our hotel was located. Let's just say that I was ready to give Napoli a bad review before I saw this section of the city. I guess every city really does have two sides. We had the afternoon free to walk along the waterfront, eat lunch, and go shopping and exploring on our own--quite a relaxing break after several days straight of tours. On our walk back to the hotel that evening, we stopped in a pasticceria (bakery) to grab cornetti for the morning, and we ended up having a pretty funny conversation with the two older Italian men who worked there. One told me I had "belli occhi" (beautiful eyes) haha. No worries, they were not creepy like some of the other people who have talked to us. They were eager to help us practice our Italian and learn about where we were from and what we were studying here. I noticed that the people in the south are much more interested in us foreigners because they aren't as equipped and used to handling tourists as Roma is, for example. The blonde hair definitely made me stand out way more in Napoli than it ever has in Roma!

On the Naples waterfront

Our final day of the trip was a trip to the island of Capri, a small island visible from the Bay of Naples. It took about an hour on the hydrofoil boat to get there, and upon our arrival, several of us took a boat tour around the island which was super cool. At one point, we all got off the main boat and went in tiny boats into the blue grotto (a rock formation under which the water is reflected bright blue), one of the main attractions at Capri. We were all caught quite off guard by having to switch boats right in the middle of the open water and then having to duck down in the canoe-like small boats to get into the blue grotto. Once inside, the tour guides all started singing "Volare," their voices echoing and adding to the ambience of the whole experience! We spent the remainder of the day on the island, getting lunch exploring the shops, and taking in the breathtaking views. 

Capri is so wonderful! We had lunch on the deck of the restaurant on the right.

The Blue Grotto

By the end of the day on Saturday, we were all more than ready to get back home to Rome. I had been feeling a bit Rome-sick even after one day. It's so crazy how in just a few short weeks' time, Rome has become a true home to us. After a crazy busy week of tours and sightseeing that I wouldn't have missed for the world, I have to say, it was quite a relief to return to my comfortable room at the Tiziano. Now we're headed full-force into another week of school. I was looking at the calendar the other day in disbelief of how fast the semester is going. It's already past the halfway point! And between lots of projects, papers, and traveling, these next 5 weeks are going to fly by. I'm savoring every single moment of this beautiful life :)