Last Few Days in Ferrara

So, my time in Ferrara has come to an end, but don’t let that fool you. I’ve been doing plenty of things here to occupy the time.

On the 17^th of June, there was the Palio, which is a horse race that usually takes place every May, but was delayed this year because of the earthquake. The city is divided into “contradas” or neighborhoods that each have their own horse and jockey that race. And it is a very big deal here. The day before the Palio, we all went to a dinner that one of the contradas was having. The food was… interesting..., but it was fun to see all of the people. The day of the race, there was a parade which two students actually walked in and dressed up for! It was probably the longest parade I’ve ever seen (not including Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade).

Then the festivities began. First a race for the boys, then the girls, then some donkeys, and then finally the main event, the horses. There was one horse that was particularly finicky though who refused to get into the starting position for well over an hour. Once the (illegal) start happened, the race only lasted a few minutes, if that. A few jockeys fell off (but that doesn’t matter since the only the horse needs to finish the race) and then there was one horse that wouldn’t stop running around. They had to corner it, and I felt really bad because the horse was very scared and had no idea what was going on. As you can imagine, there are always a few animal-rights’ protests that happen. Overall, I’ll call it an experience, and probably never see one again.

On the 20^th, we had “gelato making,” which basically meant we watched as a pro made gelato and then we got to eat some. I’m not really complaining, because, hey, free gelato.

Don’t start thinking that my time in Ferrara has been all fun and games though. In the 6 weeks of class here I’ve completed: 12 chapters of material, 9 readings, 8 credits, 5 tests, 4 essays (with 2 drafts each), 2 text books, 1 oral exam, 1 final exam, and countless grammar exercises. All somehow without losing my mind on a daily basis. So these may or may not have been the most productive 6 weeks of my life.

But now, I’m in Roma, and a new adventure is about to begin!

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…

Verona- the city of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, also known as the city with few tourist attractions, but way too many tourists. Despite the slight over-crowding, it’s actually a pretty cool city. Again, this was a little organized day trip that was included in our program, so we were all jammed on the smallest bus possible. When we got to there, we had a tour that took us up on a hill that overlooked the entire city. It was pretty cool to see the whole city at once and all of the terracotta roofs. Then we finished our guided tour along the river and through the streets, where we learned all about Giulietta e Romeo and how apparently they did exist (according to our guide), and of course, all of the other interesting historical shenanigans. We got to see piazze, Juliette’s house (chalk-full of tourists), the shopping street, and the arena before one of the best lunches ever.

And I do not exaggerate either. We started out with pasta (of course) with eggplant and tomato. Then, while everyone else was eating salmon, another girl and I got steak with roasted veggies and potatoes. To finish it off, delicious molten chocolate cake. We were all so happy that we decided if we died after that lunch it would be okay. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t do all that eating and then just sit around. Oh, no. We climbed a bell tower right after lunch. Over 360 stairs to the top. It was a bit of a struggle, but the view was awesome.

Afterwards, we had a few hours of free time to explore the city. Basically everyone went back to Juliette’s house to take a picture with the statue, and then we split off into little groups. A few other students and I walked around the market and bought gifts for people, then wandered around, and eventually ended up at the castle. The bridge was also very cool and while taking pictures, an overly enthusiastic rafting tour group started waving and cheering. Oh, Italians…

And that was our trip to Verona. 

Romeo's house

Juliet's Balcony

The bell tower we climbed

Milano Madness

This past weekend two friends and I took a weekend journey to Milan. And yes, journey is the right word. We left Saturday morning and got to the city around 2:30 after taking two separate trains. After walking about an hour from the train station, we were of coursed amazed by the duomo. There are no pictures that can do it justice. Honestly. I tried, and I’m sure that they don’t compare. We then walked around for a while, went into a few stores, and found a restaurant where we ate dinner and I watched the Dutch play their first game in the Euro Cup. After that, we made our trek to the hostel.

Oh, the hostel. Not only did they say that they had changed our reservation (which had accidentally been made for the wrong day), but it started pouring rain right as we got there. The person at the desk call another hostel and said we could stay there for the night. So we were driven there by some random person we had never met in Milan’s worst thunderstorm basically ever. Needless to say, we were pretty freaked out. We were put in a room with two Czech guys who were actually pretty cool, and did not seem like the type to steal our stuff, so that made me feel a little better. I didn’t sleep very well, because the bed wasn’t very comfortable, but it was loud.

The next morning, we decided to walk to the Pinocoteca di Brera which is one of the best art museums in the city. Little did we know that this was over an hour and a half walk away from where we were and that it was going to start pouring again. I’m just glad we all had an umbrella; otherwise we would’ve been completely miserable. The Pinocoteca was really cool though, lots of paintings of Jesus and whatnot. We also stopped by the castle where two Africans were very persistent on getting money from us. We handled that just by walking away. Then we made our way back to the train station for another adventure to Parma.

We had looked at the train schedules before we left and knew that we had to take two trains. But we did not know that we wouldn’t be able to by the ticket for the second one at the other train station. This meant a few minutes of freaking out, because we didn’t think we’d be able to buy tickets (and in Italy, if you don’t have a ticket, you get a HUGE fine). But a random guy at the station told us that we could buy the tickets on the train and it’d be fine (BONUS: that all happened in Italian! Yay learning stuff!)

We got to Parma, and everything was closed, but it was a really cute city just to see. Not too big, but it had some interesting buildings and shops to look at. After all that, we head back to Ferrara without a hitch. An exhausting weekend for sure.

What up da Vinci?

You can see the some of the stained glass from outside in the evening

Parma! Meat and cheese galore!

Also- before all that, we had a pasta-making lesson on Wednesday. I didn’t get to take pictures of the process, because my hands were covered in pasta-stuffs, but here’s a picture of the final product! And yes, it was delicious.

Trip to Toscana

The day after my journey to Venice, the whole group took a trip to Tuscany. I had to wake up even earlier than the day before just to sit on a bus for a few hours. Eventually we ended up in Monteriggioni, a small town on the top of a hill that still has its town walls completely intact. It was adorable to say the least. It had great views of the surrounding landscape and cute little houses, but not much else. We only spent about an hour there, and really, more time was not necessary. Very picturesque, but not that entertaining.

After that, we got back on the bus and headed off for Siena, which is also built on a hill. We had a guided tour where we learned about its rivalry with Florence and the annual horse race, the Palio. The cathedral in Siena was gorgeous (as a lot of churches in Italy are). I cannot understand how people were able to create these ornate facades with so little technology. Anyway, inside and out, it was a great church.

The next day, Florence. Again, we had a guided tour, but this one didn’t take us into any of the buildings. We walked around and basically hit most of the major points, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio, and of course, the Duomo, which has pretty much the most amazing facade I think I’ve ever seen. Truly incredible in my opinion. While we were walking around, I had a few “I’ve been here!” moments. I honestly did not remember that much about my previous trip to Florence, given that I was only 8, I think it’s understandable. But there were a few times where a memory I did not even know I had popped into my head; it was kind of weird. On the whole, I was not that much of a Florence fan. I can’t really explain why, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

After a bit of free time, we hopped back on the bus and returned to Ferrara. It was an exhausting weekend to say the least, but very interesting nonetheless.

Monteriggioni

Its Walls

The Piazza in Siena

Church in Siena

A Bunch of Pope's Heads

Church in Florence

First View of the Duomo

Venezia- My Future Home?

Last Thursday, we didn’t have class, because my professor had to go to a conference in Paris (don’t worry though, we made it up today). A few other students and I decided to go to Venice. We woke up early and were on the train before our class would’ve started. The train arrived in the Venezia Santa Lucia train station a little after 10, so we had the whole day to explore the city. My first reaction after we left the train station was, “I love Venice!” The station is right on the Grand Canal, so you don’t have to walk very far at all to start seeing the beauty of the city. After gaping at the fact that we were indeed in Venice for a few minutes, we got our bearings and set out for Piazza San Marco.

Instead of getting there the easy, or quick, way, we explored random side streets, stumbled upon many different piazze, and saw a ton of little shops. What better way to explore a city? It was fantastic to see and take pictures of. In fact, I took so many that I’m basically uploading two different sets, so don’t assume you’ve seen them all! The canals were charming and I think I have about a million pictures of them.

The shops were also amazing, especially all of the masks that they try to sell to tourists (yes, I did buy one, but how could I not?). It would be impossible to count all the masks, which they use for Carneval, yet they’re almost all different. Of course there are different qualities and sizes, but I think I spent a good chunk of time just looking at them.

After about two hours of exploring, we finally hit the tourist stretch down to the main piazza. It was a little stressful to go from empty residential streets to packed, commercialized tourist streets. We made it down to the piazza, and it did not disappoint. It was huge! Not to mention beautiful. We walked around, took a bunch of pictures, and finally went into the Basilica. That in itself was stunning, unfortunately pictures were not allowed, so perhaps you’ll just have to Google what the inside looks like.

After all that, it was time to meander our way back to the train station. Again, we got away from the tourist routes and got to see a little bit more of the city. Venice is a fantastic city. I loved all the water, gondolas, and masks. I am definitely glad I went, and I’ll probably end up there again someday. Definitely highly recommended in my book.

Gondolas

Some Random Church

Grand Canal

Side Street

Pretty Boat/House Thing

Full Mask

Baby Mask (size of my hand)

Basilica di San Marco

And the Front

And Again

Inside of a Gondola

Apparently this happens all over Italy. Couple write their initials on a lock and attach it to a bridge.