Cinqua Terra

Mom's account of Cinqua Terra:

We then took a 7 hour train ride to La Spezia, transferring to a smaller 10 minute train to the Cinque Terre, a string of five small villages along the Italian Riviera in Northern Italy, each connected by a short train ride or hiking trail. We stayed in the southernmost of the five – Riomaggiore - spending two nights in a very spacious apartment (at less than half the price of Venice) at the top of three flights of very steep stairs. It had two bedrooms, complete kitchen, living room, dining room, hallway, entryway and full bathroom, plus a wonderful view up and down the crooked little, car-less main street, and only street, of this non-resort town. This charming region is a National Park, including the towns, and is filled with scenic hiking trails. Each village is in it’s own ravine, going from the sea up into the hills, which are covered with grapevines. There are no chain-stores or fast food, no traffic (as most of the villages don’t have cars) and no hurry. Each of the five villages has a very distinctive personality all their own and we explored each one with gusto. We found five completely different beautiful beaches, very old fascinating cemeteries, ancient churches, ruined castles, cliff-hanging trails, beautiful gardens, lovely mosaic tunnels, unique hole-in-the-wall shops, wonderful gelato, tons of old wooden fishing boats pulled up-shore for the winter, fascinating pastel buildings with lots of laundry hung out to dry and even old Nazi bunkers. The Cinque Terre was a refreshing step back in time, set amid an absolutely beautiful backdrop of the Ligurian Sea.

Photos: to be posted soon

Venice

Mom's account of our time in the Venice:

From London, we flew early into Milan, Italy, where we took a 3 hour train to Venice, then a 30 minute shuttle into town arriving about 10:00 a.m. and that was the last of dry land! After a little wandering, and asking directions a couple times, we finally found our lodging for the night: a quaint little convent (full of friendly, Italian-speaking nuns!) right on one of the hundreds of canals crisscrossing Venice. We stayed on the third floor of the immaculately clean and orderly Casa Caburlotto overlooking the peaceful side-street canal and rooftop gardens across the way. We spent two busy days exploring almost everything this “floating” city had to offer. It was truly amazing to see a city totally engulfed by sea water, (but having no natural water to drink). The many canals, large and small, were full of a variety of boat traffic, including police boats, fancy gondolas with back-and-white-striped shirted drivers, brown UPS boats, taxis, ferries, mail boats, and even screaming ambulances with lights flashing! St Mark’s Basilica, built in the 11th century, was amazingly ornate with all it’s marble, gilding and mosaic-covered ceilings and floors. There were many other beautiful, ancient churches and buildings as well, even if many were in disrepair. The huge Rialto Bridge, supposedly the most famous bridge in the world, was a shopper’s paradise with so many shops of all kinds crammed onto the bridge. We thoroughly enjoyed learning about and exploring this unique water-city!

Photos: to be posted soon

Mid-terms are done!

Since I was happily distracted all weekend I didn’t do any studying then, so this week has been pretty busy. But now, on the other side of all that studying, it was well worth it, I’m sure. I’m very glad to be done for the sake of being done, but most of all I’m really excited because spring break has begun. And who flies in tomorrow to tour Italy with me? My mom and Hannah. Yay!

Darcee

Darcee came to visit me this weekend! It was so wonderful to see her! Lots of talking and books and meandering around London (we went to Greenwich, the Royal Naval Colleges, the Queen's House, the Observatory, Borough Market, the south bank, Southwark Cathedral, National Portrait Gallery, Covent Gardens, Regent’s Park…) Now, Darcee and I went to high school together, but she goes to school in Georgia now and is studying abroad this semester in Slovakia. Her roommate there, Julia, came over with her to visit her cousin Anna Maria who has been working on her masters here in London for the past year. It was actually Anna Maria’s last weekend here so she was trying to say goodbye to friends in addition to going about London with us.

Best of all was just spending time with Darcee, but second best was our excellent find… We went to the fabulous Evangelical Library. Unfortunately it really is a library, so we couldn't buy any of the books we wanted to. But it's packed with books - wonderful books! I'd read every one of them. Excellent leather bounds, hardbacks, old books, new books, theology, commentaries, fiction, children's, biographies and so on. We were ecstatic. Now, as usual, Darcee and I had been talking all weekend about books, but in particular about Elizabeth Gaskell. I've never read any of her books, but Darcee just discovered her and has been recommending her books to me. And of course Darcee and I both love Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre, so when Darcee found a biography of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell... suffice it to say we were a little bit excited. Now we both just have to find copies so we can read it.

Sunday morning we went to St. Helen's - a conservative, not quite High Anglican church in the middle of London that Anna Maria went to the whole time she lived here. I really enjoyed it: it reminded me of home because of the liturgy and all, but most churches over here do, but there was a good sermon and generally familiar music. Actually, they sang one of the hymns to Danny Boy, which was really odd but gorgeous.

Pictures will be posted soon.

House of Lords

Our politics class took a field trip to Westminster on Monday and sat in the "Strangers Gallery" to listen to the House of Lords debate their very existence, really. Click here for my professor's post on the issue.

Hampstead Heath

I took Charlotte and Hannah to Hampstead with me on Saturday to ramble about the town (and take pictures in front of John Keat's house) and explore Hampstead Heath. You can see photographs here: http://picasaweb.google.com/autumnfaee/HampsteadWebAlbum.

Greenwich

Today Charlotte and I went to Greenwich for a day of sightseeing and exploring. We toured the Queen's House, Royal Naval College, National Maritime Museum, and climbed up to the Observatory to check our clocks against Greenwich Mean Time, straddled the Prime Meridian before picnicking along the Thames. You can see photographs here: http://picasaweb.google.com/autumnfaee/GreenwichWebAlbum.

Argippina, Museums and Beethoven

A week ago today, actually, our group went to see Handel's opera Agrippina. Since it was at the English National Opera house it was performed in English. I have to admit that it was more difficult to understand the lyrics than I thought it would be, but I enjoyed it. The music was amazingly beautiful.

I spent the weekend (where else?) in museums. I went to the Victoria and Albert on Friday to look through their gallery on India, in particular, but I also went through their Fashion Gallery and through their hall of statues. Before that, however, I popped into the infamous Harrods really quickly (I promised my roommates we'd go together) and I'm glad I did because it was the last day of their special guitar exhibition: Born To Rock: The Life and Times of the Electric Guitar. There were 150 guitars on display, I guess, but my favorite was the "The Frying Pan" which is the world's oldest electric guitar. While there were a few guitars there that were played by famous musicians (Brian Jones, Keith Richards, etc) the majority of the collection were customized novelty guitars, which I didn't find especially appealing - they were too ostentatious. It was still fun, but I really wished Jack was there with me.

Saturday I went to the Museum of London to peruse the 18th century and Victorian galleries to fit them in before they close for 18 months renovations this week. It was wonderful. Can I call it my favorite museum? It's in the top five. It focused on English history - specifically, though not exclusively London history. I've been seeing so much about other histories and cultures at the British Museum and the like, so I appreciated this taste of England. I tagged along for a few gallery performances which were very well done. Since the Museum of London is right in the middle of the old City of London there are remnants of the Roman Wall on either side of the building. And right in front of the museum is a memorial marking the approximate spot where John Westley had his "great conversion experience".

On Monday my politics class went to the London office of the European Parliament to speak with the chief librarian there about Parliament. Before coming here I largely ignored the EU, but I've really enjoyed learning about it lately. It's interesting to study Britain's convoluted and tentative participation in the EU. I spent Monday night explicating a passage of Shakespeare. It was actually quite fun. I haven't studied Shakespeare in class (or any poetry) since high school, strangely enough, so it was a difficult paper to begin. I procrastinated a good deal too - I shouldn't have waited 'til the night before.

My history professor took us to the Enlightenment Gallery of the British Museum on Tuesday to study up on that period of Empire and expansion and then I went to St. Martin's-in-the-Field for a terrific piano performance. The acoustics were wonderful and the church is gorgeous, but the music! He preformed Liszt and Schubert and Mozart's Sonata in F and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I had just begun to learn the Moonlight Sonata when I left and now I don't know that I want to continue he was so fabulous. Very well trained. When I hear music like that I both wish I performed and am grateful that I don't. I can understand how many hours - how many years - he has devoted to his work and I wish I had that commitment and talent, but I also understand the cost and am content with my little weekly lessons. The night made me especially miss having a piano around.

Okay, well that's my last week. No big headline excursions, perhaps, but lots of little trips.