AUSTRIA

ok so better late than never but I can finally recount our fall break adventures to you. And I updated my photo entry below with links to all the new pictures.

We left on Friday, October 26 from the Termini train station in Rome and took a 13-hour overnight train to Vienna, Austria. We hadn't spent the extra euro to get sleeper cars so the 5 of us slept/snuggled (haha) in our train compartment for the night. Upon reaching the station in Austria the next morning, I was so disoriented from lack of sleep, hunger, and finding myself in a country where we knew absolutely nothing about the language (German) and could not make sense out of any of the signs (I mean in Rome, we know the important phrases and how to get ourselves around). Somehow we managed to get our transportation passes, hop the tram into the main center, and find our hostel - the Wombat, which was really modern, funky, and caters to young travelers. After dropping our bags off, we found a corner cafe for some food and it is just a different experience from what we have in Rome: an elegant building with high ceilings, chandeliers, waiters in suits. Then we took the U-Bahn to the city center where we found Stephansplatz (the plaza) and Stephansdom (the cathedral) - a huge Gothic cathedral which unfortunately was undergoing restoration on the exterior. BUT the interior is amazing (very Gothic - tall columns that turn into the ribbed vaulted ceiling) as you can see.

And it gets even better when we took the elevator up the bell tower for a view over the city. Totally unexpected and unnoticed from the ground, but the roof is covered with a mosaic of thousands of tiles. And we got our first taste of the weather that was yet to come for the next few days: cold, overcast, and windy. Overall, besides the weather, I really liked Vienna - wide boulevards, nice green park spaces, elegant architecture - lots of nice stonework, wrought iron details, Gothic architecture... COMPLETELY different from Rome with its narrow back-roads, having to avoid being hit by cars, motorcyles, and other pedestrians, and every building is probably from a different era.


























There were a lot of historical museums that we didn't end up visiting, but I know there are some worthwhile collections to see; we did go to an architecture exhibit at the Museum Quartier for a few hours and I learned a lot about Austrian architecture just by going through. And the best part of Vienna: goulash, Wiener schnitzel, potato dumplings, and the beer!

photograph

just links to all my pictures so far:

Fall Break Trip
Austria (Vienna, Salzburg)
Prague
Germany (Munich, Neuschwanstein Castle)

Zaha Hadid site/photography exhibit

Hilltowns (1, 2, 3)
the Vatican/St. Peter's Square
Oliver/Rachele's birthdays
Colosseum/Palatine
Parco della Musica

Venice
Verona, Vicenza
Lucca, Genoa, Torino

Ostia Antica
Rome

more to come...

next

hmm okay, after we got back from the hilltowns we had to adjust to life in Rome again like when you come home from a vacation. The week was filled with more history, studio (our new design project is a Baroque art museum along the river), and we visited the Ara Pacis museum which now has the Valentino collection. A few pictures of the dress displays:












THEN a group of us (me, Chelsea, Brian, and Andrew) went to Florence over the weekend - forgot my camera battery in Rome so was camera-free for once - saw the David sculpture by Michelangelo, took contraband pictures at the Uffizi and Academia art galleries (not allowed to take photographs but Andrew managed to snag one of the David), visited S. Lorenzo, S. Maria Novella and the exterior of S. Spirito (ohh the days of BTA), crossed the Ponte Vecchio (the only bridge in Florence not bombed during World War II)... saw the Duomo (one of my favorite buildings) where we also climbed the bell tower for a great view down onto the dome and the city. We have seen so many different types of cities and towns in Italy and Florence seems to be a mix of all of them - hills like Urbino, waterfronts and bridges like Venice, and an urban center like Rome. I also bought a track jacket which had been on my to-do list, tried a liver pate appetizer one night, and we also had waffles with gelato. We packed a lot in the two days we were there and tacked on a quick 2-hour trip to Pisa to pose with the leaning tower; I am so happy we took the initiative to take the trip and my only regret was of course that I don't have my own pictures. but here are some from the others:













THEN this week was studio studio studio for our midterm review today. Late nights and all-nighters so I should be tired and sleeping now but I'm excited to pack and prepare for our trip over break week - we leave tomorrow night on an overnight train to Vienna! It's suppsed to be pretty cold and rainy throughout the whole week but hopefully it won't affect our plans. Our basic itinerary is:

10/26-10/30 - Vienna, Austria (possible daytrips to Salzburg and Graz)
10/31-11/1 - train to Prague, Czech Republic
11/2-11/3 - Munich, Germany (daytrip to Neuschwastein castle)
and flight back to Rome in time for history class @ 9 am Monday morning

so off to do some errands and packing, live through our review, have some fun tonight, visit the new Zaha Hadid museum building site tomorrow, and start the adventure. Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen!

catching up

Ciao ciao, well this is going to be quite the entry because so much has happened since the last update AND there is even more coming up in the next few weeks.

First off is my last entry from the hilltowns trip. After Siena, we went to an abandoned monastery at St. Galgnano and spent the afternoon in Arezzo seeing the Duomo (every city has one!) and frescoes at San Francesco and spending the afternoon in a park with this amazing view:

And some of the best parts of this trip have been just driving through the hills, listening to good music (some country, soundtracks – Lord of the Rings anyone?), and sleeping/reflecting. At night we drove up and around the hills to Urbino where we are staying at the best hotel – very
modern, comfortable, and even luxurious? Slept amazingly, took a nice warm shower (decent-size shower stall, perfect water pressure and temperature), enjoyed the best hotel breakfast so far (croissant, yogurt, cereal, fresh fruit, cappuccino). As a group we walked to the University of Urbino’s campus where the architecture/layout was planned by Giancarlo De Carlo. Due to the topography, the cement and brick dorms are built into the hillsides and have amazing views out into the valley and mountains. It was very Scarpa-esque and definitely reminded me of the Brion Cemetery -- it is hard to tell whether the architecture is imposing itself onto the landscape or vice versa.

In the afternoon we climbed one of the steepest hills thus far (seriously, probably a 40-degree incline) to a park at the top and then further on to the fortress. From the top you get one of the best views back onto the town and as you can see, it’s just the ideal medieval town – a castle stronghold built on top of a hill with fortified walls.

After a nap, some sketching, and an espresso we walked around the perimeter walls and just talked and admired the view. It was such a great afternoon and the best part was that walking around Urbino today was the most fall-like we’ve felt since being here. Because Rome is such an urban concentration, I haven’t felt like it was fall because there aren’t many trees to change colors and it hasn’t cooled down yet. But here we all wore jackets, scarves, boots, the works. On a side note, I loved how everyone dressed here and Urbino seemed surprisingly young – there were college kids walking around and people were out in the streets even late at night, something we had not seen in any of the other hilltowns.

Finally we ate at the recommended Taverna degli Artisti, had some delicious and well-priced pasta and bread, and ended the night by watching (and Jenna and Erica even participated in) an Aztec dance show – go figure!

che ora sono?

so it's pretty late here (or early, depending on how you look at it) and we're up studying for our history test tomorrow. For the past weeks, we have had these history walking tours and they have been interesting and we've listened, taken notes, sketched, etc. but now it's time to do the readings, buckle down on the facts, and be able to identify slides and write an essay. The material is really interesting, I just wish that I had started this earlier and that I wasn't doing this at 2 in the morning.

Anyways, last night we had a semi-family-style dinner together as a group of us compiled our history notes and as motivation to study. I made salmon and roasted potatoes and Joanne and Patty prepared garlic bread and a spinach/tomato/mozzarella salad -- so delicious and only about 4E/person. I just baked the fish in the oven with oil and rosemary but I'd love to try out recipes for different sauces in the future when we have more time (no idea when that will be though).

Later today we have the history test, desk crits/pin-ups in studio, and then we're going to the Ara Pacis Museum. This museum is one of the few examples of new modern architecture in Rome and it definitely stands out next to the historical churches and ancient ruins nearby. Right now there is currently a Valentino dress collection on exhibit (Chelsea, Erica and I went to see it on Sunday) and I love LOVED it - beautiful dresses and they're displayed very innovatively. Anways, we're going tomorrow as a studio more to analyze it as a museum organization (for our new studio project) but I'm sure I'll return to my old ways with fashion sketches. I'll post pictures later from the exhibit, it's not to be missed.

As annoying as it is to be up at this hour, it is actually very convenient to communicate with other people. When we're at RPI, these are the loneliest hours because no one outside of architecture students are awake (or semi-awake as the case may be) and we just work in studio, cut off from the outside world. But now that I'm in Rome with the time difference, this is the prime time to talk to people back home (-6 hours) or even to Morgan (+8 hours) in Australia! So it'll make these late nights/all-nighters more enjoyable knowing that I'm not the only one awake.

Well that's about it for now, just needed a break from studying - I hear the street cleaners out in the Campo so it's that time again. Hopefully another update and pictures before we leave for Florence on Friday afternoon, so excited! Ciao and buona notte.

another day in the hilltowns

10-09-2007 SIENA

We arrived in Siena last night and had to lug all of our bags up and down the streets (and I do mean up and down) in the dark to the town center and our hotel. Our bus driver Carlo led a group of us to a ristorante he knew and I had pasta w/ pesto (p.s. I now love pesto, tomatoes + mozzarella, bruschetta, and other Italian specialties) and of course, wine.

In the morning, we went as a group to the Campo which is a big fan-shaped piazza that slopes down to the Palazzo Pubblico (town hall). You know how they say that all roads lead to Rome? Well it seems like every road in Siena leads down to this space – any time you cut down a side street, you find yourself drawn down to the campo, which is one of the lowest points of the city. There are cafes and restaurants that line the outer edge and there were always people sitting in the piazza throughout the day and I thought it was a very effective urban space. Like St. Peter’s Square (the elliptical colonnaded space outside of St. Peter’s Basilica), it is a very simple solution that is different than just a rectangular piazza with a fountain as so many are here in Rome. There, we climbed the tight winding stairs up the tower to the top for a photo session and more panoramic pictures of Siena:

On the left of that picture is the Duomo, which is the other major center of the town. With all the churches that we’re seeing both on our trips and in Rome, it’s easy for them to all blend together but each of them has a certain quality or distinct color scheme that sets it apart. In this one, the interior was a collage of patterns and textures – the floor tiles were either checkerboard or Escher-like, the piers were black and white striped marble, the vaulted ceilings
almost had a textile pattern, and then the dome was coffered and decorated like the Pantheon. At one time the church was going to be even larger making it the largest Christian church (even after St. Peter’s), but this plan never went through because of the plague. Nevertheless, the interior space is just so impressive and dramatic as you can see:

Siena had a lot of shops and restaurants, mostly located around the Campo and surrounding streets and it felt somewhat urban like Rome. Chelsea, Andrew, Erica and I walked around for the afternoon and we also found the church of St. Catherine where Catherine’s head is kept in a bucket in a chapel as a relic (her body, we learned, is still in Rome). Then we picked up Jenna had a great dinner and good time together. I have yet to be disappointed by the food or company on these trips!

Here are more pictures from Montepulciano/Pienza and Siena.

Back to the present a few side notes:
- a group of us are going to Florence this weekend - taking the train on Friday afternoon, staying 2 nights in a hostel (from the website, it basically looks like a hotel), stopping in Pisa on Sunday, and taking the train back to Rome. Can’t wait to see the Duomo!

- from October 26-November 4 we have the week off to travel so a group of us are going to Vienna, Prague, and Munich. We’ve booked our train tickets and hostels but now we just need to fill in the gaps of what we’re actually going to do and see there.

- I need to write another Baroque thesis as the basis for our next studio project (designing a museum to house Baroque art/sculpture/architecture, lecture halls, exhibitions, classrooms, gift shop, etc), prepare an 8-minute oral presentation about our hilltowns trip for Italian on Wednesday, and read/study for our history test on Thursday. Ciao!

hilltowns recap

We got back from our hilltowns trip on Friday night and I had a great time - Tuscany is a beautiful area and so different from Rome, so the break was very much appreciated. I'll recap the trip over the next few days.

10-08-2007 MONTEPULCIANO, PIENZA

So we were off to the hilltowns today, which I am so excited for. The first stop was in Montepulciano where the bus dropped us off at the church of Madonna di S. Biagio and then we had the morning to walk up the hill into the main town. I sketched for awhile, took in the amazing panoramic views, and wandered through the residential parts which were mainly deserted; I always feel like I’m invading someone’s private property but these are the places that capture the real feeling of the town – lots of orange, brick, and stone here. As you walk up the winding roads to the town center, this is the view out onto the hills and down onto the church:

For lunch Chelsea, Joanne and I ate down in a wine cellar and enjoyed some wine. Then we wound our way down the hill and boarded the bus for our next stop in Pienza, a much smaller town than the previous – there were some shops and cafes on the main street and you could literally walk around the perimeter wall in 15 minutes. Again, being set on a hill there were some more amazing views:

There was a cathedral perched on the edge of the hill and in the front, the buildings on the side are skewed and mirrored like Michelangelo’s Campidoglio but it’s much shallower so you can’t really tell. The interior was beautiful with light streaming in from the southern windows in the apse and the space was very open except for the piers which supported this amazing vaulted ceiling:

The afternoon was just so relaxing and perfect; Joanne, Chelsea and I stayed in the cathedral for an hour and sketched (my sketchbook is getting great usage), walked around the town and ran into everyone else at least two or three times (found a few of them sleeping), and Jenna and I ventured to the co-op store for some fruit before rolling out to the next hilltown, Siena.

Wow, looking back and re-reading this entry I think I overused the words ‘amazing,’ ‘beautiful,’ etc. but I think that is just going to be the theme of this trip and I don’t think I’ll get tired or bored of it all because it’s so different from what we’ve experienced in Rome, it really feels like a nice vacation. Ciao!