ITALIA July 5, 2012

At GT-Lorraine we have a 5-day weekend in the middle of the semester. For this weekend, we decided to go to both Venice and Rome, Italy, 2 very well-known cities.  Simply because of the amount of time that we spent in those two cities, this blog post may be the longest I have composed to date though I will do my best to keep it succinct.

We started out in Venice Italy, of the most well-known canal cities in Europe.  Geographically, it is located in the northern part of Italy.  If you view Italy as a boot, it would be on the upper right side near where the wearer’s calf would be.

Once we arrived in Venice, we went looking for food, we found pizza.  Quickly I discovered that Italian pizza is not the same as American pizza.  One of the best ways to describe Italian pizza is to think about homemade American pizza.  The crust was made out of something similar to unleavened biscuit dough and the sauce was a rich tomato base seasoned with oregano and basil.  As much as I wish I could provide a picture for you, I’m not the greatest at taking pictures of food; I’m usually too busy eating it.

After lunch we decided to explore the city and to do so crossed many, many canals via bridges that allow navigation of Venice.  In the canal system, there are many small canals and the main canal, which ranges from one to two hundred feet at its widest points.  The picture that I have of the canal is at one of its narrower points.  One interesting effect of the expansive canal system and lack of roads is the fact that residents, the few natives who are left, typically own boats instead of cars.  Restaurants are supplied by boats, not trucks, water busses not traditional busses are used for public transport and markets are based on the side of the canals where vendors use their boats as stands, not their vans.  The canal system leads to a totally different culture that is almost totally independent of the automobile, something that it was difficult for me, an American, to grasp.

For me the most surprising thing about Venice was St. Marco square.  This square is at least 4 acres is size and is swarming with people and pigeons all day.  At the end of the square is an enormous church, much bigger than I would have ever expected to find in Venice.

The one night we spent in Venice, we stayed in a hostel on the island of Lido, one of the islands surrounding Venice.  Lido had beaches on the Mediterranean Sea that had relatively clean water.  We swam in the Sea for a while and then scoured the beach for some shells to take back to the hotel as souvenirs.  After a long hot day and 5 weeks of academics, the time on the beach was a much needed bit of relaxation.

When we tried to go back to the mainland to buy some souvenirs and catch our train for Rome, we experienced another part of European business culture that is difficult to find if not nonexistent in American business culture today, strikes.  The water bus drivers that took us to Lido the previous night were now on strike.  Thankfully, they guaranteed minimum service and we were able to visit a Leonardo de Vinci museum in Venice and catch our train to Rome without any major problems.

After arriving in Rome, we had a scheduled visit to the Vatican City at night.  We went through the several museums displaying sculptures, tapestries, and paintings before entering the Sistine Chapel, a sight that is absolutely phenomenal.  Every square inch of the walls and ceiling were painted by Michelangelo.  We spent at last 30 minutes staring at all of the paintings depicting stories from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  The Sistine Chapel is a holy place and for that reason pictures are not allowed, but even if pictures were allowed, there is no way that they would be able to do justice to the sheer area covered by paintings.

Later in our trip we visited St. Peter’s Basilica at night.  The square in front of the Basilica is enormous and is capable of holding many thousands of people.  Though I am not Catholic, I found my visit to the Vatican to be a very worthwhile experience.  I am Methodist and though the Protestant and Catholic churches split several centuries ago, there is still a long common history and many common beliefs.

The next morning, we went to see one of the most famous Roman sites, the Coliseum.  When it was used, it held 75,000 people and had a floor on which gladiators fought one another in addition to exotic animals.  The floor has since collapsed and the stadium seating has collapsed.  However, with a structure this large, deterioration over two millennia cannot hide the resources and the technical know-how that it took to construct this colossal stadium. We were able to walk around inside and even go up to the second level where you can clearly see the rooms that were located under the stadium floor. The coliseum is one of the sights that you see pictures of throughout life yet actually going makes you appreciate the sheer size of the structure.

Along with the ticket that we bought for the coliseum, we purchased admission to the Roman Forum.  From here, you can look out over Rome and see the skyline, which looks totally different than the skyline of a large American city.  There are no skyscrapers and no buildings that dominated the skyline; the closest to achieving this status is the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

This brings me to one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip, buying excessive amount of Gelato.  During our time in Rome, the temperature exceeded 90 degrees every day.  With the heat from the stone buildings and asphalt roads, it certainly felt like it was over 100 degrees.  Thankfully, this gave us a great excuse to get gelato multiple times per day.  I didn’t keep an exact count, but I’m pretty sure that we got gelato 10 times during our three days in Rome.   One gelateria stood out, Valentino’s, which was near one of the more famous fountains in Rome, the Trevi Fountain that we visited twice, once during the day and again at night.

Probably our most cultural experience in Italy was when Italy played England in the quarterfinal of the Euro Cup.  In one of the squares, I’m not sure which one it was, there was a large screen set up so that a large crowd could watch the game.  As regulation time ended with the score still tied at zero, we wondered what the outcome of the game would be and whether there was going to be a happy mob or a relatively upset mob.  There were Italy flags being waved in the air as the first and the second overtime began, but again at the end of both overtimes, the game was still tied.  Then, it was time for the penalty kicks.  After four kicks, Italy clinched the game and the Romans when crazy while we quickly found our way out of the crowd.  Locals drove around in their cars well into the night honking their horns and celebrating the Italian victory.  I’m not a fan of soccer, but the game was enjoyable and the atmosphere was full of energy.  I’m sure that this was not the only place in Rome that there was a large gathering of people to watch the game.  As I knew before coming to Europe, but that I have really seen while in Europe, the Europeans really do enjoy their soccer.

We left Rome the next morning at 8am to begin our journey back to Metz, through Italy, Switzerland, and France.  The positive way to describe our travel back to Metz is that, because of some storms and specifically a landslide near Zurich, we took the “Scenic Route.”  We saw some very large wind turbines and a lot of farmland that was reminiscent of getting lost in the United States.  You can’t really say that we got lost; we just took a hodgepodge of busses and trains that got us where we needed to go.

In closing this blog post, I want to apologize for the length if you’re still reading this conglomeration of ideas and experiences.  But I would like to say that our trip to Italy was the most relaxing trip that we have taken so far.  The Italian way of life is much slower and more relaxed than the typical fast-paced American lifestyle. It is relaxing to experience this lifestyle, but for someone that leads a fast-paced life in America, I felt somewhat outside my element.  Italy has been fun, and hopefully my body won’t fuss at me too much for the massive amount of gelato, pasta, and pizza that I ate during my time in Italy.