For the past few days, the weather has been beautiful at last. I can no longer hide inside using the snow as an excuse. However, I'm simultaneously watching Ever After and eating bread as I write this, so I've clearly found other excuses.
I did things today though. One of my roommates, Kelly, and I went to Galleria Borghese in Villa Borghese. I don't have pictures, but just imagine a more ornate version of Mr. Darcy's house during the part when the old housekeepy lady asks Keira Knightley if she does not think him a handsome man (she dare says he is).
The gallery is gorgeous; no surprise. I almost appreciated the Bernini pieces more when I saw them at the Getty though, because this gallery is so overwhelming and overflowing with immaculate art that I couldn't even begin take it all in. I suppose that's a nice problem to have.
This may show that I have bad taste, but my favorite piece that I saw was called Dama con Liocorno by Raffaello. It's the portrait of an unamused seeming girl who looks like Luna Lovegood and is holding a baby unicorn. I want to steal it. (It being both the painting and the baby unicorn.) Most of the paintings had to do with the taking of women or the suffering of Jesus. I'm too squeamish for pics of Jesus, so I spent most of my time examining the sculptures.
We then met two of my other roommates, Gabrielle and Amanda, at the Colosseum. This is shameful, but I hadn't been there yet. It is indeed colossal. All I could think of when I was there for some reason, was the movie Jumper, which I didn't even like. I'll be presenting on the Colosseum for my Ancient History class, so hopefully I'll have more to think about next time I go. I wasn't able to fully understand the gallery or the Colosseum without the complete histories.
We wandered around by the Forum and Vittoriano before heading home. Tomorrow I'm going on a day trip with some people to Assisi.
Okay I will now finally do some housekeeping and give a quick overview of Napoli before I forget.
Basically, I ate lots of food. Amanda and I stayed with Gabrielle's extended family. They were all extremely nice and, because most of them don't speak any English, it was a great way to practice Italian.
We stayed with Gabrielle's dad's cousin's ex-wife (I know). She was the sweetest old lady named Lena. I originally hadn't planned on staying the night, so she had pajamas and a toothbrush set for me. She made it her job to feed us constantly. I blame her for the fact that I now need to eat an extra 7 pastries with nutella at each meal in order to feel full.
On Saturday, we mostly admired the natural sights- Vesuvius, the ocean, views of Capri, etc. On Sunday, Lena look us into town to see the streets and go into approx. 10 million churches. Italy has to have the highest number of churches per capita. Not to suck but, after a certain amount of time, they all look the same. It was still awesome to see them though, and I am really thankful to Gabrielle's family for take care of us.
Naples has an entirely different vibe than Rome. I'm glad to be living in Rome over Naples primarily because things are closer together and it's cleaner/ more modern, but I enjoyed seeing the quintessential Italian town with laundry hanging over tiny winding roads. Those exist in Rome too, but they're mixed in with Zaras.
By the way, speaking of tiny winding roads, riding in cars in Italy is the real life version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Every time. I don't understand how more pedestrians aren't dead. The corners are super sharp and these tinytiny cars just zip around with no possible way (that I'm aware of??) of knowing what's around the corner.
It was raining more than half of the time we were in Naples, but it was a great trip. I am so happy to have visited the birth place of pizza. I may be behind of my Borghese history, but I am all caught up on pizza.
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| I tried to add over a dozen pictures of beautiful landscapes, yet for some reason this is the only image that loaded... I will deal with this later. |
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