Month: March 2012

Guest Post: Florentine Fashion

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There are many wonderful things about Italy: the food, the art, the history, and the culture. I came to Italy to experience all these things. However, you cannot think about Italy without also thinking about the influential fashion houses that originated here. Versace, Missoni, Gucci, Pucci, Armani, Valentino, Fendi, Dolce & Gabana, Prada, Miu Miu, Salvatore Ferragamo. The list goes on and on.

When I came to Florence, my mission from the outset was to go to two fashion museums here: the new Gucci Museum and the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. I luckily found a like-minded individual to share in my celebration of all things high fashion and culture, Margaret Rettinger. We then donned our newly purchased Zara dresses and leather jackets and set off to experience the finer side of Italian life.

Our first stop was the Gucci Museum. This museum opened its doors in September of 2011 and had three chic floors. The ground floor was the travel section of the collection. It had beautiful antique luggage pieces and even a Gucci Cadillac! The next level was evening wear, handbags, flora prints, contemporary art space, and jewelry. One of my favorite things on this level was the collection of evening gowns Hollywood starlets had worn that were on display. You can’t truly appreciate how intricately these couture dresses are made until you’re really close up. So much detail! The final level was sport, lifestyle, and logomania. We ended our tour of the Gucci Museum by having lunch at the café attached to the museum.

After our very deliciously chic lunch, we headed off for the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum. It was in the bottom of the HUGE Ferragamo store near the Ponte Vecchio. This museum was considerably smaller than Gucci’s but certainly not less fun. They had all these beautiful shoes on display that had been made for famous fashionistas through the ages like Carmen Miranda, Audrey Hepburn (a personal favorite), Judy Garland, Meryl Streep, and Lady Gaga. It was awesome seeing all the molds of their feet that had been made to perfectly fit the shoe. There were also quotes around the museum by Salvatore Ferragamo that were very entertaining. In one of them, he talks about how there are three kinds of women in the world. The first are the Cinderella’s and they wear shoes smaller than a 6. Venuses are women who wear a size 6 (that would be me!!). The final group of women are the Aristocrats who wear a size larger than 6. I thought that that quote was very entertaining and a solid description of the different types of women.

I know visiting fashion museums maybe isn’t the most academic pursuit but it provided a refreshing glimpse into the pop culture side of modern Italy. It was definitely one of my favorite things I’ve done so far on my own during this trip and it will be greatly cherished for years to come. To anyone travelling to Florence: visit the Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo museums!

– Catherine Anne Culbertson
Italy 2012

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Arrivederci, Roma!

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Our two weeks in Rome were wonderful. After constantly moving around for the first few weeks of the trip, it was nice to get to settle in and stay in one place for a while. We’ve been busy, though. We spent most of our days touring, exploring the city’s 2700-year-old history first-hand. We’ve seen everything from the crumbling ruins of the Roman Empire to the impossibly beautiful churches of the Renaissance to the simpler (and hideously boring) architecture of Fascist Italy. We’ve toured churches and museums, seen some of the most significant art and architecture of the last few thousand years, and learned so much about the culture and history of this city.

Interspersed with all this touring are free afternoons and entire free days, and we’ve used this time to rest and to experience and explore the city. Between the 23 of us, we’ve spent countless hours (and countless euros) shopping, gone to mass at the Vatican, visited jazz clubs, gone dancing, strolled through open-air markets, gone on picnics in the city’s sprawling gardens, and gone running along the banks of the Tiber River. We’ve even gone to a professional soccer match and were amazed and overwhelmed by the sounds of cannon-fire and fight songs, the sight of massive red and yellow flags waving all around us …and the smell of cigarettes.

It’s surreal and wonderful just being here in this country, and being here with such incredible people has made this trip all the more amazing! In case you can’t tell, I’m more than a little excited about this adventure and the people with whom I’m sharing it. Everything about this trip has been wonderful! We’re almost four weeks into this Italian adventure, and I’m honestly still loving every moment. I still wake up every morning just as excited, just as amazed that I’m actually here.  It’s actually really sad to think that our trip is over halfway over; I don’t want it to end!

You should be hearing from us a lot in the next few weeks, not only from the official blog writers but from our classmates as well, writing about their own experiences in Rome and the cities to come. Stay tuned! We’re heading to Florence next—the city of Dante and Petrarch, Michelangelo and da Vinci, the birthplace of the Renaissance. I honestly can’t wait! There’s so much to see and do and experience in this country, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead!

– Brian
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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rletteri /

Sorry the blog has been a little quiet lately- we’ve been awfully busy running around Rome seeing as much as possible. We should have a new post up for you sometime in the next couple of days, but until then, have some pictures! -SH

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St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City

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The Colosseum

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The “Wedding Cake” monument to Victor Emanuel

Hi!

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A lot of you have asked to see more pictures, so here are a few snapshots of the treasures we’ve seen over the past few days. Enjoy! -SH

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Michelangelo’s Moses

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One of the apostles in the church of St. John of Lateran

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Statue in the baroque church built over the Diocletian baths

When in Rome

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Ciao from Roma! We arrived in Rome four days ago and have since been enjoying the sights, sounds, and tastes of our first big Italian city! Our hotel is located near Vatican City, just a 15 minute walk across the Tiber River to the heart of the capitol city! Our motto for this leg of travel has been: “When in Rome!”

We began our Roman adventures with a bus tour to acquaint ourselves with the main sights of the city. Before lunch we stopped by the Trevi Fountain to toss in a few coins in hopes of returning to Rome someday. A select few of us actually fulfilled this prediction from previous trips to Italy! The combination of fond memories and new experiences within our group was exciting to see.

As a group we have toured the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the famous Ara Pacis altar, to name a few. But beyond the tours, many of us have explored the city on our own to experience the shopping, urbanization, and nightlife typical of Rome. We have mastered navigation of the city by public transportation and on foot. And so far no one has been hit by the crazy Italian drivers who “sporadically follow traffic laws,” according to our guide book. At this point we’ve all had more than our share of cappuccinos and gelato too!

Long story short, we’re not homesick quite yet. But I think it’s safe to say we are all glad to be in one place for a while! Getting comfortable in Rome hasn’t been difficult, and the whole group is getting to know each other better as well! We are all learning a lot about the history and traditions of Italy, but there are lessons to learn about ourselves in the mix too! A general consensus has been to experience as much of the city as possible while we’re here. This is a once in a life time chance, and we all plan to spend it well. You know what they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do!”

~Rachel
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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Hello from the Vico

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Hello everyone! We are now solidly into Week Two of our Italian adventure, and it has fallen to me to catch the blog world up with how we have been spending our days. First of all, I should clarify that we are, in fact, on mainland Italy. In order to get here, we took an overnight ferry from Sicily to Naples, which many people were worried about. Motion sickness is not to be taken lightly when you’re sharing a room that’s about 20 square feet total. But, as far as I know, not a single dinner was lost on the 12 hour ride! In fact, several people (myself included) said they actually slept better with the rocking of the boat.

Once we got to Naples, we had a long bus ride to our hotel in Vico Equense, where we got to stay for four whole nights! This may not seem like a lot, but since we have been doing a TON of travelling, it certainly felt like a long time. We also had our first full free day in Vico Equense. Several people went to Naples or Sorrento, and some stayed around the tiny city. We found laundry services and befriended the people who own a pub called Tito’s across the street from our hotel. It became our hangout spot in Vico Equense after our daily excursions, and we all enjoyed having a few “American” cocktails and appetizers there.

But we didn’t really spend too much time in the town itself, honestly. Besides our free day, we used the hotel as a jumping off point for excursions to Pompeii, Herculaneum, Cumae, and the Archaeological Museum of Naples. For all of these sights (which we saw in three jam-packed days), we had the same guide: Gianni. I can’t speak for the whole group, but I think most of us really enjoyed his informative and comical way of speaking about the things we were seeing.

I honestly don’t know how to express Pompeii, which we saw on our first day with Gianni, in words. Everyone knows about the plaster casts, but there is so much more to the city. Firstly, it is a full city, a fact which a lot of people overlook. We toured it from 9 am to almost 5 pm and we still hadn’t seen nearly all of the houses, shops, and theaters. Nonetheless, the tour felt comprehensive; we saw floor mosaics, original statues, and even an ancient brothel. It was mind-boggling to know that all of these buildings had been preserved for nearly 2000 years, almost exactly as they were.

Herculaneum, which was also destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, was very much like Pompeii but much smaller. We only spent half a day there and we saw almost everything. Cumae, meanwhile, was sort of a bust. We had to drive an hour from Herculaneum to get there, only to discover that the major site of this first Greek settlement was closed for renovation. We were all a little bummed out, but we still got to see an amazing view of the sea and surrounding cities in Cumae.

This morning, we checked out of our hotel and said goodbye to Vico Equense. We drove to the Archaeological Museum in Naples, which really tied together all of the things we had seen. For example, many of the original mosaics, frescoes, and statues from Pompeii and Herculaneum were there. It was a three hour tour, led by Gianni, before lunch and a long bus ride to Rome.

Something I’m noticing as we continue on with our trip is that we aren’t only going in geographic order from Southern Italy to Northern, but also in a quasi-chronological fashion. We’ve seen so many things about the ancient Greeks and Romans in such a short time, and now we’ll be touring such famous Roman imperial sites as The Coliseum and the Forum. It’s so hard to grasp all the things we are learning about, but the order in which we see them is really helping me out!

We’ll be in Rome for two whole weeks, so expect many blog posts from us while we’re touring this amazing and historic city!

– Lacey
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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Week One: The Adventure Continues

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A little more than a week ago, I never could have imagined we would see and experience some of the things we have in the last few days. Eating octopus and swordfish, exploring two-thousand-year-old ruins, wandering through cities and hiking mountains… it’s been an amazing adventure! Italy is such an incredible country, and almost every day we’ve been here has been better and more beautiful than the last.

We’re still in the “classical” phase of the trip, so the sights we’ve explored have mostly been from ancient Greek and Roman history. Last Wednesday we left Agrigento for Syracuse, and on the way we stopped at a 4th-century Roman villa with the largest collection of classical mosaics anywhere in the world. In Syracuse and Taormina, we visited crumbling temples and enormous Greek theaters. This country has such an amazingly rich history, and I’m finding it fascinating to actually visit the places and monuments we studied in class earlier this semester!

Now that we’ve gotten over our jet lag, most of us are adjusting to the slower Italian pace of life. In America, many people seem to rush through their days and their lives, seldom taking the time to just relax and enjoy the day. Here, businesses close at midday, and people take a few hours just to eat, rest, and enjoy their time with the people they love. A few days ago, a few friends and I gave it a try. We sat outside at a restaurant by the water, talking and eating, barely noticing the three hours that passed us by. This entire lifestyle is truly incredible, and a part of me wishes me never had to leave!

For me—and, I know, for many others—the highlight of the trip has been Taormina. The city was built into the side of a mountain, and our hotel had the kind of view poets used to write about. Mount Etna towers over the horizon, covered in snow, almost too beautiful to be real. As the sun sets, stars and city lights burn against the darkening sky, and the Mediterranean Sea spreads off into eternity. It is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and words and pictures can never begin to capture it. Honestly, I don’t think anything can ever top that experience… but I’ve said that before on this trip and been proven wrong. I just can’t get over how amazing this country is! Now, we’ve left Sicily and arrived in mainland Italy, and I can’t wait to see what adventures await us in the days and weeks to come!

– Brian
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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Ciao from Sicily

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We’re on our second day in Italy and I think we’re already getting the hang of this world travel thing! Today we are journeying to the southeastern coast of Sicily to hang out in Siracusa for a day or two. But yesterday, we toured the ancient world of Agrigento… Here’s a little summary of that adventure!

After tasting some Italian breakfast, we boarded our private motor coach and took a short drive to the Valley of the Temples. Our tour guide, Giovanna (fluent in at least 4 different languages!) showed us around the site of four large temples dating back to around 500 BC. The first is traditionally known to have venerated Juno (or Hera in Greek). We sat as we listened to Giovanna explain the rituals surrounding this archaic spot and were shocked to discover that our seats were actually the ruins of a giant sacrificial altar! The second temple, traditionally associated with Concordia, was the most complete of the ruins we viewed. Giovanna even showed us a human skull buried in the dust and history of an area that has not yet been excavated! Then we walked to the Temple of Heracles and had a chance to explore the ruins on our own for a bit, before moving on to the Temple of Zeus. This final site, though the largest of the four temples, was in near complete ruin, but still sparked our interest as visitors to the ancient world frozen in time.

Giovanna also showed us a few natural “sculptures” that overlap the ancient and modern worlds: trees! Valley of the Temples is home to several olive trees that have survived since times of old. The descendants of these trees can be found all over Sicily, spanning the gap between past and present. Also in bloom during the winter are the beautiful almond trees dotting the entire valley. These must be related to the cherry trees we love back home in the South, with the same white and pink blossoms we see every spring! A festival celebrating the start of almond blooming season occurs in early February, so we came just in time to see the peak of the season! The valley also holds both male and female pistachio trees. Though out of season right now, Giovanna told us how the two species of the same tree need each other to survive. The male trees fertilize their female counterparts and don’t attract bugs, while the female trees produce fruit and keep the pistachio population afloat amidst the attacks of nature.

All in all we learned a lot about the history of Sicily yesterday! In addition, we had our first authentic Sicilian pizza experience and got to explore the city after lunch. We all agree that the four-course meals and obvious language barrier might take some getting used to… but so far, Italy has been treating us well! We’ll write more soon, when we can take our eyes off the beautiful Sicilian countryside! Thanks for reading and as always, comment below if you have questions or comments!

~Rachel
Italy Blog Team
2012

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