Amalfi Coast

04/08/11

     Friday marked another early start for a weekend of traveling. I was meeting my mom at Termini Train Station at 8:45 to meet her on her way back from Florence.  Our train to Naples left at about 9:30. We got into Naples around 11:30 and I had been dying to go to this pizza place called Da Michele. It’s supposed to be really good and recommended in several guide books, not to mention, it’s the pizza place that Elizabeth Gilbert eats at in her book Eat, Pray, Love. So our first stop was there. It was about a ten-minute walk from the train station, but with all the luggage it felt like an hour! Gratefully, there wasn’t much of a wait to be seated so we put our luggage in the storage compartment and ordered. They only offer two types of pizza at this restaurant, marinara and margherita. I wanted to try a little of each so we ordered a little of both. In the end, I liked the margherita pizza better, although both were fantastic. The dough was definitely the best part. It was very light underneath and thick around the outside. 

Margherita Pizza at Da Michele

Marinara Pizza at Da Michele

     From lunch, we headed back to the train station where we caught the Circumvesuviana, which took us to Sorrento, the first city in the Amalfi Coast. From here, we were going to try to take a fairy alongside the coast that would take us to our final destination, Ravello. However, we were a slight bit confused as to where to catch this fairy and wound up walking all the way down a bunch of hills and stairs to the port. As it turned out, at this time of year, there was no fairy that traveled to the Amalfi/Ravello area and we had to turn around and get back to where we started from. There was no way we were hiking all the way back up hill to get to the train station so we caught a bus. While it wasn’t the most convenient trip around Sorrento, it did allow us to get a feel for the city since we weren’t going to be spending much time there. 

View of Sorrento

     We finally got on the bus and it was about an hour and a half trip to the city of Amalfi. The time seemed to fly by though because the view from the coastline was unbelievable. While I’ve seen pictures, they definitely don’t do it justice! The whole ride consisted of hairpin turns on a road that looked as though it was a one-way street, but instead, cars drove both directions. This includes very large coach size buses. Needless to say, I thought it was pretty cool, but my mom couldn’t bear to sit on the side nearest the water out of fear. Every corner we turned I tried to take a picture, but it was often hard to do for every time I would get lined up for a shot, we would take another hairpin turn and my shot would be out of focus. There was a point in time that we got into a minor traffic jam with another bus and our bus driver had to literally get out of the bus to direct traffic. He had cars and buses backing up along the side of the road so that we could squeeze by them with less than an inch between our cars. 

View of Positano

Traffic Jam

Image you see while driving along the coast when looking down from out the window!

Mom's thrilled!

     When we finally got to Amalfi, we got there just in time to catch the bus up to Ravello. It was about a twenty-minute ride up the hill. This sounds like a lot of traveling in one day, but I thought it was totally worth it because using the route we took, we were able to see/drive through every city along the coast. Ravello is located further up than Amalfi so the bus took us upward towards the sky and it seemed as though the clouds followed us. I had never really thought about the fact that clouds aren’t always as high as they appear. As it turns out, many of the clouds that looked far away from Amalfi actually looked like fog from the heights of Ravello. Luckily, the clouds cleared up by the time we made it all the way up to our hotel. 

Amalfi

     The view from our hotel was unbelievable. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a beautiful view and it remained just as pretty as the sun began to set. Not really having much of a game plan as we wanted this to be a relaxing trip, we opened up a bottle of wine before heading to dinner.

View from our room

As the sun begins to set

At sunset

My mom and I before dinner!

     For dinner, we went to a little family run restaurant called Cumpa Cosima. A woman named Netta runs it and the restaurant has been in her family for nearly 65 years. We walked in and couldn’t decide on an appetizer when her son, who was our waiter that evening, suggested we order Netta’s homemade pasta with meatballs, so we did! It was delicious. For my main course, I ordered seafood pasta as I had really been looking forward to trying the seafood here given it’s located right alongside the Mediterranean Sea. The dish was even better than I’d imagined and I quickly finished it. For dessert, Netta brought out one of her famous lemon cakes that we split. At one point during the meal, her son, after having told us he runs the deli next door, came up to me and covered my eyes and said try this. He had cut some fresh salami for us. This was a very sweet gesture and it tasted great, I was just caught very off guard! After a long day, we headed back to the hotel after dinner and went to bed at a very reasonable hour!

Homemade pasta & meatballs

Seafood Pasta from Cumpa Cosima

Lemon Cake & Cappuccino

04/09/11

     When we woke up on Saturday morning, we first went to breakfast at the hotel. They didn’t serve a whole lot, but just a typical Italian breakfast. We had our options of croissants, bread with jam, and coffee. We were thrilled about the coffee, had them bring us out two pots, and finished them easily. After breakfast, we decided to lay in the sun for awhile overlooking the sea. As the day went on, the sun was coming in and out so rather than sitting around all afternoon, we went exploring. After showering, we headed out.

On our way to the center of Ravello

Pretty view

     On our way into the town, we planned on going to lunch. However, we got stopped just before reaching the central square by two men outside of a store called Wine & Drugs who offered us a wine tasting and we obliged. We had the opportunity to try about 8-9 different wines including some dessert wines. The drugs were the dark chocolate they let us try! By the time the wine tasting wrapped up, just about all the restaurants were closed because it was after lunch, but not yet dinner time! We weren’t really sure what to do so we wandered around until we found a place that was still serving. It was located right on the main piazza.

Wine Tasting at Wine & Drugs

Lunch on the Piazza

     I really enjoyed the town of Ravello because you could tell it wasn’t nearly as touristic as many of the other towns I’ve had the chance to travel to. As we were sitting around for lunch, we were able to watch little kids playing soccer as well as see the elderly just hang out. At one point, we saw an older man who looked very similar to my great grandpa Rhodenbaugh. When we finished lunch, we shopped around a little and I got my souvenirs. From here, we headed back up to the hotel where we relaxed and even made freshly squeezed lemonade! The Amalfi Coast is known for their lemon production and lemon trees are everywhere in this area, including directly connected to our hotel. Therefore, I walked over and grabbed a couple and my mom mixed the squeezed lemon with some sugar and I’m not sure what else and made some good tasting lemonade!

Off the Piazza

Lemon trees outside our hotel

     After lying around for a bit, we decided we would try dinner at the hotel restaurant because it looked good, plus it had a great view. Here, I tried fusilli pasta with tomato and mozzarella. For some reason, we were super exhausted and after dinner we headed back to our room and were able to fall asleep around 9:30!

Me & the wonderful view!

Fusilli Pasta w/Mozzarella & Tomatoes

04/10/11

     Sunday morning came and it was time for another day of traveling after a very relaxing past couple of days. We showered and got ready before checking out. By the time we got to the bus stop, we realized we had just missed a bus and because it was a Sunday, they left way less frequently and we were going to have to wait another hour and a half until the next one came. When we got down to Amalfi, we had a similar problem and the next bus wasn’t coming for an hour. However, we were hungry so it worked out well. We got some Panini and gelato to tide us over! When the bus came, it was time to return to the white knuckle drive! I loved every minute of it and this time, my mom even ventured over to the sea side of the bus to capture a couple photos. Because the buses run so few and far between on Sundays, we were lucky to get a seat because the aisles were jam packed. I can’t imagine being stuck standing on that ride!

Just some more pretty views

Yet another close call on the roads

Last glimpse of Sorrento

     We got back to Sorrento, hopped back on the train towards Naples, where we got on the train back to Rome. Once again, the train back to Rome was jam-packed and many people didn’t have anywhere to sit. The train ride felt like a long one and my stomach wasn’t feeling that great. However, I didn’t really mind that it was taking that long because I know it was the last couple hours I would get to spend with my mom until I return to the U.S. in a month. She had decided it would be easiest to just got straight from the train station to the airport and hang out there for the night rather than go back to my apartment and have to wake up at 4 to catch a cab. When we got into Termini, I walked to show the way to the train to the airport to say goodbye. 

     As I turned away, I couldn’t help but to start crying given that as great of a time I am having abroad, you can’t help but be homesick. It’s easier to battle when you aren’t exposed to home, but after having my mom around for over a week, it made it that much harder to say goodbye. I couldn’t get too down though because I know I have to make the best of my last month in Rome and I’ll be home before I know it! After saying my goodbyes, I headed back home to catch up with my roommates and hear about their trip to Ireland. They showed me lots of pictures and it just made me more sure that I definitely need to make it back to Europe to go both there and London at some point in the near future.

Relaxing week in Rome

04/04/11, 04/05/11, 04/06/11, 04/07/11

     Luckily, I had a short week ahead of me before I could meet back up with my mom to head towards one of the destinations I’ve been looking most forward to traveling to, the Amalfi Coast. But first, a week of classes… Nothing all too exciting in the academic front this week. 

     We started filming for our end of the year video on Wednesday. We met at the restaurant Trattorria der Pallero at 8:45 am and began shooting, which lasted until noon. The majority of filming surrounded interviewing the owner about his restaurant, fresh markets, and his life story. He was a very precious older man, yet he spoke very little English, making it difficult to interview him. In order to do so, we had to have the people who help us film ask the question to the owner in Italian, then our host would ask it in English, and then he would answer in Italian. All the while, our host had to nod along as if she understood every word he was responding with. Later, when we go to edit the video, we will clip out the Italian asking the question in Italian and also we will insert English subtitles describing what the owner, Giovanni, is saying. 

     After filming, I had free time from noon to three in the afternoon and since it was gorgeous weather outside, I laid in the sun at Tiber Island. Around 3 in the afternoon, Kelly and I had to go meet our Italian student for our second gathering. We were meeting her at a metro stop and then she was going to show us a few more sights that we wouldn’t ordinarily know to see. First, we went to see the Santa Croce in Jerusalem Church. The inside was really neat and it is said that part of the cross that Jesus was crucified on remains in this church. Following the church, we went to the “Porta Magica” (Magic Door). Here legend has said that if you walked through it in the past, you disappeared. Last stop of the day was to G. Fassi, the oldest Italian gelato factory. I originally wasn’t going to get any gelato because I wasn’t hungry, but given the place we went to, I had to at least try it. I ordered strawberry, banana, and peach. While they all tasted delicious, I had yet to find peach gelato and it was by far my favorite flavor I have tried yet. It was so refreshing! 

Santa Croce in Jerusalem

Porta Magica

Gelato place!

     On Thursday, we had layers of Rome as a whole class rather than split into two groups as usual. We focused on the Baroque art period at its height by traveling to four different churches. Not thinking, when I woke up Thursday morning, I put on shorts given it was supposed to be 75 degrees and sunny. Little was I thinking that you technically are not supposed to wear shorts when going into a church, let alone four. The first church we went to, a nun pointed to me in disapproval so I was quick to take my jacket and tie it around my waist so that I wouldn’t get “yelled at” anymore! We started at Santa Susana where we discussed her story. The majority of the artwork within displayed her story and the arrival of the Prophet Daniel. The scene of the Prophet Daniel coming to the rescue of Susana after being arrested is a very famous one during the Baroque period. We then discussed the Catholic/Protestant clash in further detail that occurred when Frederick was elected against the wishes of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire. The wars and clashes between the two were depicted in the next church we went to, La Madonna alla Vittorio. The third and fourth churches we went to were one church done by Borromini and one by Bernini. We started at San Carlo alle Quattro Fontona done by Borromini. Bothe of these artists focused on sacred geometry, using ellipses as the foundation, yet the outcomes of their two churches are very different. Borromini used equilateral triangles surrounded by circles to create this ellipse. This ellipse is the reference point for the rest of the proportions throughout the church. He made the church entrance from the longest access point making it appear larger than it truly was. Both churches were not meant for mass, but rather for people to walk around and see how the art moved, another focal point of Baroque art. Lastly, we traveled to Bernini’s Sant’ Andrea, the only church he built in its entirety. It was a chapel for the Jesuit Seminary and it depicted the story of St. Andrew. This church’s ellipse form faced the opposite direction of the other church, creating an entirely different feel. 

     Thursday night I went home from class and relaxed/packed. My roommates had left for Ireland that morning so I had the place to myself to get ready for my weekend in Amalfi!

Weekend With my Mom in Rome!

03/31/11

     Thursday approached me very quickly. I had been excited for so long for it to come! I only had one class that day and it was Italian. Following Italian, I was headed on an adventure to try and find my mom’s hotel because she was landing in Rome on Thursday afternoon a little after noon! Before heading there, a girl in my program, Claire, and I had to stop at a couple restaurants to see if any would be willing to help us out with our video project for school. Her and I were given the role of producers, so part of our task was to identify the location to film. With our topic being fresh markets in Rome, we found the perfect place. It’s called Trattoria der Pallero. They serve a different menu every day depending on what’s fresh at the market. Luckily, they agreed to help us out! It should make for an interesting project given that none of the workers speak very good English! 

     From here, I headed on my adventure to the hotel. It was relatively far away so I had to take a bus to Termini, the train station, and from there hop on another bus over closer to the hotel. I didn’t have much trouble finding it and got there about 45 minutes before my mom arrived so it was perfect timing. I couldn’t complain because the weather was great and I just sat up on the roof of the hotel soaking it in! After my mom got there and checked in, we relaxed a couple minutes and headed out for the evening. 

     She was starving so we first stopped at my apartment to drop a few things off before heading to Tony’s, the restaurant, for dinner. While there, we enjoyed wine (red this time, it’s different being with adults versus fellow college students who typically drink white!), suppli, bruschetta, and then I had the penne alla vodka again because I like it so much. After dinner, we decided to head over towards the Pantheon, grabbed some gelato from Giolitis, and then headed to the Trevi Fountain. Both of these sites are pretty at night as well as during the day so it was good for her to have the chance to see them during both times. Considering she was exhausted from her flight, we took a bus back to Termini where I helped her buy train tickets for the rest of her weeklong travels before parting ways for the evening. I left one of my roommates Italian phones that I put money on with her so that we could more easily communicate while here. 

Streets outside Giolitis

04/01/11

     We got an early start Friday morning, knowing we had a lot on our plate to see that day! Unfortunately, all public transportation was on strike on Friday, so we literally had to walk everywhere. We planned to meet outside the Vatican, but because transportation wasn’t working, my mom had to take a cab and I walked. The walk to the Vatican from my apartment is over two miles on its own! We explored the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica and then she went to the Vatican Museum. I waited outside because the museum itself is very fascinating, but not something you need to see more than once and I had just been the previous weekend.

St. Peter's Dome

     From the museum, we were starving so we headed towards Piazza Navona, hoping to find a restaurant nearby. On the way, we stopped by my school and did a bit of shopping within Piazza Navona. My mom bought me a painting! I’ve been trying to find the perfect one since I’ve been here and I finally found it! It has three paintings within it, one of the Colosseum, one of the Spanish Steps, and one of Piazza Navona, three of my favorite locations in Rome. As we wandered from Piazza Navona, we went to the Pantheon to get a glimpse of it in the daylight and go inside as well. After the Pantheon, we found a cute little restaurant outside along the way to the Trevi Fountain. At the restaurant, we just ordered a couple things and split it so that we could taste a little bit of everything. We got an appetizer with meats and cheeses, spaghetti with carbonara sauce, and a risotto. It was all great and filled me up quite a bit! 

Painting my mom bought me

     Next stop, the Trevi Fountain. Of course, it was as busy as usual, but still a beautiful sight nonetheless. My mom pointed something out that I couldn’t agree more with. Often times when you see pictures of something and then see it in real life, it tends to be smaller than imagined in real life. Yet, the opposite seems to be true in Rome. Everything seems so much bigger than it is depicted!. Because we had gotten such an early start and ate lunch relatively late, we still had plenty of time to kill before going to dinner. Therefore, we went to the Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese, and Piazza del Popolo. As you can see, there was a lot of walking involved! With all the walking, we quickly worked up our appetites for dinner and headed to Dar Poeta for pizza! From dinner, we split up to get to bed early after a large amount of walking. When I got home, I mapped out how far I had walked that day and it totaled to over 8 miles! My feet could definitely feel the impacts of this!

Spanish Steps

Walking down Villa Borghese

04/02/11

     Saturday morning I met my mom at Piazza Republica because a shuttle dropped her off there from her hotel. We had yet another ambitious day ahead of us. First stop, Colosseum. Although I had already been in for class, I joined her inside where we enjoyed listening to Rick Steves’ podcast on my phone as he guided us around and thoroughly explained the history. From the Coloseeum, we went to the Roman Forum and again had Rick Steves guide us around. By the time we finished touring both of these places, we were starving and wanted to grab lunch immediately. I took her to a restaurant called L’Antica Birreria Peroni, one of my favorite places. Here we enjoyed some gnocchi, penne all’amatriciana, suppli, and fresh Peronis. It turned out that this meal actually tided us over for the remainder of the day and I wasn’t even hungry for dinner! 

Piazza Republica

Spaghetti all'Amatriciana

Inside the Colosseum

Gnocchi

Roman Forums

     After lunch, we found a place to buy some wine and cups and brought it with us as we climbed up the Aventine Hill. My mom was anxious to get a glimpse through the keyhole at the top that frames St. Peter’s Basilica. After hiking up and viewing this, we relaxed in one of the park/gardens at the top and sipped on some wine. The day had slipped away from us and it was starting to get late. I went back to my mom’s hotel with her and slept there, knowing I’d get a better night sleep there than at my apartment with everyone going out. Plus, I wanted to make sure she figured everything out in the morning with what train to get on and how to get there as she was headed for Torrita di Siena bright and early. Over the course of the week while I’m in class she was traveling to Torrita di Siena, Siena and Florence. I’m meeting her at the train station this coming Friday morning and we are heading out to the Amalfi Coast, I can’t wait!

04/03/11

     After falling asleep at 10:30, probably the earliest I’ve fallen asleep in two years, getting up early wasn’t a problem as I’d already slept 8 hours! After dropping my mom at the train station, I headed back to my apartment where I went back to sleep for three more hours and woke up at 11, not able to sleep another minute even if I wanted to! I didn’t have much to do on Sunday, but I didn’t want the day to go to waste because the weather was absolutely beautiful. A bunch of us in our program were going to the Rome soccer game Sunday night against Juventus. 

     I didn’t have anything to wear to the game so I went to the market in front of our apartment that is there every Sunday afternoon and purchased a scarf. I’m not a big jersey person and figured I’d get more use out of a scarf. I really liked it and it reminded me a bit of Harry Potter. After the market, I headed over to Tiber Island where I laid out in the sun for two hours. I think the sun in Italy is much hotter than at home because I laid out for about two hours and it was about 75 degrees out and I got absolutely fried! I have a very nice shorts tan line on my legs… oh well! I’d rather have some sun one way or another! When I got back from Tiber Island, it was time to start getting ready for the game. 

     We went and had a couple beers at Piazza del Popolo before heading to the stadium. When we got to the game, it was unlike any soccer game in the U.S. that’s for sure. The fans were absolutely nuts. Somehow we wound up sitting almost directly next to the fans for Juventus. Apparently it’s normal in Europe to toss full beer bottles at the fans of the other team. This seemed very not normal to the rest of us and we spent a lot of time watching our heads so we didn’t get hit! Although Roma lost 2-0, it was an experience I’ll never forget!

Piazza del Popolo before the game!

Inside the AS Roma Stadium

Week of Relaxation

03/28/11, 03/29/11, 03/30/11

     After a very tiring and long week of traveling for spring break, I was looking very forward to my week of relaxation before my mom got to Rome on Thursday. On Tuesday morning, we had our weekly Layers of Rome class. This week we were focusing on Caravaggio and his artwork. We traveled to two churches to admire it and while his paintings were very life like and beautiful, one of my favorite paintings I saw while there wasn’t one of his pieces. Instead, it was a picture of Jesus where it was an optical illusion. You could see him with his eyes open and with them closed depending on where on his face you looked. It was really neat! 

One of Caravaggio's pieces

Piece that I really liked

     Wednesday marked the start of our series of three cooking classes over the course of the semester. I was really excited as this was one of the main aspects of the program I’m in that drew me to it. We met in the kitchen of a restaurant where our teacher met us. Our teacher is the chef from a restaurant called Glass, it has one star in the Michelin Guide, which I think is quite the accomplishment! She was pretty tough, but I really enjoyed our time with her and learned a lot. The focus of the class this week was rice and pasta. Therefore, we made one risotto dish and one pasta dish. We started with the risotto, having a lesson on rice before starting. We made the broth of the risotto first by slicing carrots, celery and onions, and boiling them in water. It needed to boil for about forty-five minutes. Therefore, in the meantime we started to prepare our pasta, we were making pasta with carbonara sauce. I never realized how simple it was to make, but it turned out delicious and I look forward to making both of these recipes when I get home. To make the sauce, you first need egg yolks in a bowl, then you grind in Parmesan and Pecorino cheese and mix the three ingredients together. After this, we had to slice the meat that goes in it. It is similar to bacon, but different than what we would find in America. We sliced it up finely and put it on the stove to fry. We also started boiling the water and noodles. When the noodles were about done, we poured a ladle full of hot water into our mixed sauce to liquefy it. However, to prevent the eggs from scrambling, you had to stir constantly. This was the final step in the sauce, and we drained the pasta and added it to the sauce, still continuously stirring. Lastly, we added the bacon on top and mixed that in as well, making for a wonderful pasta with carbonara sauce! With this done, it was time to go back to the risotto. We put rice into a pan on the stove and added salt and boiling water from the broth that we had previously boiled. This was all that had to be done to cook the rice itself. While this was happening, we also sliced gorgonzola cheese and pecans to add to the mix afterwards. As the rice finished cooking, we poured in the cheese and pecans and mixed it all together for another great dish! I had so much fun being in the kitchen and learning new recipes. I can’t wait to see if I can actually duplicate the recipes on my own this summer!

All geared up for our first cooking class!

Veggies for the risotto broth

Frying the "bacon"

Finalized pasta with carbonara sauce

Finished Risotto

My cooking partner, Alex, and I

     I went out Wednesday night, the only night of the week I went out for once. We went to La Maison and had a great time! 

Some friends and I at La Maison