Jeanette's Blog

Field trip! Everybody loves them.
Pisa was the first destination.” What’s in Pisa?” some have said. The world famous leaning tower, a cathedral, and a baptistery. That’s about it.
The leaning tower left me truly baffled. It leans, man. It really leans, a lot, and it’s really tall. Fascinating beyond belief. We didn’t go in it because there was limited time and it cost a good chunk of money, but of course I needed to take the staple pictures with the tower. I took one trying to push it back up, one kissing it and a funny one that looks like I’m picking off the flag on top. It was lots of fun and tourists were actually taking pictures of me being funny. haha goofy tourists…
In the Cathedral, there is a Marble Pulpit which was sculpted by Giovanni Pisano, a very important Italian sculptor from the late 1200’s. I am studying him and his father, Nicola Pisano, in my art history class. Nicola Pisano’s Marble Pulpit was in the Baptistery. It was really great to see the pulpits in person and be able to get up really close to the sculptures. The Baptistery had an excellent echo effect that was demonstrated every half hour. The demonstrator would sing one note and be able to sing a different one right on top of the last as it echoed. (I don’t know if I really explained that very well, but it was awesome.) The Baptistery is constructed like a big white cake. That’s exactly what it looks like from the outside. haha
The buildings are right next to each other, boom, boom, boom. It’s easy to find them from the train station as well. It’s a short, direct walk to the center. Right on Barbara’s schedule, we boarded the train with Marta; our destination Cinque Terre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s one of the top ten places to visit in my Italy book, it was recommended to me by countless numbers of people and described phenomenally in all my research. Hence, I was extremely excited.
The train ride was a little over an hour from Pisa. I knew we were close when I caught a flashing glimpse of brilliantly blue water. From that moment on, my face was glued to glass window of the train. It was very humorous because we were traveling inside a tunnel that was lined with arched openings equidistant from each other. So, every time there was an opening, everyone altogether would say, “whoa!”. It went something like this if you can imagine the situation: ………Whoa!……..Whoa!……..Whoa!……..Whoa!……..Whoa!……..etc. haha
We got off the train and dashed toward the shore to soak as much of the atmosphere in as possible in that very moment. It’s easy to fall in love with Cinque Terre. It’s a line of 5 small towns that are along the eastern coast of Italy. There is one road that connects them in order to travel by car, but IT’S THE MOST IMPRACTICAL WAY TO TRAVEL. In Cinque Terre, the best way to transport yourself, etc is by Train, or Boat, or Foot. It’s amazing. The air is so fresh as I’m sure you can imagine, the greenery so green, the sky so blu, and the people are so friendly!!! Finally. People talked to us there like we were people and not ‘foreigners.’
Our hotel was located in Monterosso the last of the cities if traveling from the south. Monterosso is a good place for young adults stay because it houses the one and only pub that is open in the off seasons. Pubs are a great place at night to go and practice Italian with the locals!
Anyway, our hotel was perfect. We had breakfast and dinner included in our stay. Delicious. The first night we had muscles and olives in a red sauce over spaghetti for our first plate and for the second was roasted potatoes and broiled fish. The second night we indulged in either a four cheese pasta or shimp scampi over penne pasta for the first plate and second was swordfish or chicken with a vegetable that I don’t remember. but it was ended by a couple slices of fresh pinnapple. Perfect! (I wonder where this belly of mine is coming from?)
Guess what… I got to sleep on the top bunk this time!!!! Heck yeah. From all the travelling on Friday we all hit the sack pretty much right after dinner. haha that seems to happen regularly here. Long Long days… In the morning, we ate brakfast, which was a selection of fiber filled cereals, yogurt, marmalades, and fruits, and then met Gabriele, our tour guide for the day. We took the train to Riomaggiore, the first if traveling from the south. We walked Via dell’Amore, which is a path along the edge of the mountain that goes through a National park, and we learned some interesting things about the culture of Cinque Terre. For instance, on each side of the mountain there are different types of climate. On the east side, the one in which we were standing, there were cacti, and other warm climate vegetation because all the wind comes from the west, but on the other side of the mountain it snows and is much colder because it catches all the wind. That was a bad sentence, sorry.
Cinque Terre was not built by slaves but by the citizens that lived there once upon a time, which makes it a unique place. It was built and is now maintained manually by those that continue to live there. UNESCO helps to raise money in preservation of this beautiful place. The people make money through tourism in the summer and by producing very good wine. More stones were used in building the vineyards of Cinque Terre than to build The Great Wall of China. Yeah that’s a lot. The native people invented a structure in which to build into the shoreside to prevent erosion with inverted slates. It’s hard to explain, so I’ll try and illustrate it for you:
the first row is / / / / / / / / / /
The second is \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
and then / / / / / / / / / /
So when the waves crash into the walls of earth the water trickles down and back into the sea instead of rotting the earth away. Pretty smart, huh.
Lemons are sweet in Cinque Terre… no really I wasn’t making an analogy they really are sweet. And their wine is very smooth. I want to go back there soon. I almost left everything and became a fisherman, haha. Cinque Terre is place where people and nature live harmoniously together, it’s magical.
I met a bunch of great people there, Simone included!!! I miss Simone! He taught me how to dread hair the right way, us Americans got it allllllll wrong. He showed us pictures of what Cinque Terre used to look like years ago. He took us to his home and treated us very kindly and respectfully. He opened a 20 year old bottle of wine to share with us. I will never forget him, because in some way he impacted me and changed my life in ways that I’m not even sure of yet. Maybe something that I learned from him was: Don’t let language be a barrier between good people. Jump into life and don’t look back. Live in the moment, because it will pass before your next breath.
The day we left I spent the morning exploring. I think I found the end of the earth. I sat on this point of land that jutted into the sea and from that point I could see nothing but sea and sky. It was an indescribable feeling. There was silence in that place. Real silence, serenity.
I took some of the beach with me in the form of really beautiful rocks. I plan to make jewels with them. Cinque Terre is inspirational!! Make it a destination sometime in your life. I highly advise it.

Posted by Jeanette at 06:01 PM |