The most popular destination this weekend was Cinque Terre. Around 70% of UD-Romers left the campus to go to this famously calm and beautiful location where they enjoyed cliff diving, sleeping on the beach (or under trees or under the rain) and touristing on the Mediterranean Coast.The rest of the students chose mostly to go to Sienna or to stay on Campus, where I had to stay because I was on duty this weekend. Although I was a bit upset at first, starting to get what Romers call the FMS syndrome, or Fear of Missing-out on Something syndrome, I soon realized that I cannot ever complain about having to spend a weekend in Rome.
So I looked online, and ended up discovering beautiful little towns and ended up having an amazing time.
On Friday I got up early and with six other people took two Cotral Buses to Anzio. Anzio is a small city on the coast of the Lazio region, about two hours away from our Due Santi Campus. In it is a historically important port, since the Allied forces used it to land in WWII, and so there is an amazing and well known Beachhead and City Archeological Museum. If you ever happen to go to Anzio on a day that is not a Friday, you'll be able to go in and please tell me how it is inside. The facade is amazing though, it was almost worth the two hours of walking around to get to it, especially since there were Roman lion sculptures and old US Navy anchors surrounding it.
Either way, what had attracted me most about this little town was the Domus Neronania ruins, recognized as the remains of Emperor Nero's residence. It was spectacular to be standing on the ruins on the very coast of the Mediterranean sea, looking into the blue that Nero would have seen from his prodigious palace. We climbed around the remnants of it, getting splashed by the sea as well as getting a couple cuts on our feet from all the rocks and ancient stones, which just made it feel all the more adventurous.
On the way back to campus we decided to try to avoid taking a second bus by stopping at Albano (a sweet little town about a 20 minute walk from campus) and then to walk back instead. However, one wrong turn turned this short walk into an hour and a half adventure, where we stumbled upon Castel Gandolfo (where the Pope resides in the summer, and also a place that UD had taken us to see before with an onsite lecture) in the middle.
So overall, we returned happy but tired from this magnificent day trip. I definitely recommend it.
On Saturday I decided to stay back on campus, and attempted to get ahead on some reading by the pool. I was able to read Aeschylus's Libation Bearers and some of St. Ignatius of Antichus' letters under the sun and calm that consumed campus these three days. After dinner we (the 10 or so people on campus) decided to play a game of Ultimate Frisbee that went until dusk, including the professor and his preteen daughters (who are the most extroverted pair of girls I know).
Sunday I envisioned another quiet day of study and perhaps more time for myself, but I soon grew anxious and jittery from reading in my empty room, and asked my suitemate Katie if she wanted to walk to Albano for some gelatto. However, as we were going to start our hike we saw another UD-er, a junior named Matt, waiting for the Cotral Bus into Rome, and decided it might be even better to just go into the city and find some quiet place to read there. He told us he had been waiting there for more than an hour, and thirty minutes later the bus still hadn't arrived... so we changed our plan again and took a Cotral into Castel Gandolfo.
So there we were in the city of Castel Gandolfo, looking down at the great Lake Albano and we decided once more to change our plan and find our way down to it. The walk/hike down was a bit of a scary struggle, since most of the roads don't actually have a paved walkways, or any sidewalks and cars and motorcycles tend not to respect any speed limit, but after about half an hour we were before the vast body of water, surrounded by forested mountains and very few other people.
We made our way through the rocks into the sand and warm water, and to our surprise it was a very weird sort of black quick sand that found our toes. It was a weird feeling, and we had to step on stones or our feet would sink in and we quickly found ourselves knee-deep in lakewater. We had a great time there, splashing each other and running on the quicksand trying not to sink, before we headed on a quest for gelatti and te freddo. With icecream in our hands, we saw pedal-boats, and once more said, "why not?".
The three of us rented one and decided to try to make it across the entire lake in the one hour allotted for our money. However, when we were in the middle under the hot noon sun, and we had finished our refreshments... we could not resist the temptation to jump into the azure waters and so we swam for some minutes before heading back.
Here is a picture of lake Albano. I don't have a camera this semester, so I will be relying on my friends' facebook-picture-uploading abilities... and so far not so good :P... And I still wish for you guys to be able to see some of what I'm seeing.. and since there are pictures from google... here it is.
I'm still waiting on the pictures though, and I'll add them as soon as I get access to them :).
Overall, it was a very chill weekend. I ended up going to Anzio as I had planned out, got on with my school work, and even ended up having a spontaneous day with two people I did not really know that well, all within the "state" of Rome, and getting back to campus on time, at 9pm for my duty time every night.
I'll try to make my blog entries more frequent, and consequently shorter (and perhaps easier to read :P), but I'm glad I got time today to be able to share some experiences with you all. Wish you were here!
someone once told me not to be scared of "Plan B." So often we try to control our time, our future, our present, and we are too "on track" to consider what could happen if we gave a different plan an opportunity. I think your weekend is a beautiful example of all you can learn from a Plan B.
ResponderEliminarGood lesson for us all : )