Roma 1: Castel Sant'Angelo

HELLO AGAIN! So guess what. I went to Rome! It was a short 2-day trip, but it was long enough for me to fall in love. That city is beautiful. Castles, fountains, runis, yeah... but just wandering around the streets, seeing houses and apartment buildings with gorgeous architecture, and just soaking in the feeling of Rome was splendid :)

Our day began after dropping are stuff off at our hostel, which happened to be a short walk from the Castel Sant'Angelo - a great place to start! This is a shot of the castel from the other end of a statue-lined walking bridge across the river.

The statues were all pretty cool, but this one was my favorite:

Here's another one, closest to the castle, with a battlement behind it:

To walk up inside the castle, there is a long tunnel-like passage that is a wide spiral up to the upper level. It opens into this staircase which leads to a raised courtyard.

The castle is more of a fortress than a palace, though lots of ...umm... important italian people have lived there. There are staircases everywhere between the various levels. You can walk the entire perimeter along the top of the outer walls.

The castle is pretty close to the Vatican (which I didn't see on this trip). Here is a shot of St. Peter's Cathedral from the wall of the castel.

This is awesome. As you walk along the walls, every few feet there is a hole cut out to shoot at attacking armies. The holes are low to the ground and diagonal so archers could stand protected and shoot through them. Here's the view that medieval archers had!

A shot of the walkway along the walls, with St. Peter's in the distance. I don't know who those girls are:

I walked up a staircase and found myself right above the front door, looking directly out over the bridge. Same bridge from the first photo, taken from the opposite end:

In an interior courtyard there was the biggest crossbow i've ever seen. Badass.

Gratuitous artsy photo :-P

Ascending even further through the central tower. There were some gorgeous rooms with frescos and gold leaf and marble floors and stuff. Couldn't take photos inside though :( Here's a view from the outside walkway.

Oh you know, just some rusty old weapons from who knows when.

The View from the top! See what I mean about this being a really attractive city?

Huzzah! At the top is a great statue of Saint Angelo! If you look back at the first photo you can see him perched on top. This photo was taken from right below him, on that square platform at the top of the tower.

Lots more Rome photos coming soon!

Cabaret!

So far we've had two cabarets of student performances - whatever undergrads and grad stuends wanted to perform. I didn't photograph either of them since the first was pretty sudden and the I was onstage the whole time for the second. BUT, there was an event of potential investors last week so we re-staged a mini cabaret of some of the acts that had occurred in the cabarets prior, and i got some photos of that one. So here they are!

Some members of the Cabaret Arkestra, which had about 12 members in the full cabaret, but was abbreviated for this mini one:

Pantalone and Pulcinella provided a little intro:

There were wonderful musical performances from Furman students that are studying here this semester:

And a classic magic act from Scotty Walsh, one of my cohorts:

he accidentally sat on his hat, flattening the bunny... :(

Shrinking cards are a crucial part of the act:

As well as disappearing milk:

Card tricks:

And a big finish of appearing flowers!

Florence! (part 3)

Alright! Here is the amazing conclusion to my splendid day in Florence! In the late afternoon we decided to check out the Piazzala Michelangelo, because on our map it looked like a nice park. Little did we know it was actually a hike up zig-zagging paths to the top of a hill with incredible views!

Here is the Duomo from a distance:

The breathtaking view of Florence from the top of the Piazzala:

You can see the Ponto Vecchio (from my last post) in the center, with a few other bridges behind it. Florence is pretty great.

Conveniently, at the Piazzala there is a fancy restaurant with a really expensive menu.

However, after commandeering an outdoor table simply to rest our legs for a bit, we looked at the menu and found that coffees and Prosecco were affordable, and came with little snacks. So of course:

Oh you know, just a glass of champagne with a beautiful view of Florence in the background. No big deal. That's the dome of the Duomo, btw.

After our afternoon drinks we hiked down to town again, and wandered a bit more around the city, searching for a delicious yet affordable pizza place - a harder task than we expected. Just as we reached the point of desperation we stumbled on Il Dolce Forno (the sweet oven, or something), which had really cheap but AMAZING pizza made on focaccia bread. Unreal.

Plus, they had this succulent dessert, Torto di Nonno (Grandpa's Cake):

The middle layer is nutella, btw. A pretty perfect end to a great day in a new city :)

Speaking of which, when are y'all coming to visit?!

Thanks for reading! :-D

Florence! (part 2)

More Florence! Coincidentally, Patty Hofboll, a friend from Philly, was planning to be in Florence the same day we were going to be there. However, my phone was refusing to work that day, so I couldn't call her to meet up. As fate would have it though, she happened to walk past me in a crowded piazza! So we got to spend a few hours together, exploring the Ponto Vecchio, a famous bridge in Florence.

Here's a closer look at the bridge. It has lots of cool buildings built out of the side of it.

Here's our crew. In an awesome surprise photo. Taylan, Mickey, and Sophie.

The bridge is full of jewelry shops, and is apparently a really common place for wedding proposals to happen. So of course, Mickey and Sophie had to get engaged on the middle of the bridge.

Here's what it looks like to walk along the bridge - cool tall buildings on either side, all full of jewelry shops.

Group shot on the bridge! You can see the next bridge in the background (there are several along the river)

One more Florence post on the way!

Florence! (part 1)

Last weekend (on October 1), 4 of us took a day trip to Florence and had a long and wonderful day of wondering around. It is a crazy beautiful city! There are also tons of museums which we didn't go into since they cost money (we'll go back later this month when they're all free for one day), but we saw a ton of stuff.

One of the first things we came upon was a ceramics & pottery market in this piazza. In the distance you can see one of the many awesome churches in Florence.

As we wandered we found the Teatro Verdi, one of the large theatre companies there. We grabbed a season brochure and might come back to see one of their shows. They're doing Cyrano and La Cage, plus a bunch of other shows. This is the theatre:

Here's the church from the first photo, but up close!

Eventually we found our way to the Duomo. Pretty much every Italian city has A duomo, which is basically their biggest church/cathedral. Florence's is awesome:

In that photo you can see a line of sculptures of people; they are the 12 apostles, i think.

And even though Italy, and especially Florence, has tons of delicious gelato, in case you need a taste of home:

(this is literally right next to the Duomo, by the way. we did not go in)

To end this post, here's something I find pretty amusing, though its an incredibly common occurrence in these old Italian towns. First, notice the crazy old church building.

Then look a little closer, especially in the bottom left corner. Yup. right next to this old church is a Tommy Hilfiger store. That's how they roll.

2 more florence posts coming soon. Also probably a facebook album of Florence photos, since I have a ton. :)