MC Escher

At the beginning of the semester, Evelyn and I heard about a special exhibition of MC Escher's work here in Madrid. We kept planning to go, but never made the time, and were very upset when we realized it had ended. However, because the exhibit was so popular it was extended by two weeks. So we of course could not let this second chance pass by and went to the exhibit last weekend. I can see why it was so popular; the art was amazing!

The line was out the door, and there were crowds in front of every work. But it was worth waiting to get my own chance to study this incredibly mind-bending work up close. Some of the incredible drawing we saw were:

Relativity


Hand with Reflecting Sphere


Ascending and Descending


Belvedere


Waterfall


And many of his Regular Division of a Plane studies
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_Division_of_the_Plane

The gallery in which the exhibit was housed was also very unique. Upon entering you descended into a completely dark, large room which was sectioned off into different periods of Escher's work. The prints and drawings were illuminated individually. And on the floor was a huge reproduction of Escher's Metamorphosis II;


This was definitely my favorite collection of art that I have seen this semester.

The rest of Italy

On our last day in Florence we went to the two famous museums, the Accademia and the Uffizi. The Accademia is where Michelangelo´s David is, and it was amazing to see. I never realized how huge the sculpture is! The rest of the works there were not that interesting though. The Uffizi is considered to be one of the best collections of Renaissance paintings in the world. And I'm sure that I would have loved it if I were a fan of Renaissance art, but I actually found it to be rather monotonous.

That night we had a great pasta dinner in a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves, the writer of our guidebook, to whom we are greatly devoted and even talk about as if he is travelling with us. For example; "Rick Steves said we should go to this museum in the morning." "I´m going to try the rice gelatto because Rick Steves recommends it." It was pretty funny because we saw about 4 other tables of Americans with a Rick Steves book in the restaurant. He never steers you wrong (unless you have the 2006 version like we did, and the gelatto shop he recommends has since closed.) But he is right about everything else, even the bus that my camera got stolen on! He said bus 64 is full of pickpockets, and I should have listened.

Anyway, the next morning we got up at 4:45 am to catch a 6:10 train to Cinque Terre in order to maximize our time there. For those of you who dont know, Cinque Terre means Five Lands in Italian, and it is basically 5 little towns on the coast of the Mediterranean connected by hiking trails, and trains for the less adventurous. By the time we got there, got our luggage stored and bought stuff for a picnic lunch it was about 11:00. Adrian, Dave and I started off the hike at the fifth town, Monterosso, because we heard that the last 2 sections are the most difficult. That proved to be very true. We started off by immediately ascending nearly 300 rough-hewn stone stairs. I was worried that the rest of the hike would be that difficult and I wouldn't make it. But fortunately there weren't too many more stairs and while it was difficult, the beautiful views definitely made it worth it. I definitely can't describe how gorgeous the Mediterranean was, I will just have to let my pictures speak for themselves (whenever I can get them posted, the internet isn't working in my apartment.)

Cinque Terre was by far my favorite place that we visited. It was so nice to be out of the city and get some exercise in a natural environment. I also loved the little town we stayed in that night. It is called Biassa, and in order to get there we had to take a bus that only came every 2 hours. The bus took us up this mountain side that was too steep to go straight up, so the road curved back and forth. We went back and forth so many times in this huge bus that felt like it was hanging off the mountain that Dave, Adrian and I were all questioning where the heck we were going. But we got safely to the top and ended up in this quiet little town where all of the locals were so friendly. We ate a little local pizza place for dinner, then went back to the hostel and basically just went to bed, since the town was dead and we were exhausted.

The next day we got up at 5:45am to get a 7:10 train to Venice. Lets just say we had some problems getting there. We nearly missed the first train, then we had to transfer 3 times, and at the last transfer we got off one stop too soon and had to run about a kilometer across a town called Prato in order to get what we thought would be our last train. But when we got to Venice the train stopped at the wrong station so we got on another train to go to the right one, which we thought we had bought our tickets for initially. Turns out we hadn't, and got fined 26€ by the conductor for what would have been about a 2€ ticket had we known to buy one. But we finally made it to Venice at about 1:00 and after checking in to the hostel we started our sightseeing.

The first thing we saw was the Doge's Palace, which is where the ruler of Venice lived, the houses of government met, and prisoners were kept. It was a really interesting place to see, especially since they had good descriptions of each of the rooms. It also contains the largest oil painting in the world. By that night our strenuous pace was catching up with us and we were pretty tired. So we just made dinner and then sat by the grand canal. The next day was our final day in Italy, and we started off by taking a "vaporetto" (water bus) to the island of Murano, where Murano glass is produced. We got to see a demonstration, then walked around and looked in all of the showrooms. When we got back to Venice we went in to St. Mark's cathedral and looked around, then we headed to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. It is her private art collection, housed in her home of 30 years. The art there was more contemporary and interesting than everything else we had seen all week, and I think everybody enjoyed it the most. That night we were all so exhausted that we didn't want to walk too far to find a restaurant for dinner. So when we got out the door of our hostel we saw a Chinese restaurant and decided to go in. Pretty poor decision I must say, since it was the worst Chinese food I have had in my life. But I guess what can you expect from Chinese food in Italy?

The next day I went to the airport and after a long day of traveling arrived back in Madrid. It was a very exhausting, but extremely memorable trip.

Update from Italy

I am half way through my spring break trip through Italy right now. We decided to take it easy this evening and rest, so I thought I would take this opportunity to update everyone, since the post will be incredibly long if I wait until I get back.

On Friday morning I arrived in Rome and met up with my traveling companions who are my friend from U of R, Dave, who is studying in Barcelona this semester and his roommates Adrian and Kevin, along with an assortment of other people from Barcelona and/or U of R. We got checked in to our hostel, then met our friend Heather from U of R, who is studying in Rome this semester. We ate lunch at her apartment, then she took us out to see all of the sights. We saw the Coliseum, the forum, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain. She also took us into a church that she had visited with her architecture class that is painted to look like it has a dome when it actually doesn't. So when you walk in and look up it looks like a dome, but when you walk directly beneath it the perspective is skewed. It is hard to explain, but very cool to see. I was glad that she showed us that, since we never would have gone in there on our own. That night we went to a neighborhood called Trastevere for a great pizza dinner. But oh yeah, on the bus on the way there my camera got stolen from my pocket. Major bummer, but nothing I can do about it, so I just bought another for the rest of the trip.

The next morning we got up early to get in line at the Vatican Museum. Apparently we didnt get up early enough though, since we had to wait for 3 hours. But at least we got in at all. The whole museum was great, but obviously the Sistine Chapel was the highlight. We spent a long time in there looking at each of the panels. But I thought that the atmosphere was kind of ruined by the guards. Every few minutes they would clap their hands loudly and yell at everyone to stop talking and stop taking pictures. After that we grabbed some lunch then got in line for St Peters. Thankfully that line was not nearly as long since it was incredibly hot by that time. St Peters was also incredibly beautiful. We used a guidebook that we had to explain many of the things in the cathedral, like the tradition of rubbing the foot of the statue of St Peter. That night we went in to a random restaurant for dinner. We noticed that many dishes on the menu included pumpkin ( I had tortellini in pumpkin sauce) and when we left we saw that there was a pumpkin on the sign, so that must have been their specialty. The food was excellent! Then we went and sat by the Trevi fountain, which is lit up at night, which was beautiful (yet unfortunately full of people.)

On Sunday we went inside the Coliseum and Palatine Hill, which were really cool to see and imagine what it was like during the height of the Roman empire. We then walked to a flea market that we heard was supposed to be cool, but really it was just more of the junk that is sold on pretty much every street. But on the way we got to walk past Circus Maximus, and through some nice residential areas. That night we were exhausted from the insanity of Rome, so we cooked dinner in the hostel and relaxed. That night I got to see Colleen for about an hour because she had just arrived from London.

The next morning we got an early train to Florence. After checking in to our hostel we headed back to the train station to go to Siena. I think my favorite part of the trip so far was Siena, because it was beautiful, but most importantly not crawling with tourists. I definitely enjoy the smaller cities much more. In Siena we saw the duomo, San Domenico church, and the sanctuary of St Catherine, which contains here actual head and finger preserved in glass cases! That was pretty disgusting and also a strange thing to have in a church, I thought. We then climbed the city tower for a beautiful view of the city and beyond. Then we sat in the main square, Il Campo for a while to just people watch and enjoy. For dinner we went to a little hole in the wall restaurant where we ordered what the waiter suggested, which was the typical pasta of Siena, pisci, and a meat and potatoes dish, which were both incredibly good and cheap. Then we caught the last bus back to Florence.

Today in Florence we saw the duomo (which I thought wasnt as good as the duomo in Siena) and then walked over to the Pitti Palace. We had a picnic outside, then went into the gardens which were absolutely beautiful. The views of Tuscany were unbeatable. We spent most of the afternoon exploring the gardens, then got some excellent gelato. We walked around the city and explored a little bit, then came back to our hostel. Everyone was exhausted, so we ordered pizza and decided to rest for the rest of the evening.

So far this has been an incredible spring break trip, and it is only half way over! I am really looking for forward to Cinque Terre on Thursday. I will update again and post pictures when I get back to Madrid.