Fall Break: Le Cinque Terre e Roma con il mio ragazzo :)

Well, I'm back in Alba after a lovely, relaxing, not nearly long enough Fall Break. Fields arrived the morning of Oct. 29th and kept me company for a full nine days or so, which was awesome :) Our agenda included Le Cinque Terre and Rome, along with two simple relaxing weekends right here in quaint little Alba :)

We set out Sunday morning for Monterosso, the northernmost of Le Cinque Terre, 5 towns on the coast set on rocky cliffs with hiking trails linking them all together. The weather was cold and rainy, considerably less than ideal, but our plans were set, so we headed out with the slightest glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe (but not likely) the clouds could squeeze all of their rain out before our hiking plans on Monday.

Unfortunately, we got no such luck. This is what we woke up to outside our window Monday morning - rain, rain, and more chilly rain. It wasn't downpouring, but it was pretty steady, and clearly not optimal weather for a full day of hiking. As it turned out, all the dismal weather was enough for all of the trails between the five towns to be closed down - even the easiest, shortest, paved path! It's just water, right? (I understand their worry about landslides for some of the harder paths, but even the short paved one? Lame.)

Thus, in lieu of hiking all day, our only option was to just town-hop between the five towns using the train system. Sounds simple enough, right? It only started out that way. Our first stop was the next town over, Vernazza. Then we decided to skip the next two towns, Corniglia and Manarola and go straight to the southernmost town, Riomaggiore, and then just hit the other two towns on the way back up to Monterosso.

Beach in Monterosso

Monterosso's main street

The little town of Vernazza

View of the water from Vernazza

Soo much water rushing down from the hills from all the rain

Riomaggiore train station and cliffs

More of Riomaggiore

The rain did clear up some during our little bit of town hopping, so that was nice. Here's another sea view, this time from Riomaggiore.

Look how little Fields looks on the rocks down there!

Closed Path of Love :( This was the easiest short paved trail that linked Riomaggiore to Manarola.

 So after wrapping up our exploring in Riomaggiore, we headed back to the train station, ready to check out Manarola and Corniglia before wrapping up the day and ending our sightseeing back in Monterosso. The first train headed back up north when we got to the station was delayed five minutes. Then ten minutes. Then fifteen. Eventually, an hour. Even later, there weren't any trains going up north. What the heck?! From listening and talking to the other tourists stuck in town, we gathered that there was a flooded tunnel or something that was causing all sorts of problems with the trains. We met a really nice, good-humored newlywed couple, Megan and Bob, who along with us tried consulting any other possible means to travel from town to town. Nothing. Buses only travel within each town, not between. There was some serious consideration put into the idea of just walking right down the tracks since the next town was only 20 mins away and no trains were running that way anyway, but we figured the possibility of getting in trouble with the police or something in a foreign country on vacation probably wasn't the best idea. We were willing to split costs for a taxi, but I think that still would've been a hefty total and there was some trouble contacting the taxi service. So, we ended up back at the train station to wait. And wait. And wait. 

I think we were in Riomaggiore for like three or four hours total. A couple other college-age girls had been there since 11 that morning, making their total like.. seven hours? Ridiculous.

The Riomaggiore train station, the unbeknowing tourist's ominous "Final Destination." *dun dun dun!*

The growing swarm of tourists wanting nothing more to do with Riomaggiore. Megan and Bob are in the middle, I was glad we had their enjoyable company in the miserable weather and circumstances :)

Our saviour train! There were four ones before this one that bypassed us entirely, it was so dejecting, but kind of hilariously unfortunate at the same time. [Bob joked that we should do a beer commercial with the big mob of tourists waiting where we're all drinking, and then when a train comes by, we'd all be like "Nahh, it's okay, we'll get the next one!" Hahaha :P] So when this one finally came that was scheduled to stop at all 5 towns, there was much cheering and rejoicing :D

So we never did get to check out Manarola or Corniglia, which really was a shame, but eh, what can ya do? All of us were so glad to make it back to our own towns for the night. Tuesday morning Fields and I got up early to take a little walk around Monterosso since we still hadn't really explored it extensively, and then we were on our way to Roma, which fortunately for us was projected to have much better weather. :)

Monterosso from up on a hill

Looking out across the water at the 4 other towns - Vernazza in the valley, Corniglia up on the hill, and Manarola and Riomaggiore down at the end

 

We got to Rome in the late afternoon/early evening, and with all the museums and such likely to be closed for the night, we had ourselves a leisurely evening and walked around to the Trevi Fountain, which was as gorgeous as I expected. 

Trevi Fountain at night!

 

 

Wednesday we hit up the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum, all of which were amazing. We also visited the Mamertine Prison, where the apostles Peter and Paul were supposedly imprisoned. Def sounded like a cool place to visit, but just recently they added some multimedia thing to it where you have to take a guided tour and listen to and watch some lousy video/audio, completely taking away from the solemnity of the place. Wasn't worth the 10 euro it cost to get in, but I'm sure it would've been a really neat place to visit before all of that sillyness. 

We also visited a church on the edge of the city where they had the Chapel of Relics, which contained a full-size replica of the Shroud of Turin, which I just wanted to see since it's been such a fascinating topic in my Religion class. I was curious to see if I could see any more detail up close than I could in pictures, but not really. It was of course in a glass case that you couldn't step right up to, and they do say you need to be like 10-15 feet back from it to see it best anyway since the image is so faint. They also had some other supposed relics in there, like two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the title that was on the cross that declared Jesus the King of the Jews, and a piece of the apostle Thomas' finger from when he had to put it in Jesus' side to believe. Going here wasn't all that, but it was free and they were interesting to see and read about, so it's all good.

Inside the Colosseum!

 

Looking out to the Palatine Hill from the Colosseum

 

He let me take a couple pictures of us together in the Colosseum! :)

Heading over to the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum with the many other tourists in Roma.

View of the whole Colosseum from the Palatine Hill

Another picture of us together with the Colosseum :)

  

Roman Forum

Colosseum at the end of the Forum

Remains of what used to be the city center in Rome

Makeshift panoramic of the Roman Forum. I actually really like how this one turned out. Click on it to see it bigger :)

Mamertine Prison

The cell where Paul and Peter were supposedly imprisoned. It was pretty small, and quite damp and dark.

Replica of the Shroud of Turin at the Chapel of Relics

Thursday we headed out to the Vatican. We went to the Vatican Museums and saw a lot of Renaissance art, as well as the Sistine Chapel. In all honesty, we didn't think the Sistine Chapel lived up to the hype. It was kind of disappointing :( I had thought it was all one big giant scene painted on the ceiling, but it was made up of a bunch of smaller paintings and such. That famous iconic image of the hand of God giving life to Adam is just a really small part of the entire ceiling. Don't get me wrong, Michelangelo definitely had amazing artistic ability and talent, and it must have taken so long to paint all of that, but I guess I just didn't see what made the paintings in there any more grandiose than all of the other Renaissance art of that time. No pictures were allowed in the Sistine Chapel, but there are some on the Web somehow. This one shown to the right is from Wikipedia. In person, the colors seemed duller to me, and I actually think it looks cooler in this picture than it did in person. :/

A painting that I thought was really pretty on one of the many ornate ceilings in the Vatican Museums

Ceiling in the Gallery of Maps. Fields & I actually liked this one more than the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Raphael's famous School of Athens painting

Even though this wasn't by anyone famous and it wasn't as big a deal as a bunch of the other things we saw in the museum, I think this was my favorite painting there. It portrays the Garden of Eden, and you can even see Eve handing Adam a fruit from the tree, where the serpent is hanging off of a branch.

Vatican Museums entrance/exit

After leaving the Vatican Museums, we were on our way to St. Peter's Square and St. Peter's Basilica (also incredibly gorgeous). Then we basically had half a day to kill until our overnight train back to Alba, so we just wandered around Rome, passed by the Trevi Fountain again along with the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona. The Pantheon was another sight that didn't live up to my expectations - I'd seen a little bit of what it looked like from the movie Angels & Demons, and I didn't feel like it looked anything like that in real life, although I need to watch it again and really pay attention this time to the building to compare. It was dim and dark inside, and in general more dirty than I thought it would be on the outside. I guess I expected it to be a little more like the pristine whites of the buildings in the Field of Miracles in Pisa (still one of my favorite places so far :] ). All in all, we felt like we'd seen all we really needed to in Rome and were glad to head back to Alba for a chill weekend together before it was time for him to head home.

Looking out at St. Peter's Square from the Basilica

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

Statue of St. Peter

Looking straight up into the dome of the cathedral - even though you can't tell from this picture, that's a looong way up there.

The apostle Peter is buried down there somewhere; the church was built right on top of his tomb.

I love this picture. The bright sunlight streaming in through the windows & the golden glow of the decor on the altar is just gorgeous.

Swiss guards - I wonder why they have to be dressed like that, lol.

St. Peter's Basilica

Spanish Steps - I don't really see what the big deal is.. I read that they're supposed to be the widest and longest steps in all of Europe, but they're still just stairs.

Trevi Fountain by day :)

Looking up through the hole in the Pantheon's ceiling - when it rains, it just comes right in, but drips out some subtle holes in the floor (at least that's what it said in one of the guidebooks I glanced at).

Pantheon under construction

Piazza Navona

Well, that about wraps up our week. I think this post may rival the Florence & Pisa one in length, haha. Basically it was a great week with Fields in beautiful Italy :) Now there's only about 5 weeks to this semester left, which are going to fly by. I've got some tests coming up in the next week, and I'm going to have to start researching and writing a couple papers (I have to go actually be a student, what?? Haha.) .. fun fun. Guess I should go and actually be productive now, eh? Haha.

My new favorite picture of Ryan & I, courtesy of Chelsea. We're both a tad inebriated in this photo (thanks to Chels & Lilian, haha), but it's still cute nonetheless. Good times this past week, most definitely :)