Italy Part 1: Verona

After we left Liechtenstein, we drove southeast through the Alps to Italy. Our first official stop was Verona, but we took the scenic route through Südtirol (Sudtirolo in Italian, South Tyrol in English. Just to keep it confusing). 

 Südtirol is the northernmost province of Italy, which actually speaks German because they were part of the Austria-Hungarian empire until 1915 when it was basically traded to England in exchange for their participation in WWI. Italy annexed it in 1919, Mussolini tried to Italianize it, and now it's in an interesting semi-autonomous state where it keeps 90% of its own taxes but puts a little Italian translation under the German names on street signs. In true Alps style, there's a native-type language that nobody but twelve people in this one valley can understand. Also, it's where pretty much every apple in Europe is grown! Which is probably why people wanted it so much. Regardless of all that, it's a very scenic drive.

 

They dammed a river to make a lake, which--as it usually does--put a town underwater. 

Since the church was all historic, they just left it! Now it sticks out of the water. 

I simultaneously want to learn how to scuba dive and want to NEVER GET IN THE WATER.

When we got to Verona, we experienced our very first old-style Italian metropolis! We decided to really experience it by following Google's directions and making Martin drive our big VW van (modern, don't start thinking Mystery Machine thoughts) straight into the narrow-streeted heart of the city. Where we're pretty sure we weren't allowed to be anyway. After the city's one-way streets, pedestrian-only plazas, and mirror-foldingly narrow "streets" released us, we found parking across the river and, reformed, walked to our accommodations.

 

Verona! Not for driving.

We stayed in an apartment-turned-B&B smack in the heart of the city next to Juliet's house. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and Two Gentlemen of Verona in the city, so a few hundred years ago they decided to cash in and create tourist attractions based on the fictional characters. It's all a little murky, though, because a tourist attraction set up in the 17th century and made out of the Capulets' actual house (built in the 1200s), a balcony that they themselves added (purportedly fashioned from an old stone sarcophagus!) and covered in graffitied love notes dating from the publication of the play is historical, but it's all based on a fictional character. So...historical? We stopped there briefly on our way to dinner the first night.

 

Look! A church!

Every city in Italy seems to have its own cuisine, and Verona is no exception. They're not the spaghetti-and-meatballs types, either. Veronese food involves lots of meat (mostly of odd animals like horses, donkeys, and ducks) and some German influences like schnitzel (which, by the way, is veal pounded out so it's giant but flat, then breaded and fried. Think a dinnerplate-sized fishstick made of beef. But not gross like that sounds). We had a delicious and biologically diverse dinner in the restaurant our landlady recommended, then headed home because it was already quite late.

In the morning I went running around the city, then we set out exploring. First stop was the ancient Arena, a coliseum-type structure built by the Romans in the year 30. It seats 30,000 people, and it's mostly intact so it's used today for concerts, plays, and an annual summer-long opera season that always features Romeo and Juliet. It was fun exploring the ancient building, and we only got yelled at a little bit for going places we weren't supposed to be.

The Arena, all set up for opera season.

Part of the ancient wall that surrounded the Arena.

For the rest of the day, we walked all over Verona, checked out every major church, and scoped out the best gelato in town--a mission that would persist throughout the trip. Late in the afternoon we crossed the river and hiked up an interesting set of stairs (gelato in hand) until we found a castle! Gotta love Europe. From there we followed another trail that eventually led between two sets of ancient city walls, aiming for a cool complex of buildings we had seen from the castle. Just as we got about as far as possible from any exit to our path, it started pouring like crazy. Two local women found us and shepherded us down from the hill on the quickest route, then gave us recommendations for the rest of our trip, told us where to eat dinner, and even made our reservation! After we'd changed and dried off, it was delicious.

All of us at the castle, pre-rainstorm.

The next morning I ran back up to the hill and did eventually make it to the buildings we'd wanted to see (a monastery), but the way we got down was definitely faster. 

Next stop: Venice!

Love Katie

Heidelberg with my Parents!

Hello All,

My parents are currently finishing up a three-week trip to Europe on which I got to spend two weeks traveling with them. They flew into Frankfurt, Germany, so we--Martin, his mom, and I--drove up to Martin's grandparents' house in Heidelberg to meet them and show them around that area a little.

 

That's just the entrance to the bridge!

 

Heidelberg wasn't bombed in WWII, so the old town and castle remain historically intact. It's a very pretty city situated on a hillside over a river, and most of the older buildings are made with local red stone, including the super awesome castle.

 

The castle, as viewed from the city below (note that the right-side tower is half blown up, that'll be explained in a moment).

 

Part of the castle's front and main living area. 

 

The castle's inner courtyard. Look at the cool red stone!

 

One time (pre-WWI) they stored some ammunition in one of the towers. It exploded. 

While we were there, there was a fireworks show on the castle and river, and we got to stand really close by and watch the fireworks shoot off of the old bridge, the castle, and even the river itself.

 

Heidelberg is also the home of the oldest funicular in Germany. And the newest! 

PS: a funicular is one of those really steep cable cars. Here's the wikipedia page.

And we rode that funicular!

 

In other important and historic news, Heidelberg has an insanely fabulous playground and lots of rowers! The playground has a whole water area where kids can manipulate the flow of water with dams, water wheels, and this really cool Archimedes screw that brought the water back upstream. In lieu of swings and slides, they had an insane tetter-totter thing, a spinning thingy of death, and other potentially deadly members of the "thing" family.

 

It spins and goes up and down!

 

Future hydroengineers. 

We had a great time exploring Heidelberg, thanks to Martin's mom and her parents who hosted us and made sure we always had plenty of cake at teatime. After Heidelberg, we traveled back to Liechtenstein for a quick repack before going on our road trip through Italy!

 

A sample of our delicious Heidelberg food. This pretzel is the size of a large pizza and each part has a different sandwich filling. Especially important because the bread in Italy wasn't nearly as good as it was in Germany.

School Starts Tomorrow!

Hi All!

I'm back from exploring Italy with my parents, and I'm starting school tomorrow!! I'm definitely mostly excited, I'm just not sure what I'm doing. There's this thing where I've never been a PhD student before. But neither has anyone else, so it doesn't count much.

What I'm really really excited about, though, are my classes. I only have to take about six seminars over the entire course of my program since I'm on the already-has-a-Master's-and-a-bit-of-a-plan track (I sincerely hope they're right), then I need two Master's level courses since I've never studied Economics before. I have plenty of flexibility to not take many courses if I don't want to, but all the courses look so interesting! Right now I'm signed up for seven, so I'll probably be dropping a few as we go. But they're so interesting!

My biggest hurdle this week will be figuring out where all my dang classes are. When I signed up for classes (which in itself was a bit of a process) I got course websites from three of my classes, but the others refuse to tell me anything about themselves. And most of the University information is in German. Which I'll be learning for real once the semester starts! So this week should be interesting. And I'll make lots of new friends asking random people what I'm supposed to be doing.

In the meantime, though, I'll share as much as I can about our fabulous road trip through Northern Italy. With Martin and my parents (who are visiting!), we explored Heidelberg, Germany; then Verona, Venice, Florence (and Tuscany), the Cinque Terre, and Milan. It was my first time in Italy and it was fabulous!

I'll be busy!

Love Katie