Before my spring break I went to the beautiful region of
Chianti for my art restoration internship. Our teacher, Roberta, is working on
redoing a villa room by room. We spent the day exploring the owner’s property
and doing some preliminary work for the new kitchen being built. Yesterday we
went again for a full day of work. Margot, (My fellow museum studies buddy.)
and I worked from 9-6pm on the new kitchen and accomplished a lot! I sanded all
of the cabinetry and spots ready for the appliances to be put in, vacuumed the
sawdust off of everything then primed it all with a light colored paint. After
our first day in Chianti I got ready for our long awaited spring break! I met
my aunt Charlotte in Rome and thoroughly enjoyed getting hot showers for 10 days!
Our hotel in Rome was very close to Piazza Navona and the Vatican so we were
easily able to walk everywhere. We went to Stadio di Domiziano which is the
first and only example of a masonry stadium built in ancient Rome, located just
outside our hotel! We saw the Pantheon at sunset, the Spanish Steps, toured the
inside of the Vatican, went to Castel Sant’Angelo, saw a Frida Kahlo and Diego
Rivera exhibit, went to the Trevi Fountain and toured the underground
archaeological site underneath; “The City of Water.” On our last night in Rome
we led ourselves on a walking tour into the historical Jewish Ghetto for
dinner. We saw many ancient ruins and the Teatro di Marcello. We walked along
the Fabricio Bridge, the oldest bridge in the world, to get across to the Jewish
Ghetto. We enjoyed the liveliness and decorated churches of the area, sitting
in on a Sunday evening mass. We ate delicious food in Rome and thoroughly
enjoyed our time there! It is such a historical city with too many things to
see! I am looking forward to going back in May with my sisters! After our long
weekend in Rome we headed to Greece! Greece has always been a country at the
top of my list so it was such a dream being able to visit the islands! We spent
the first few days on the southeastern island of Rhodes, where we could see the
Turkish mountains from the docks. Rhodes is an extremely historical town dating
back to the Neolithic period in 10,000 BC. There is a medieval “old town” and
the “new town.” We stayed within the walls and cobblestone streets of the old
town and because it was not tourist season, our lovely hotel gave us two large
rooms with a balcony overlooking the town and ocean, for the price of the one
we reserved. I have never met people nicer than the people of Rhodes. The entire
town was so excited that we were there and catered to us the entire time. Every
morning we were served a delicious breakfast in the hotel’s garden and each
night the kind family who ran our inn called a restaurant for us to eat at and
we are pretty sure places opened up just for us. We were the only tourists in
the town, but it was really cool to be able to get an authentic experience. We
had an archaeological professor as a private tour guide one day, (That the
hotel organized for us.) and he took us around the old town of Rhodes and
explained its amazing medieval history to us. We ended the tour at the ancient
acropolis and marveled at the ruins, theater and track still intact. Rhodes is
full of Turkish mosques, medieval castles and Greek ruins, not to mention
beautiful blue waters and bright foliage in bloom…quite a cultural combination!
The next day we took an hour bus ride to the town of Lindos. Lindos is built on
a cliff and has the picturesque white houses nestled together on the side of
the mountain. The main attraction in Lindos is their ancient Greek acropolis at
the top of the mountain. We hiked the short way uphill and got great views of
our surroundings from the top of the acropolis! Caves below had herds of sheep
and goats hanging out in them, donkeys were roaming and the ocean was so blue!
The next day we made our way to Athens and got to our hotel roof just in time
to see the Parthenon at sunset. Since our time in Athens was short, we woke up
really early the next morning to tour the ancient Roman agora ruins and the
Acropolis! It was peaceful going that early because not many people were there
yet. The Acropolis is unfortunately going through some construction so we could
not go inside any of the ruins. However, the temples were so interesting to see
and we got a great view of Athens from the top. After the Acropolis ruins we
visited the new Acropolis museum and got to see many of the original sculptures
from the temples. We ate and walked around the Plaka on our way out of town and
we were off to Crete! We stayed in the picturesque, Venetian town of Chania.
The waters were lined with colorful restaurants, hotels, shops, mosques and
their famous lighthouse. Chania is such a beautiful town and it was fun to
enjoy a different kind of Greek culture. Overall, our trip to Greece was so
amazing! We ate delicious food and tried many new dishes! I learned so much
about Greece’s history and culture from being fortunate enough to see three
different parts of Greece. So, we left Crete en route for the small Tuscan town
of Cortona…which is a lot easier than it sounds! We got up at 4am for the taxi
to pick us up at 4:45 and we took a 6:30am flight to Athens. We then took
another flight to Rome. Once in Rome we had to get to the train station from
the airport. We got on the airport train for the train station, but the
conductor told us we were on the wrong one so we collected all of our bags and
had to get off. We waited for the right one and we eventually arrived at the
train station in Rome. Once in Rome we got on the wrong train for Cortona,
which we didn’t know until about an hour through the train ride when the conductor
checked our tickets. We arrived in Florence and had to buy new train tickets
for Rome. Luckily we finally got on the right train and we arrived in Cortona!
We took a taxi up to the hilltop town and 12 hours after leaving our hotel in
Crete we arrived at our new hotel. What a day! After we settled in we took a
not so leisurely walk up to Frances Mayes’ house, featured in her book, “Under
the Tuscan Sun.” It is a gorgeous villa and was cool to see the house she
transformed! We spent my last day of spring break in Cortona at the Museo
dell’Accademia Etrusca, where a visiting exhibit held 50 loaned items from the
British Museum. The famous bronze statues of the “Orator” and the “Chimera of
Arezzo” were displayed which was awesome to see! We were also able to visit
Cortona’s Duomo and walk down Via Janelli which has some of the oldest houses
in Italy on it. After some confusion with our taxi driver and some running to
catch our bus, we made it back to Siena! It was a very cultural, fun and food
filled trip getting to see so many new places!
Ciao!
-Rachel
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