…But hey, just imagine that title in a sweet accent! Because that’s how all the British people talk. With AWESOME accents. Seriously, I wish I had a British accent. Pretty much more than anything in the world (although not more than I want to live in the Amsterdam cake shop and go to the Rijksmuseum every day.) One of the things I wanted to do most in London was speak with a British accent all the time and pretend to be British, and see if people would figure it out. Except I didn’t actually try to do that because I was afraid that my accent, however good my friends might say it sounds, would be obviously Americanized and clearly learned only from the Harry Potter and Love Actually movies, and then I’d just look like a complete tool in front of the really cool British people. So, instead, I contented myself with obnoxiously talking to poor Anna and Fred in a British accent every so often and swallowing the urge to continue my accent speaking while ordering my coffee. (Where they could tell I was American, accent or no, thanks to the fact that things ordered with skim milk are ALWAYS called “skinny” there, and “to-go” is never said, but instead “take-away”.)
…On to less embarrassing anecdotes… But before we begin, I want to note that I’m thinking of a way to catalogue/show all the art that I saw this semester so I think I will get less into the art that I saw in England (oh and believe me, there was a lot), and just go over the highlights, in this post. More on how the heck I’m going to organize all the wonderful art I saw at a later date… for now, pictures!
PS: This post is absurdly long. OK, you’ve been warned…
Tuesday, 11 March
We had a pretty low-key evening because I’d just gotten in from Amsterdam. So we just walked around the Buckingham Palace area, got Starbucks (oh, how I missed you, Starbucks!) and pretended that the pound wasn’t double the dollar whenever we went to do something. We also had a delicious dinner of fruit and cheese and wine! Ooh, it was tasty! And very classy might I add. Anyway, these are the gates of the Buckingham Palace. They are mighty fancy as you can see.
A statue in the middle of the garden-y-square-type area (I’m dying to call it Piazza, but that’s not the right word. OH. PARK.)… in the middle of the park. That girl in the foreground does not look very happy. Cheer up, you’re in front of Buckingham Palace! It was kind of windy though. As we were standing there, a helicopter flew over our heads and proceeded to land within the Palace, probably on the Queen’s special rooftop landing pad, or something. I am convinced it was the Queen herself. (Although it probably wasn’t. But let me think that so that my London experience can truly be complete since if she WAS in the helicopter, I sort-of saw the queen!)
This is the Park (park, right, not piazza) near Buckingham Palace. It was very pretty and green. There were a lot of pigeons. (I remember we were particularly fascinated with one who only had one leg… Why I remember these things, I do not know. At least I didn’t take a picture of it.) Moving on…
Wednesday, 12 March
The REAL London tour begins!! This week was literally a wonderful fantastic whirlwind of museums, sites, and lots of fun because I was reunited with one of my best Vassar friends YAY! 
So, okay. We began the day at Leicester Square (which, although you might THINK it should be pronounced, Lye-chester square, is actually pronounced, Lester Square. Again, do not ask me why. It is a mystery like the mysteries of the relationship between the pound and the dollar). At Leicester Sq. we bought tickets to see Spamalot, YEAH!! We were going for Rent, but it had sold out, and so I suggested Spamalot. We got ground-floor seating, which was awesome, for 35 pounds, which seems awesome until you do the exchange rate, which is simply better not to think about.
Then we went to the National Portrait Gallery! It was pretty cool. The best part were the more recent portraits, contemporary and modern. They had some neat exhibits of really beautiful photographs too. I also saw a portrait of Kenneth Clark, whose Wikipedia entry might make him seem really awesome and I’m sure he was really awesome and half of me really wants to just admit that he was awesome because he sort of was BUT at the same time, his Leonardo da Vinci monograph sits on my bed staring at me, reminding me pointedly that I have not started my essay about Clark’s book, and then I remember how much I don’t want to write that essay. …But the fact remains he did some really impressive stuff (like, he was the Director of the National Freaking Gallery!!! at 30!!! That’s only TEN YEARS away from my age right now. Gahhh!) and the point of this paragraph is mainly that there was a portrait of him in the NPG and I freaked out a little because even then, at spring break, the paper was looming, as it still does at this very moment. Moving on again..
This is Trafalgar Square, right around the corner from the National Portrait Gallery!
AND, better yet, the National Portrait Gallery is mere steps away — in fact, is in the same building as — one of the most incredible, amazing museums in the world, the National Gallery. It is SO AWESOME. My lord, how I love it. But that’s another day, so I will wait to gush, and simply say that I still to this moment do not know how Anna and Fred pulled me away from the entrance after I took this picture. …You can kind of see from the angle I didn’t want to leave…
A fountain in Trafalgar Square. I think that is my hair blowing into the camera, since it’s reddish… It was windy that day, what can I say, but this would have been such a cooler picture if my hair wasn’t in it!
Ahhhhh. That is a sigh of happiness at the wonderful memory of this amazing building. How many times can I describe it as amazing and wonderful? Just you wait until I actually get to the art inside!
We walked a bit and ALMOST had lunch in this cafe which, it turns out, was once a crypt. I am not joking, it is called, Cafe in the Crypt. Needless to say as appetizing as this sounded we decided instead to go to…
PRET!!! Ooh, I love Pret!!! Not just for their awesome advertising campaign (”Diets are sad,” says the gingerbread man with a whole in his belly), but for their awesome fresh food – salads and sandwiches and not a bad latte either! It’s like Panera’s, except they are really all over the place (like Starbucks-es in NYC, although there are a ton of Starbucks in London too, no wonder I loved it so much), and they are super into recycling and saving the environment. Actually, England is REALLY into that. Everything you see reminds you, “do you really need that many napkins?” or “throw me out when you’re finished!” In fact, so many of the ads on TV were actually related to reminding the viewers that there is an energy crisis and that we need to be really careful with the earth. It was great. I wish America would do something like that!
Anyway, refreshed after lovely Pret, we headed on our way to see Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey.
Double-deckers! Sooo cool. And yet also dangerous. Maybe that is part of the cool factor.
The London Eye! We never actually rode it, but… we talked about it. And took pictures from afar. That counts for something, right?
BIG BEN! I wonder what it is actually called? The Big Clock of Parliament? Oh wow, according to Wikipedia, both are horrendously wrong. Turns out that’s not even Big Ben. Now I feel silly. Apparently, this is the clock tower (wow, it doesn’t even get capitalization on Ole Wikipedia!), and Big Ben is actually a BELL, officially known as the Great Bell. Which… is located somewhere else on the Parliament building. Who knew?
Parliament! The guard stolidly glares at passersby and is probably in more tourists’ pictures than he could ever imagine
Our expressions in this picture are pretty priceless. “Oh, we’re taking a picture? …What? Well, at least we have coffee so we can pretend like we’re awake!” (PS I’m sorry I got you addicted, Anna)
I’m still trying to figure out why the lamp posts have the Chanel logo on them. Or am I inadvertently proving my consumer-raised American-ness by even mentioning that?
The press followed us around all day… This was the second time we saw videocameras! But I don’t remember the first time… Good story, huh? Moving right along…
Inside Westminster Abbey, which is a HUGE gothic church with a bazillion famous people buried in it including a famous anonymous soldier (? who may also represent every soldier who’s ever died for England), a whole bunch of kings and queens and dukes and earls, AND the coolest bit, a whole chapel dedicated to POETS!! (Naturally I would find that the most interesting part.) Chaucer, Browning, Dickens, Hardy, Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson… dude, they’re all there. Along with the very important kings and queens of England. This pretty little picture is of a little garden area outside the Abbey which we couldn’t really(or weren’t supposed to) go into because it was closed, but… we may have peeked in anyway 
We went backwards into the church, so at the end we saw the facade! Hi Westminster Abbey. It is really big. The guard outside chuckled at us and told us that we really needed to step back if we wanted to get it all in. Then he offered to take a picture of us. This was 1,000 times more cool than it sounds because he told us all of this in an English accent.
Some of England’s most famous things: The London eye to your left, NOT Big Ben in the center, and Parliament on the right. And some dude in the front, not a famous thing of England, but still in the picture
Prerequisite phone-booth picture on the way back from Big Ben! I mean, not Big Ben
We stopped at the National Gallery Cafe (imagine it: we WENT INTO THE CAFE, but NOT into the museum. Unthinkable! I don’t know how I did it) to fuel up before going back to Leicester Square to see Spamalot. We were all starving and needed caffiene… but we settled for the sugary goodness of a raspberry vanilla cupcake instead. YUM. Of COURSE the National Gallery Cafe has awesome cupcakes, because the National Gallery is the second coolest place on earth, right after the cake shop in Amsterdam.
Then we went to see Spamalot after having a dinner at a pub in the theater district!! Naturally, I had a burger and CHIPS. Not chips like pringles, chips like fries, glorious American-y fries. One of the other greatest things about England is that unlike in Italy, they let you order tap water, and so we drank copious amounts of free, wonderfully free water all throughout dinner! (In Italy you have to pay for water and it has to be bottled. They usually refuse to give you any other kind even if you ask. Alas.)
Thursday, 13 March
The next morning, I met Anna and Fred at the COURTALD, which is a really sweet museum that was once a house! I should take this moment to mention, I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned it before actually, how AWESOME THE TUBE IS. Like, seriously. The Tube is the best thing EVER invented. All other inventions, including sliced bread, pale in comparison to the efficiency and clarity that is London’s subway system. From the happy British lady who pleasantly tells you what stop you’re about to be at and reminds you to “mind your step when you alight!”, to the color-coded stops with all their perfectly British names, I was pretty much in heaven every time I rode the Tube. Moreover, their equivalent of a Metrocard? A matte, cheerful blue squarish card called the Oystercard. Two points British (accent, Tube), zero Americans (sorry, homeland).
So, enough of the Tube, guess what is INSIDE THE COURTALD????
THAT!!!!! THAT is inside the Courtald!!!!! Oh my!!!
Anna told me there was a surprise in the Courtald and I would freak out when I saw it. She knows me well. This is Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere, which is incredible. Meditate on the reflection, there… I will refrain from babbling about how awesome this painting is and instead promise that there will be more written on it soon.
Also, there are a lot of stairs inside the Courtald… but they are pretty stairs.
I don’t know why I took or uploaded this picture (perhaps the double-decker buses?) but let it serve as a way to remind you of the difficulties of walking in England. Everything is backwards. People drive on the wrong side of the road, and then you must figure out how to walk around them. Luckily there are instructions on the streets that tell you how which way to look, which is helpful… as long as you’re remembering to look down before you look right– I mean, left– I mean… see, I told you it’s confusing. However, if you just look both ways twice and then maybe a third time if you’re a nervous nelly like me, you should be OK. I only almost got hit once! (Thank you for saving me, Anna.)
This is like a weird bridge connecting two buildings. I just thought it was cool. (Compare that to the Vasari corridor! Same purpose, totally different. Of course, there is the time difference of a couple centuries, give or take, but whatevs.)
After the Courtald, what could be better than a pre-lunch perusal of HARROD’S!?!?! Which is like Disneyworld, in the sense that it is fantastical but also (unless you’re, um, really wealthy) you can’t take any of it home with you, and it must forever remain as a memory in Florida. Or London.
Ahhhhh bask in its wonder. And this is a side entrance.
Harrod’s even has FOOD. And it was all decked out for Easter! There were literally 31 restaurants in the store! IN it! And the map they give you is like a beautiful publication in and of itself!! It is actually sparkley!
Ok, I’ve calmed down now enough to share one of my favorite window displays. This man, whose name is probably Alfonso or something equally exotic, can be seen as the typical Harrod’s shopper (or husband), looking suave in his tux; he can afford not only have all of these precious gems, shoes, and flowers lying around on his living room floor, as well as (inexplicably) a statue of the Medici Venus in a wedding veil on it being put to no other use than to apparently look pretty and/or be impressive. Not only that but, if he so wishes, he can VACUUM UP all of these various expensive objects from his crushed red velvet carpet. Who know swhy he would want to, but he can do so if he likes. Which he seemingly does. In fact we might even say it is his … “Passion.” Harhar, OK I should probably stop making fun of this window display hm? Who comes up with these things?? Moving on…
OH YEAH, Harrod’s even has a fake water floor that when you walk on it splashes around. See how it moved after that guy walked on it!? CRAZY!!!
Friday, 14 March (happy birthday Mom & Lil!)
In your guys’ honor, I went to the National Gallery and had the best day of my life. No joke. The National Gallery is better than Disneyworld. Or Harrod’s. (But maybe not the cake shop.) Words really cannot do justice to how great this museum’s collection is. Anna and Fred were such good sports about me flipping out, being close to tears, and whapping them on the arm while saying, “OH MY GOSH, I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HERE. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS HERE?” Thanks guys for putting up with me, haha!
I know I said I wouldn’t do this, but highlights, because I can’t resist. You should probably skip this paragraph if you don’t just want to hear me babbling on about how every great masterwork in the world is essentially in the National Gallery. Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (is SO beautiful and blue; might be my favorite in the whole collection although how can I choose!), Gerard David’s, HOLBEIN’S awesome Philosophers painting with the , Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks and St. Anne cartoon (beautiful cartoon; and after seeing both Virgins in person, I’m convinced the London version is not by Leonardo’s. Ask me why in person, I won’t put you through my theories here!), Bronzino’s bizarre Allegory, Raphael’s Pope Julius II!, Uccello’s Battle of San Romano (I have seen ALL THREE now! go me!), and oh lord, the Northern Renaissance room: Van Eyck’s self portrait, The ARNOLFINI WEDDING PORTRAIT, his Leal Souvenir, Van der Weyden’s portrait of a Lady and Magdalene, Campin’s Virgin with a Fire Screen… all in a tiny room, clustered together, just chilling there being masterpieces. So beautiful. I had ten minutes alone with the Arnolfini — no words! Continuing… Botticelli’s, Lippi’s, Ghirlandaio’s; Durer’s St Jerome; Velasquez’ Toilet of Venus(! – not what you think, Lil); Rubens, so many Rubens, El Greco… Lorrain, lots of Poussins, Hobbemma, Rembrandts. Carl Fabritius’ peep box painting of Delft!! Lovely De Hoochs!! And of course, the crazy weird Vermeers; so bizarre and melty. The best thing in the whole museum: Hoogstraten’s Perspective box, SO AWESOME. Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaeus! Turner, so many Turners, famous famous Turners! The Fighting Temeraire, Rain Steam Speed. Constable’s Haywain, no joke. Gericault’s Horse Frightened by Lightning. Courbet, Corot, Monet, Seurat, Cezanne. Ingres, Ingres, Ingres’ Moitessier, Ahh!! one of my favorites of all time! And my favorite Rococo paintings, Hogarth’s fantastic Marriage ala Mode paintings… We did all of this in, I think, 4 and a half hours? The best four and a half hours of my life!
One of the best parts of the National Gallery is how, just like in all the 19th century prints you see, artists really do come in here with an easel, set up their sketching tools, and just start to paint and draw. It’s so awesome. What’s even more awesome: All these museums are free, just the way they should be!
We decided that we needed to have a proper tea time, and also, we were so tired and even though I was on an art high I definitely needed caffiene, because there was still the London Bridge to see that day! So we went to the National Gallery Cafe, where they had a pretty affordable tea time set up, and feasted upon yummy tea, watercress sandwiches (no crust, natch), and lots of little pastries and at last at last a SCONE! With some special kind of butter I don’t know what it’s called, but sweet butter, basically. YUM.
Then we Tube-d it over to the London Bridge! Which was not falling down (you know I had to make that joke)
A view of skyscrapers from the Bridge
A view from below the bridge
The last day coming soon…. but since I wrote all this the other night, I thought I would post it before I go to Brussels, Ghent and Bruges this weekend. Buon viaggio a me and to all of you have a good weekend
Chelsea
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Il blog forse sull’ hiatus
Hi everyone!
I just posted the post about Amsterdam, but I recently found out I really do have a bunch of readers (yay! Hi everyone!), so I wanted to warn you that I may not be posting much in the next three weeks. In fact the only reason I was able to finish that post today (I’d been working on it for 2 weeks or so!) was because I’m home sick with a virus! Blech! Anyway, my program ends (!) April 30 and I have a lot to do before then, so I don’t think I will be able to write much in my dear blog. However, I’ll also have a lot of free time between April 30 and May 20th-ish or so, and I will definitely catch up as soon as I can.
In the meantime, I’ll be uploading pictures from my travels to my Google Pictures website, which you can see here. Until I get an entry up, you can at least see lots of pictures!
Here’s what’s coming up in my life and thus the life of the blog…
Spring Break in London
One of my best friends, Anna’s visit to Florence
Paris with my Leonardo da Vinci seminar (last weekend)
Venice with my High Renaissance Class (this weekend)
Brussels, Bruges, and Ghent with Anna and Emma (next weekend)
Finally, my last weekend in Florence, spent probably studying for my many exams!
I promise I’ll write more eventually, but don’t be surprised if it’s not till May. . .
Miss you all tons!
Abbracci,
Chelsea
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Amsterdam: Nou breekt m’n klomp!
Hahaha, I’m giggling away in the library because the phrase in the title is one I snitched off of a teach yourself Dutch website which I hope to be making use of this summer (yes, I’m going to attempt to teach myself Dutch. Japanese, too. So what?!). The phrase is an idiom that basically means the same as our “now that takes the cake!” which I chose initially because without a doubt the best place I went to in Amsterdam was a little cake cafe which you will definitely be hearing more about in a few paragraphs. But it turns out, the phrase literally translates to, “now that breaks my little wooden shoe!” hahahahaha, oh my. How I love the Dutch and how I love Amsterdam! It really does…break my little wooden shoe. So much so that I’d just love to live there one day, seriously… everything is clean, beautiful, well designed, and modern and lovely there. Ahh! OK, let’s see the pictures!!!
Friday, 7 March
We took a plane to Eindhoven which is sorta far from Amsterdam. This is the view from the bus arriving in — sadly it was raining! — from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal Station, which you can see here through the blurry rain! You can also see the TRAMS. I love, love, love the trams!
After checking in to my hotel, I walked down the street a little and, since it was Friday, the Rijksmuseum was open late so I decided to go before dinner rather than lamely sit in my hotel room. I AM SO HAPPY I DID THAT. The Rijksmuseum is mostly closed for renovations right now but there is a beautiful wing open with all of the “masterpieces” of the collection. That means, the Vermeers, the Rembrandts, the dollhouses, and all the other wonders. . . It’s amazing. The design of the museum is flawless, the information is incredible, and on Fridays, it was almost empty. I saw the dollhouse of Petronella Oortman, Ruisdaels, and on my way past the Rembrandts and into the Vermeers, there was a room with two happy Dutch musicians playing music. One on a kind of violin — sort of the bones of a violin — and the other on an accordion. They were SO HAPPY, just grinning away, and there were maybe about 20 people in the whole museum (and it’s pretty big and usually packed), and so as I walked into the Vermeer room to see the Little Street, the Blue Letter Reader, the Milkmaid, and the Love Letter for the first time, in a completely empty room, I could watch these paintings almost alone with Dutch music floating in the background. Could such an experience be any more perfect?
Saturday, 8 March
This is one of the streets around where my hotel was, in the Museumplein neighborhood. It was really quiet and all of the buildings had these gorgeous stripes along them. Even though it rained on and off the whole weekend and was pretty cold, when the sun came out the whole city becomes illuminated with a very yellow light. No wonder Vermeers paintings were so beautiful. It seems like every place in the world has a different quality of light and it’s cool how art picks up on that.
Vondelpark is the main park in Amsterdam… It’s kind of like Central Park, I guess. But people live inside there too.
As you can kind of see in this picture!
It’s the Rijksmuseum again! I took a lot of pictures of it…
Because one day I want to go back and work there.
View of the Museumplein tram stops
The “real” entrance to the Rijksmuseum. Amazing!!!
Requisite canal photo
THIS IS THE BEST PLACE IN AMSTERDAM: DE TAART VAN M’N TANTE
This is the most wonderful and amazing place I was in Amsterdam besides the Rijksmuseum. Actually they might be a tie and that is saying something because you, dear blog reader, probably realize by now how much I love art. I don’t know what is better to this day, cakes like I got at this little cake cafe, or Vermeers. It is an extremely tough call. As you can see on every table there is a beautifully decorated gourmet cake.
You sit down at a table (the decorations are so girly and funky — butterfly lamps!) and order off of a menu of millions of different kinds of cakes. If you want to look at it and drool, click here. You can also get coffees and drinks. It’s AMAZING. Amazing! A smidge expensive but so, so worth it, every bite and minute. We literally pushed our way into a table because it was so packed and stood around until someone left. It was so worth it!
This is the cake I got! It’s called “anne-marie” and is a vanilla cake with strawberry frosting, strawberry fondant, and whipped cream with a grape. AMAZING!
You can see I loved this place! … Turns out it is also a bed & breakfast called “CAKE UNDER MY PILLOW” How adorable is that!?!? No question that is where I’m staying the next time I’m in Amsterdam. One of my new life goals is to learn Dutch and move to Amsterdam just so I can work in that shop. I figure I can do Rijksmuseum docent-ing in the morning, work at the cake shop in the evenings… 
We also went to the van Gogh (actually pronounced Vahn GhgchhOAHghgchch with a gutteral Dutch sound) Museum after the best 2 hours of my life at the cake shop. It was pretty cool although about to close since we spent so much time eating cake. But it was worth it and we saw the highlights. Van Gogh was a pretty sad man, but his writings are fascinating — he literally writes about EVERYTHING to his brother Theo — his life, his art, his ideas, his philosophies, his feelings. It was refreshing to see all of that information presented since for the Renaissance we have so few direct primary sources from artists themselves.
The famous “Iamsterdam” sign in Museumplein (get it? I-am-…sterdam?)
And the sign, not backwards
Canals in the evening
Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful and so unique … and so different than Italy, which is beautiful in its own way, of course, but very different than the landscape in Holland.
Sunday, 9 March
On Sunday, we went to Den Haag!!! This is the capital of the Netherlands. And it’s where one of the most famous paintings in the world is… AH!
Den Haag was super rainy, but quaint and small and beautiful nonetheless.
On the way to the main square
THE MAURITSHUIS
This museum is kind of like the Frick in NYC, or the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston. It was a palace that was transformed into the state museum. And what a state museum it is . . . Some highlights/my favorites (one day I will try to link some pictures, but in the interest of time, I won’t… although you can Google image search them if you want): Rogier Van Der Weyden’s Lamentation of Christ, Gerard David’s forest scenes, Hans Holbein portraits, lots of Rubens, many Rembrandts, including the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (!), Hoogstraten, Jan Steen’s Doctor’s Visit, Gabriel Metsu, Ter Borch’s Woman Writing a Letter (!), Carl Fabritius’ Goldfinch, and oh, the Vermeers… View of Delft, which is huge and stunning; Diana and Attendants, a strange early painting which, according to my notes in front of it, I seem not to think is a Vermeer… well, who knows, haha. And finally the Girl with a Pearl Earring, which truly is the most beautiful painting I have ever seen in my life. It is hard to believe that a person, a human, made this stunningly incredibly beautiful object with his own hand… There are no words.
(The Mauritshuis from the back)
This is the seat of the government, just near the Mauritshuis
Inside the National History Museum, a cute but forgettable little place, they have dollhouses.
A church square we stumbled upon in Den Haag
Den Haag, like Amsterdam, is a sea of bicycles
That evening, we went to a bizarre restaurant where you eat on beds! So strange. On my way, I had to document how clean and easy to use the trams are. Oh, trams, how I love you.
This is the restaurant — bizarre! Lights changed with every course.
And you ate with your plate on your lap. It was quite an experience.
Monday, 10 March
This is the Westerkerk, near Anne Frank’s House
Canal on the way to Westerkerk
Anne Frank’s house was really sad, but quite affecting. It made me remember how great the diary was. I’m really glad we read it in 8th grade — it’s a great thing to read. The house is set up just as is was when the Franks lived and hid there. It takes you through the whole thing and it’s a really great experience and a wonderful little museum. Really powerful.
Tram in front of the. . . Nieue kerk? I think? (Kerk means church, so this is the New Church. I believe. The above, then, was the West church!)
We didn’t pay to go inside the church, but I snapped some pictures from the waiting area. As you can see, Dutch churches are much less ornate than Italian or French ones. Stark white interiors and very little decoration.
The Olde Kerk is aaalmost right inside the Red Light District. . . an interesting, I believe accidental, placement…
The Olde Kerk was a little under construction, with a dusty smell and lots of beams on the floor and things closed off, and almost totally quiet except for the echo of people’s footsteps. (Whereas the Nieue kerk had a ticket stand, an art exhibition inside, and a murmur of voices throughout.)
Then we trekked up to REMBRANDT’S HOUSE!! Okay, it was a liiittle silly since they just kind of remade it all to look like it did when Rembrandt lived there, but who doesn’t love Rembrandt?! I mean, look at that face. (Yes that is a blowup picture of his own self portrait print, which is actually only the size of a postage stamp, and if you ever visit me at Vassar, I will gladly show it to you.) I loved Rembrandt’s house. It was a quick museum but really cute.
I feel the need to note that we went to a little cafe/eatery (Dutch equivalent of a trattoria, I suppose?) for lunch near the Rembrandt house. It was SO good! I got a hazelnut latte (because I am addicted to coffee), and a goat cheese, honey, pear, and walnut sandwich. I had not had goat cheese in months and it is one of my favorite foods, so this was exciting, and thus merits its own paragraph. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of the wonderful creation…
We took a walk down the Golden Mile (or something?) which is the rich part of town and has oodles of examples of traditional Dutch architecture.
This poor house is tilting…
Walking up back to the Museumplein
This is right across the street from the main, huge entrance to the Rijksmuseum. I don’t know what it is aside from my future house, when I win the lottery and buy this gorgeous mansion so I can go to the Rijksmuseum every day and have a lunch break at the cake shop.
And I end with a beautiful night shot of Amsterdam, as we were on the way to go get pancakes. Yum!
What’s next? A trip to London. . . . then Paris!
Abbracci,
Chelsea
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You should probably read the Siena entry below this one first!
We went to Parma and Milan for my Leonardo seminar, where I had to give my first presentation. Hmm, I’ll just say it was rather stressful and continue… Milan is a beautiful city but a very bustling one, and a very French one even, being more to the North. It was cold and a bit gloomy while we were there, but we saw some wonderful things, even if almost none of them had anything to do with Leonardo da Vinci. As we like to say in my seminar: “This [insert any painting, object, word, or in this case: post] is scholarly conjecture.” Let’s begin!
Parma – Tutto Coreggio, tutto il tempo
Parma, that day, was gloomy, but quiet, peaceful, and completely empty.
The Baptistery is medieval, turning towards the Gothic… that we’ll see in Milano…
The beginning of Coreggio. I have my notes for this, so I can tell you that this is the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista.
This is the Parma Duomo…and guess who painted that fresco! That’s right, Correggio! This one IS pretty cool actually.
A piazza in Parma (observe emptiness)
We also went to the Camera di San Paolo where there is a Correggio ceiling fresco that I really like but weirdly enough I didn’t upload the pictures of it. I’ll get on that but it was a pretty little building.
An oasis in the center of Parma, amongst the gloom and Correggios!…TOO BAD IT WAS RIPOSO AND WE COULDN’T EAT ANY OF THE WONDERS IN THE WINDOW. AHHHH RIPOSO I HATE YOU. Continuing on…
This is a “Temporary Art Box” as you can see. Why is there a box with art in the middle of a field? Why is it temporary? Why put art in a box in the first place? Why label it in English? The world will probably never know and we can only conjecture…BECAUSE IT WAS CLOSED FOR RIPOSO. Shocker!!!
I don’t have any pictures of the weird museum in Parma which is called the Galleria Nazionale di Parma but we did see soeme Parmignaninos, some MORE Correggios, and some Rahpaels. We went there mainly to see a Leonardo that… was not in the gallery for some unknown reason. (We could only conjecture on its whereabouts while our professor went off “finding Leonardo”…) … (I should really stop with theselame inside joke, but I can’t help persisting with them) But the museum is really weird because it’s mainly made up of a bunch of pipes and grates on which the paintings are hung. A really odd way to show Renaissance/Baroque pictures. But kind of cool… you walk on ramps everywhere…
Milan – L’ultimo Cenacolo e una presentazione stressataaa!
Then we went to Milan! Its train station is hardcore.
We went to the Pinacoteca Brera!!! Though we were all exhausted, we saw some great pictures. Per esempio… here’s a big fat list since I have my notes on me: Mantegna’s Dead Christ which is SO MUCH SMALLER than you would think it’d be, Piero della Francesca’s weird, bizarro Virgin and Child which I really am not a fan of, and Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmeus which was pretty freaking awesome and I flipped out, as I am apt to do, when I saw it.
Ha, this notebook is ridiculous. We found it in the bookstore.
HERE is MY favorite duomo!!!! It is so beautiful and gothic and high and dark and spiritual and hazy inside and is just lovely. I adore it! It’s pretty much the most non-Italian Italian church you’ll ever see, though.
The Galleria in the main piazza. Shoot, it has a particular name which I can’t remember. But it’s super awesome!
I took lots of pictures. In the ironies of Italian shopping there is a Gucci right across from a McDonald’s in this fancy galleria.
The ceiling is too pretty not to take millions of pictures of, so here is one
The inside of the Duomo– not sure if you can see it, it is a pretty dark photo on this icky Windows computer I’m typing on– but it is sooo incredible inside, hazy and huge and daunting and shooting up forever into the sky.
More of the best duomo in the land …not that I’m biased, obviously
We climbed the roof! I did this in high school but it never gets old. The marble simply disappears spiraling into the sky…
Here’s the roof where you can sit and people watch and enjoy being above the hustle and bustle of Milan.
Isn’t that one of the most incredible things you’ve ever seen? The fact that these amazing marble buildings were built so long ago boggles the mind.
Art history majors are very serious people who never, ever make fun of the art they’re seeing. Ever.
Lots of flying buttresses (teehee)
We were rather high up. As you can see.
Looking down at the Milanese piazza
GUESS WHAT’S IN THIS BUILDING!?!?
THE LAST SUPPERRRRRRRRR!!!!!! Indeed obnoxious capitals, bold and italics all necessary. Once you go through a purification chamber (! imagine) you get 15 precious minutes inside a room with Leonardo’s masterpiece. Which is nicely restored but, as we have learned over and over in my seminar, “is mostly scholarly conjecture” because who knows how it ever actually looked except for the fact that it probably looked a great deal better than it did today. But even half-ruined it’s breathtaking. Huge, flawless perspective, incredibly balanced figure groupings, and the characteristically weird details (the doorways on the side? the hands? the floor?) that Leonardo always includes. I bet somewhere in the afterlife Leo’s chuckling away at the fervent desire of scholars to…guess(see, I didn’t say conjecture! God, this joke is probably ancient at this point), what exactly is going on in his works. REGARDLESS, seeing this painting in person was a once in a lifetime, amazing experience. I could see the blue embroidery detail on the tablecloth, the feet under the table… things I never would have noticed in a slide. Amazing.
At some point in there we went to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana where I presented on Raphael’s HUGE School of Athens cartoon (prep. sketch). It was fine, but stressful. (Figured I’d throw in a summary there since I referred to it constantly throughout this post!)
OK, now I’m off to my Leonardo seminar, speaking of!
LOTS OF PICTURES and of course all my babblings about everything I saw and did in Amsterdam and London– hopefully sooner rather than later!
Baci & abbracci a tutti
Chelsea!
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Hi all!
Miraculously I have some free time this week between my Italian class (my old professor is back) and my Leonardo seminar. Seems I have a LOT to do before the end othe semester which is not creeping up on me, but hurtling towards me like… I don’t know, something fast. It’s like that scene from Indiana Jones… the end of the semester and all this work hurtling towards me like that huge boulder. But there’s no trap door! I have to write all these papers and give all these presentations! Ahhh!
…. But since the boulder of work is a little ways off yet (these are the lame metaphors you get when you’re running on very little sleep), here is a very belated post about my weekend trips to Siena and Milan. I have a lot more images up in my Google Photos thingy, so you should look there. These are literally the highlights because, I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember them super well and I want to get more down about Amsterdam and London sooner rather than later! But first, Italia…
Siena
Siena is a really pretty, quiet, lovely little medieval city an hour or two from Florence. Vassar has a summer program there… So I got AJ to give me a tour since he spent last summer there! Sadly his favorite gelaterie were closed BUT we did have some awesome pizza and even awesomer (?) RICIARELLI which are my faaavorite cookies of all tiiiime. They’re from Siena so of course the Sienese have the best ones!
A close up of the bell tower in Siena
DUCCIO’S MAESTAAAAA!!
I’m sorry it’s dark. I sort of took pictures surreptitiously because I wasn’t sure if it was allowed or not. AHH It was beautiful.
Other panels…
This is the view of the main piazza from the top of the museum where Duccio’s Maesta is. It’s a gorgeous view! In the summer, all the townspeople gather in it and sit and spend their evenings chatting there. It’s a slanted piazza, so you can sit on it quite comfortably; there isn’t anything like it, really, in Florence. It’s also divided (don’t know if you can see it in the picture, maybe if you click and zoom in) into 9 (I think it’s 9) different “slices” that symbolize each of the nine different neighborhoods of Siena. It’s also where the famous Palio takes place. The Palio of Siena is a Really BIG Deal, capital B-G-D, because all the neighborhoods compete in a 90-second horse race around the piazza. Iti s cutthroat and people talk about it and prepare for it for the entire year. And once you choose a neighborhood to support you cannot switch or else they will probably kill you or at least beat you up if they hear you’re switching sides. And the winning neighborhood gets bragging rights and general decrees of awesomeness for the entire rest of the year. (My dear Vassar kids who went to Siena, correct me if any of this is wrong!) Here is a huge list of videos on Youtube of the 2007 Palio. Here’s another fun fact: That Palio, the 2007 one, is going to be in the next James Bond film!! As are all my wonderful Vassar-Seina-friends!!!! More luckily, they actually were mere feet from Daniel Craig himself. How AWESOME is that!?! ..Aaand to conclude the Palio is clearly a very important cultural institution for Italy and the Sienese.
The Siena Duomo (Cathedral) is quite ornate…
As you can see!
Also, as AJ’s unofficial blog replacement writer, I feel the need to write that this is his favorite duomo in all of Italy. Which I respect but must say I prefer a different duomo… which you will have the pleasure of seeing in the next post…
The stripey inside of Siena’s cathedral
Restorers at work! Cooool! The darker spots on the marble floor, you can just make them out in the photo, are where they were painting the marble. Being a big art geek, naturally I took pictures of them doing it.
Here are two more cool things we did in Siena at the Palazzo Pubblico……
1. We heard a super famous art historian, Gordon Moran (I think!), talk about the controversy about this weird Simone Martini fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico. It’s a very famous fresco, and a very famous controversy, which you can read more about here although I’m not totally positive that’s the best source, just a webpage Google came up with. I don’t have my notes with me so I’ll have to add to this later (yeah I took notes so what!), but it was really interesting to hear about how they discovered this fresco, how there is probably more to be found, but how a lot of people don’t want it further investigated, because it’s very likely that the famous artist (Simone Martini) did not actually paint the fresco that they’re saying he did… very interesting indeed… Will add to this!
2. We saw the GOOD GOVERNMENT AND BAD GOVERNMENT FRESCOS BY THE LORENZETTI BROS. We also saw Simone Martini’s Maestaaaa! Eeeek! So stunningly beautiful and huge. And the government frescos — oh, simply incredible…
San Gimignamo
It’s a super small town, but I think their logo is so cute. San GimignAMO. Amo=means I love. CUTE.
It’s a very peaceful, quiet town… this is the well in the tiny main piazza… Just across the way is the best gelato in all of Italy. It’s true, they won a prize last summer. …But it was closed. For winter. But I blame riposo/naptime anyway… winter is really just a long riposo, right? It’s all riposo’s fault! I bet I would have liked San Crispino better anyway. So there San Gimignamo!
Its little gardens certainly are pretty though, even if their gelaterie aren’t open.
Next up: MILANO…And LOTS of Leonardo…
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Ciao a tutti!!!!
I am so excited because it’s FINALLY my spring break!!! After days of grueling exams and presentations (OK, I exagerrate. They were not actually that hard. Although the presentations were a liiitle grueling. Hey, product of my work this week: Click here! My professors seemed to like it.. maybe you mysterious readers will too!)
So, tomorrow, I am heading off for three full days in AMSTERDAM, where I am staying in a cute little hotel literally 2 blocks from the museum quarter, and where I will live at the Rijksmuseum, float along the canals, travel to The Hague to pay my respects to the Girl with a Pearl Earring among bazillions of others, and try rijsttafel (plates of Indonesian curry which is apparently heavenly).
After Amsterdam, I’ll be on my way to LONDON, to spend every waking moment that I’m not in a museum with ANNA!!! Who I miss so much!!! Besides visiting all the bazillions of treasures in the British museums (oh goodness — van Eycks, Leonardos, Vermeers, I’m going to explode), I will also be seeing RENT for the first time, going to Harrod’s and Topshop and not allowing myself to buy a thing, and perfecting my fake British accent.
I could not be more excited!!! Cross your fingers that no planes get cancelled. It’s ridiculously windy here for some bizarre reason. . .
I know it’s spring break time at Vassar so I hope to my Vassar amici that all your exams went well… go enjoy your breaks!!
Lots of love, baci & abbracci to each one of you…
Chelsea, world traveler
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Hi everyone! My internet works at home, HURRAH! And although I should be working, since I have a couple of midterms coming up very soon (alas….), I just can’t bring myself to do it. I was working all day on my midterm project for my High Renaissance class which happens to be this website right here that AJ and Alison and I wrote and I made a website for. Would love your comments although it is not QUITE finished (will be by Wednesday, however!)
Giorno 2 a Roma
In which we see the most AMAZING SCULPTURES EVER and then AJ and I split up to see almost every major tourist attraction in Rome in the space of 4 hours. Andiamo!!
First stop: Villa Farnesina (oops I think I called it Farnesini in the last entry… some art historian I am!), where I could take no pictures, BUT where there is are two super awesome Raphael frescoes. First is the incredibly gorgeous Galatea, and second is the SWEET room of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche. Totally awesome. Actually thanks to Wikipedia I learned that it’s in Trastevere which makes total sense… looks like I did literally at least step foot in every major sight in Rome on this weekend… Wow. No wonder I was so tired! Moving along…
This is the inside of the Villa Borghese which as of now might be my most favorite museum in the world (although in less than a week I’m pretty sure that’ll be surpassed by the Rijksmuseum). In the Borghese are some great paintings but my favorite were the sculptures by Bernini who without a doubt is my most favorite sculptor EVER. I think Rome made me fall in love with the Baroque. And the best part of his oeuvre, while I do love Apollo and Daphne, is the part of the sculpture of Pluto and Proserpina where Pluto is clutching Persephone’s thigh so hard you can see where her flesh is indented… he’s a master, like no other, when he depicts surfaces and textures, the difference between flesh and cloth and, in Daphne, bark and leaves and roots is astounding… absolutely astounding. Incredible.
After that, AJ and I split up from the group and got accidentally lost in the gardens behind the Borghese on our way to visit Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul. This picture… well, let’s just say that the little pool here was SO not worth the fall I took tripping over the sidewalk in order to get it… Moving along from THAT embarrassing story…
Oh, this is the garden. See how there’s no straight line from the RIGHT of the picture (Villa Borghese) to the LEFT? That’s why it took us like a half an hour longer than it should have to get out…
One of these two churches houses Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul!!!! But I, at least, will never know which one (I believe it’s the one on the right though), because both were closed for stupid riposo… Alas. Riposo, how I loathe thee. Well, one painting that I didn’t see means that my wish at the Trevi will come true and I have to come back to Rome.
Saddened by missing the Caravaggio, we walked along the Tiber and ran into this odd building. What could be inside such a modern structure in the middle of old, old Rome?…
One of its oldest objects, in fact….THE ARA PACIS!!!!
!!!! The Ara Pacis was built basically as propaganda for how awesome Augustus was after the Romans won a war. Despite being political propaganda, it is pretty darn awesome…
And it is also PRETTY DARN HUMONGOUS. I kind of always pictured it as this thing that wasn’t more than, I dunno, two or three feet higher than me, but it is incredibly huge!! As you can see there I am for scale 
The arabesques of acanthus, to quote Eve D’Ambra… (no pictures of rippling musculature though, sorry!)
It’s Tellus! Goodness, those Romans were good at relief carving. This is so beautiful.
There’s the other side! There’s a lot of controversy over this building because it’s so modern. I’d probably be more than annoyed by it if I was a Roman but I do like a modern-looking museum, I can’t help it… it is kind of cool how it mirrors the box-y shape of the Ara Pacis itself. But chi sa?
We stopped at another of Steve’s recommendations to get a cup of caffe! “Grancaffe” to be exact. WOW, that stuff was powerful. A strange kind of coffee — thick caffe, but not espresso (I don’t think), that was kind of creamy on its own without milk and had sugar in it. I’m still not sure if I liked it but man, I was awake for the rest of the day and we needed it too! This place was PACKED to the brim with Italians — definitely “the” caffe to go to.
I also had one of these… I am still not sure what it is or if I liked it… it was kind of like… a thick jello-y doughnut hole? Hm.
It’s the backside of the Pantheon!! (Told you we literally hit ALL the sites)
The Pantheon is GINORMOUS
The oculus! We were there too late for it to hit the floor, but it was still pretty.
Piazza Navona! The three fountains…
With the sun
OH OK, LIL!!! This is for you!!! This is what I was telling you about, it’s my surprise. OK So there’s this piazza in the middle of Rome that is only for stray cats. Actually, thanks to the wonders of the internet I just found it’s called the Cat Sanctuary and it even has a website. Haha.
Look, there’s one! So what they did is, I think, someone paid to have these old ruins made into a sanctuary for stray cats…
…and literally what you do is, if you find a stray cat, you drop it in there, and then people feed the cats. And all the ways out are stopped up with fencing so the cats can’t get out, they just chill in there in the sun, get fed, and live happy little cat lives.
It’s really pretty!
I took a lot of pictures of the cats for you, Lil. I hope you like them.
OK and now get ready for the BEST PART OF ROME…….. (tied with Persephone’s thigh in the Borghese)…
Ready!?
I don’t have a shot of the door because I was too excited, so here it is:
THE ECSTASY OF ST. TERESA BY BERNINI
I got a little choked up and was speechless. This is one of the most incredible sculptures I have ever seen in my entire life. Bernini… amazing. I don’t even have words, so instead I’ll just mention how the postcard shop in the church was run by this sweet monk, and I got a bunch of gorgeous, old B&W post cards for like, 0,20 eurocents each… that was nice too. Although the statue was obviously nicer.
After that AJ and I headed back to the train station area, picked up our bags from the hotel, took one last passeggiata around the train station where I took this pretty picture, and then crashed on the train, since our espresso-induced energy had finally worn off. Rome is beautiful and amazing, and I almost feel guilty for packing all those things into literally a day and a half (and only 1 night) — I still don’t know how we did it! — but I’m glad we did. I really loved Rome, and like I said, while it was nice to come back to Florence after all that walking and art-ing, I realized how much I love big, bustling cities. Ah Roma… ritornero` un giorno.
Siena/San Gimignano and Milano coming up soon… after midterms, that is… for now, to Mythology, Leonardo, and Italian subjunctive I go.
Abbracci,
Chelsea
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No time yet to post about Rome (maybe later today, but probably not — midterms coming up, alas…) — but while I am waiting for the library to open in 20 minutes, a quick post.
I woke up earlier than I’d meant to this morning and when I went outside, the sun was beautifully shining, there was a light breeze, everyone was out and about — which is strange on a Sunday, when almost all the shops are closed in Florence, except for a few here and there and many touristy places in centro. Old couples taking a morning passaggiata, young people walking their dogs, mothers wheeling strollers, the sun shining in a bright sky, everyone in sunglasses. It’s about 65-70 degrees and spring is here — it smells like spring and grass in the air (except for the smelly city updrafts you get sometimes which I am slowly but surely getting used to filtering out!) and the sky has turned that gorgeous Tuscan azure again. All my favorite shops in the neighborhood switched over to Easter window displays while I was in Milan and now there are pastel greens and yellows and pinks everywhere, from the little cartoleria (paper/officey store which is probably my favorite, no surprise if you know me at all!) with its light green backpacks and Easter bunny notebooks in the window, to the shoe store whose window walls are painted bright yellow and sneakers are hung by their laces from a little branch. On the bus ride over to school, everyone seemed a litte smilier, and the piazza where my school is, is full of parents and children, little girls learning to rollerblade and a group of 25 12-year-old boys playing a very heated game of soccer… I mean football. And the Tuscan sun and a nice breeze over it all.
It’s spring!!! Not even midterms can bring me down on a lovely day like this.
Più dopo, abbracci
Chelsea
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[Rome: thick, lush, heavy -- a quote from my family friend, the wonderful Steve who gave me some fantastic recommendations for Rome, as you will see...]
I did get to post at least HALF of Rome tonight, since my internet is working, hurrah! So let’s begin…
The quote in the title really, truly describes Rome, so I couldn’t not use it — I hope it’s okay that I borrowed your words, Steve! It is a city in the truest sense of the word, and as Steve reminded me (he will be all throughout this post, I think!), it’s been inhabited continuously for hundreds and hundreds of years, since the ancient Romans… something you know, but don’t really think about. But I was glad he said that because it really is something miraculous, to know that the streets you’re walking on, buildings you’re going into, things you are looking at are just so old, and so persevering. Truthfully, I feel that way a lot in Italy, and it makes me realize how young a country America is — everything around me has been used and utilized for so long and by so many, and it’s just miraculous, these old buildings, slim streets, cobblestones… And yet, nicely, rather than make America seem awful or something, it makes it seem full of possibilities; like there’s so much out there in the country to see and explore, so much to develop, so many things to take advantage of. Of course both countries have their problems, but why dwell on them, unless you’re trying to improve them? Why not think of the wonderful possibilities for each instead?
Aaaanyway, back to Rome. It is SO different from Florence — faster, busier, lots and lots of people. It reminded me of New York City actually, which made me feel a little homesick because I love NYC so much! It was both great to be there and be in a city environment for a day or so, but also nice to come back to Florence, where, I realized, I feel really comfortable now. I don’t claim to be an expert at the city at all but it really is wonderful to know my routes, know the familiar faces on the bus (where I probably am spending half my semester) and at the stores I go to a fair bit… Just nice. I like them both, which is the best I could hope for, I suppose!
GIORNO 1 / Day one
So, why did I go to Rome? I am in a High Renaissance and Mannerism class and obviously Rome is a great place to go to check out all things high renaissance and manneristic. On the first day, our itinerary was tight: early train to get to the Vatican shortly after opening, many, many hours there, followed by seeing St. Peter’s in Chains, and then the evening free to do what we wished. We wished to go to the best gelato place in Rome, and our wish was granted!! Haha, wow was that cheesy, forgive me. Maybe I’ll just stop and go straight to the pictures complete with, as usual, gushing commentary from yours truly…
Rome has a pretty gorgeous but also extremely busy train station and um, I took a picture of it. OK, not the most exciting way to start off these pictures but I promise it gets better…
This is Hadrian’s masoleum! I think. I know for sure that the river is the Tiber, though.
This is just a pretty picture. …Wow, so far this is really lacking, isn’t it.
OK now we’re getting some where! There’s St. Peter’s…!
And there’s the Vatican Museums!!! Yay!!!
Why yes, I am a total geek and took a picture of my ticket. It has Laocoon on it, for goodness’ sakes, how could I not?
Pinacoteca (gallery) Vaticana! Sadly, I have no pictures of the gallery itself because, as I said, we were there for class so we couldn’t take pictures while the professor was speaking (makes sense!). But I did see some pretty awesome things… SUCH AS: Raphael’s Coronation of the Virgin (an early work), Madonna di Foglino (middleish work), and Transfiguration (late work); very cool to see all of those styles, surrounded by tapestries he designed. Then Leonardo’s unfinished St. Jerome, not too bad if I do say so myself and a bunch of other awesome things as we passed… Including Caravaggio’s Deposition, OH MAN!!! It was incredible, gosh I love Caravaggio, too bad we ran right by it in order to get someplace else…
This is a courtyard designed by Bramante.
This is a giant pinecone.
The maps gallery!
Along the way, we saw the Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s stanze, the Belvedere torso, and the INCREDIBLE Laocoon. Indescribable (like everything else I try to describe in this blog, ha).
And moving into St. Peter’s, Bernini’s tabernacle — Bernini is definitel one of my favorite artists ever, and you will see why in day two
St. Peter’s is HUGE and beautiful…
Closeup of a sculpture of Bernini (St. Lignus?) in St. Peter’s– click on the picture and look at how he uses texture. This makes the drapery seem like it’s really flying out and has a distinct texture itself. HE’S SO COOL
This might be one of my favorite pictures I took on the trip!
See how big it is? That’s the entrance…
And that’s looking in. Check out how tiny the people are compared to the tabernacle, which is like, 40 feet tall or something. Maybe more, I couldn’t even begin to figure it out! It’s HUGE!
I believe this is the spot where the Pope pops out and says hello every so often… I mean addresses the people. We didn’t see him though.
Strike that: these pictures of the fountain are my favorites. The light…wow. (There are more in the google album)
St. Peter’s!
Colonnades.
Oh look! The Collisseum!
Yeah, there it is. Just from the bus though.
Pretty good view from speeding by in a bus, however…
It’s the Roman forum, from the bus still! Sorry ancient Romans, we’re all about Baroque this weekend. Move along, move along…
Or, OK, High Renaissance. It’s MICHELANGELO’S MOSES!
This was at St. Peter’s in Chains; absolutely awesome… wow. Intended as a subsidiary figure for a bigger tomb that was never finished, but still pretty impressive as the main event… he looks slightly diferent from every angle, as if he’s thinking something different at a different moment, because Michelangelo’s awesome like that.
The light that evening was pretty awesome… pictures do little justice.
Later that night, after we checked into our cute little hotel, we headed out to see some of the main sites in Rome: the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain. We walked by this famous little sidewalk-less (but full of vespa scooters and smartcars) piazza of the four fountains on the way…
And here are the (rather dark) Spanish Steps!
You can see them a little better here if you look past those two much-too-smiley Vassar students in the foreground.. don’t know how they got into the picture, pesky Vassar kids…
And um this is the most BEAUTIFUL shop window I have ever seen. It’s Gucci. I took this for Maddy and Courtney who I’m sure we’ll get a kick out the incredible display. I would never use those bags but god that window display makes me want them… guess that’s the point, though…
The Trevi Fountain!!! It’s so beautiful. I made a wish and threw in a coin, which means I’ll be coming back to Rome Hurrah! Can’t wait!
Then we found a little side street that Steve recommended (THANK YOU!!!) with two of, in my opinion, the best little finds in Rome. One was this place, my favorite, San Crispino, which is without a doubt the BEST GELATO IN ITALY. EVER. No joke. Oh my, was it good. Worth a trip to Rome just to go here.
THIS IS MY GELATO!!! Oh man, looking at this picture makes me want more… sniff… It was miele (honey), the house flavor, with grapefruit sorbet and the owner who gave it to us gave us free panna (whipped cream!) He was really nice. When I told him the combo I wanted he said “good choice!” in Italian and so I felt pretty cool, I must say. Then I ate the gelato and was in heaven. We may have gone there once before dinner and once after dinner and the second time I may have had honey gelato and hazelnut gelato and it might have been just as amazing as the first time and I might also be obsessed with San Crispino.
This is Sora Lucia, a lovely little restaurant where we ate! Another great recommendation!! I had spinach and tomato gnocchi, oh man, I love gnocchi, and we had wine too and made a really nice little night of it (I finally found a kind of red wine I like, rejoice, although I don’t know the name or type of it. Alas!) We went a little early because we were hungry, around 8:30 or so. This was pretty lame of us because Romans don’t eat until 10 at the earliest and then they go out all night and then they sleep in. I guess this is what the dreaded riposo (naptime) is for in Rome. (I will write another post soon detailing all of my hatred for riposo, which I am still not used to, when all the shops close from 1ish to 3 or 4ish, the only time I usually have to run my errands, and conveniently everyone is sleeping and can’t help me with my errand-running. Not that I am bitter or anything, probably I only wish that I too, had time for a riposo). In any case, I am babbling… It was good though that we came early because they filled up by the time we left (..around 10. The only Italian family that came in before that at 9ish was one with a couple of young children who probably stay up later than I do on a daily basis. Ah well.) So, despite us being rather American and not very Roman, we had a wonderful dinner and then…more gelato and went back to the hotel to SLEEP until the next day, which was certainly an adventure…
So, coming up!! In giorno 2 (which I will probably not get to post for another week or so, sorry, midterm time!) we went to Villa Farnesini and Villa Borghese (quite possibly my favorite place in Rome, at least museum), and then AJ and I split off and ventured to find Baroque splendors, stumbling upon a Roman one along the way… I’ll leave you in suspense for now so I can jet off early early tomorrow morning for a 7 AM train to Parma/Milan. Eek! Here’s hoping my presentation goes well…
Baci & abbracci!
Chelsea
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Un aggiornamento!
Hi everyone, so sorry I haven’t written lately! I am swamped with midterm stuff (it feels like I’m busier than I ever was at Vassar, though that can’t be true!) and also a bad cold and since my internet has been really unreliable at home I haven’t had time to write here. But I have a LOT to say. Hopefully, I will have internet in the hotels I’m staying at during spring break… I am going to Amsterdam and London, by the way, and could not be more excited!! Rijksmuseum, Delft, Tate and National Gallery!!! … so I should be able to update then.
Some brief news: I am going to Milan extremely early tomorrow morning for my Leonardo class, where I’ll be giving a presentation on the cartoon of the School of Athens by Raphael (he was influenced by Leonardo… a LOT). I’m terrified so I hope it goes well! But be warned you’ll probably get some “spoilers” about all the awesome stuff I did…..
More as soon as I can,
Baci & abbraci a tutti!!
Chelsea
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