I do recall that the moment I set foot on the property of the hermitage, all became incredibly quiet, as if I had stepped into another realm altogether. The loudest thing to be heard were the pebbles crunching under my feet and the occasional ever-so distant call of a bird. The hermitage was beautiful and exceedingly peaceful. We were even privileged to navigate through the narrow stone passages to visit the small cave where St. Francis prayed. Perfect silence reigned in that little cave and a very subtle holy presence could be felt. It was really amazing! On the other parts of the mountain right beside the hermitage were prayer spots and quiet trails. We even spied the tree that is said to have been the perch of many birds who would come to listen to St. Francis preach. The hour-long decent back to Assisi included a brilliant Italian sunset and the gradual increase of the many town lights far below. Upon our return to Assisi’s center, we went to Mass then were given an opportunity to shop for awhile before dinner. I decided to purchase a wooden Tao, which is the symbol that St. Frances devoutly used and wore. I later had it blessed by Fr. Thomas, our amazing UD alumni and Cistercian who has accompanied us on our big class trips since Greece.
Much to the students’ dismay after dinner, Assisi had no night life. Ever since I came to understand our Fall class to be party-prone and alcohol-happy (though usually not in excess), I figured that they wouldn’t last in a divinely quiet town like Assisi. And they didn’t. The town square just half a block down from where our hotel was located became the site of shrieks of excitement over Italian hot chocolate. For as quiet a place as Assisi is at night, you can practically hear a kicked pebble click on the street from a block away, so you can imagine how much racket they made. I honestly felt that unless we remained perfectly silent or kept out speech down to a whisper, our presence served as a corruption of the serenity of Assisi. Pretty quickly, I separated myself from the group and followed the students from afar as they made their way across the softly lit town to the Basilica of San Francesco. I felt very comfortable walking around alone at night. My only fear was getting lost, but I’ve learned that with my mental map-building (always forward from where I was last), I can easily retrace my steps. It worked! I easily made it to the basilica and, as it turned out, an American choir was performing in the church that evening, so some of us stayed for a short while. After listening to the performance, and taking a lot of night pictures outside, we headed back to the hotel in the peace and quiet.Next morning some of us went to visit St. Claire’s church down the street from our hotel where we saw the crucifix that spoke to St. Francis. It was MUCH bigger than I originally thought, so that was a pleasant surprise. We then visited another church close by in which St. Francis’ prison is located. That prison cell is where his father kept him for a time. Only a few paces away, through the side doors of the church, is the Bernadone house. We were actually able to go into Francis’ father’s workshop and saw the original door to the house. After those brief adventures, we left Assisi and headed off for Florence.
Upon our arrival, we ate lunch with a panoramic view of Florence (a sight not to be forgotten). After checking into our hotel, we were given orientation tours around Florence by our professors and RAs. My favorite moment of the tour was turning a corner and having my breath literally taken away upon seeing the famous Florentine basilica and duomo. After the tour, which included a great deal of photo-taking, we had our class trip to the Uffizi art museum. Their collection is unbelievable! I could have spent weeks in there, but I only had a few hours. Even so, I used every bit of that time to admire the work of the masters. Botticelli and Caravaggio turned out to be my favorites. I will mention, though, that I came across a large painting of the Slaying of the Innocents which was so saddening, disturbing even, that it actually made me cry when I thought about the real war on women (abortion and contraception) and the culture of death that rages through our society. I’d never been so affected by a painting before, and I’ve most definitely never been driven to tears (well, maybe a little while working on my own art projects in the studio.) After the Uffizi, we went to the Piazza Reppublica (one of the main piazzas in Florence) and explored the various booths that were set up, selling meat, chocolate, spices, cheese, oil, and pastries. You could almost have an entire meal with all the sampling that’s available there. Dinner, a led walk back to the hotel by an RA, and hit the hay.Day two in Florence was even better! The morning consisted of group tours to various places around the city. My group went with Peter Blute, one of the RAs, to visit the Pitti Palace, one of the largest museums in Europe! Once again, I could have spent forever in there, but we had so many places to see! The very next thing we did was what we’d all wanted to do: climb the duomo to see the whole of Florence. The climb was considerably shorter than the climb up St. Peter’s Basilica dome, but it was rough nonetheless. The view was worth it though. After taking dozens of pictures up there, were climbed down for lunch, which was to be on our own.
As I’d done in Greece, I survived on whatever I’d managed to save from breakfast in the hotel and on whatever food samples I could scavenge at the markets of Piazza Reppublica (yes, Mom, I got my protein in. I promise). From there I followed the leather-shopping students. The leather market has the best smells in the world! There was no way I could afford anything leather, no matter how authentic it was or how badly I wanted it, but the smell was worth every moment. After enjoying the day of wandering around Florence, even running into Dr. Hatlie and his family during the day, we met up with the rest of our classmates at the Accademia, where we had a class on Michelangelo and his masterpiece, David.
I was completely awestruck at Michelangelo’s craft. David was absolutely magnificent to behold. A shocking amount of detail had been employed into the sculpture. What surprised me most were pulsing veins in David’s large hands. You could literally see the energy building up, almost as if the statue were about to move. For me, this sculpture is the pinnacle of perfection in the human figure. It has been my ultimate inspiration for my desire to master the art of drawing the human figure. Furthermore, the piece revealed the splendor of the human body and how beautiful and sacred God created it. Michelangelo certainly understood this and frankly, I believe it too. Don’t let any other giggling student tell you otherwise because they obviously haven’t seen the piece through the lens of God and art (not even the majority of the art students, unfortunately). That latter reason is why I don’t like going on these class trips to see nude art, because of all the crass jokes and giggles that come up. It’s so childish and immature. In this particular excursion, I’ve learned two lessons about class trips like these: 1) ignore the silly children who don’t recognize or appreciate the sanctity of the human person, and 2) to avoid those kids, stick close by the professor giving the lecture since the fewest giggles and jokes are said in front of her. The rest of the evening was pretty much a repeat of the night before, except that after dinner, some of us went on an evening excursion to the Piazza Michelangelo for a panoramic night view of Florence. It was brilliant! Gelato followed, courtesy of UD. Afterwards we slowly dispersed, either to find a bar or go shopping or go to bed. I followed a group of hotel-bound UDers from a distance (I would have preferred to be alone that evening), but because I kept taking so many pictures on the walk back, I ended up separated from them and as fast as I walked, I never caught up with them, nor did I even see them. Even though the RAs had told us to not go alone in the city, I unfortunately had to. It was alright though since I knew my way back to the hotel, long and twisty as the road may have been (I’m really liking my mental maps!) Also, Florence has a less “hostile” feeling than Rome, and I’ve been through Rome several times alone, even at night (most definitely not my favorite thing). In the end, I somehow beat the group I’d been following to the hotel as they didn’t show up for another 10-15 minutes. Who knows how that happened!
The sky was crying hard the following morning. I don’t blame it, because I was going to miss Florence, but I wasn’t nearly as sad as the sky, whose tears drenched us and followed our bus all the way from Florence to Venice. It stopped raining there, thank goodness. The minute we arrived I knew I was going to like Venice, what with all the boats as the means of transportation. We rode a private vapporetto boat from our busses to our hotel, having a laughingly good time feeding the multiplying seagulls who followed our boat (video to come!) The scene literally reminded us of the seagull chase on Finding Nemo. Makes me wonder if the Pixar crew tried what we did…*Oh!* Sorry for daydreaming. Anyway, once we were settled at the hotel, which pleasantly turned out to be a religious guest house with religious statuary and crucifixes everywhere, we went on our orientation tours around Venice. I have never in my life seen streets as confusing as the ones in Venice. It’s extremely easy to get lost. I was at least glad that I could retrace my steps whenever I became lost (that’s for tomorrow though). All of the students had unlimited passes for the public transportation system, which included large vapporetto boats that worked like busses, stopping every 200-400 meters along the Grand Canal and the edges of the island. I was on cloud nine every time I set foot on these boats, and I rode them often, so I definitely made the pass worth every penny. Orientation ended, and some of us went exploring for awhile before Mass. Now the day before we’d arrived in Venice, they’d been experiencing some terrible flooding, and even that morning, the water level had been up, so the entire floor of the church was drenched. Pretty amazing if you ask me. After Mass was dinner, then we headed back to the hotel for bed, opting to take the vapporettos which offer even more exciting views at night, what with the lights on the water and all.
I awoke to the sound of a wailing siren outside, roughly at around 6 a.m. I knew what that sound meant. I was up and out of bed and at the window in a blink. The siren meant that the waters were going to rise that day and that Venice was going to be flooded. They give you a three hour warning with that siren, so when you hear it, you have that much amount of time to either board yourself indoors or suit up for an adventure on the watery streets of Venice. Literally, they were swimming in St. Mark's square the day before. Anyway...
Our second day in Venice was not unlike our second day in Florence. It started with a group tour somewhere, then it was free time for the rest of the day until dinner. My group was led by Dr. Nelson, our philosophy instructor, who toured us through the naval museum which featured model after model of the entire history of boats, missiles and warheads. As one of the guys pointed out before our group set off, I was the only girl in the entire group. “Hey, that’s fine. I like boats!” was my response, although I will admit it did feel slightly awkward. Still, it was kind of nice to deal with boats and explosive stuff for a change. Learning about the history of some of these incredible boats and the battles they went through were jaw-dropping. At the top floor of the museum, arguably the best room there, were all of the old boss missiles. Ironically, the room right beside it (the one which Dr. Nelson told us before we entered that it was the best room in the museum) was filled with cases of sea shells. I’m not kidding. But these shells were actually jewels to behold. You’ve never seen such exotic shells of such strange shape, color and size.
Wrapping up the museum trip, I decided to head off and explore Venice on my own. I explored St. Mark’s square, which was half flooded from earlier, and visited the Church of St. Mark’s (I missed seeing his relics). I then hopped on a vapporetto and traveled counterclockwise around Venice, stopping at whatever stop looked interesting. I debated about visiting Murano, which is known for its glass blowing, as I was unsure of the amount of time I would have to explore all of Venice by vapporetto. I eventually decided to take that trip to the island where I explored the many shops, watched some glass blowing, and eventually purchased a small glass orchid, blue in color (not a bad deal for 8 euros). I also made sure to visit the Byzantine-styled church of Santa Maria and San Donato Cathedral where there are some real dragon bones (see larger picture below). The story goes that a dragon was going about the town, spitting venom into the wells and poisoning the water. St. Donato came along and found the dragon and when he spat on it, the dragon turned to ash, leaving behind only a few bones. The bones included a couple of ribs and what might be a leg bone. Maybe dragons did exist…
After exploring Murano, I stopped by Cemetary Island which is on the way back to the Venetian mainland. The island is literally a giant cemetery with different areas reserved for Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. It was huge, and there wasn’t even remotely enough time for me to explore the whole island without missing out on exploring the rest of Venice. After maybe half an hour, I took the vapporettos back to Venice and explored the rest of its outskirts until I reached the train station, then headed back down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge to visit the shops around there. Venice is really beautiful at night. When you follow the main roads with bright lights, it’s fairly easy to find your way around. I eventually met up with my class for dinner. Even though they announced that they were extending curfew hours to 1 am, I opted to go to bed earlier than later, though not before sailing one last time on the vapporettos to a deep southern island of Venice I had not yet visited. I stayed only on the water though. The night was foggy, but it made for a very cool experience in the cold of the night.
I found out the next morning that there were lots of problems with heavy drinking that last night in Venice, even sending one student to the emergency room. That caused the faculty and staff to decide to ban public drinking on campus for the students as a safety precaution. It didn’t bother me in the least since I’m not a big alcohol consumer, but it seemed like a grueling punishment for nearly all of the other students. *shakes head* Silly children students. I think they deserved it though, if you ask me. Alcohol had become so objectified at this point. Why can’t people learn to have fun without alcohol and just appreciate the city for what it is?
The bus ride home was incredibly long. Our tailbones were screaming by the end of the trip, but the adventure had been worth it. Back to studying…
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