Home, via Siena and Roma

Pictures in reverse chronological order. I'll never figure out this technology.

At the Pantheon in Rome.

Hall in the Vatican museum. We couldn't go that way.

St. Peter's, Vatican City

Il Campo in Siena, during the Palio. We got a spot right at the starting gate.

Flag twirlers at the Palio.

I've made it back to Vermont, where the hills are greener than anything I've seen in Italy. I should start from where I left off, though.

The goat farm in Bologna continued to be great. I got to make cheese, got a bit closer to the owners, and had some good practice preparing Italian cuisine. From there I went south to Siena for the Palio, a famous horse race. What a crazy event. I've never seen so many people so deeply involved in an event. The race itself only lasts about 2 minutes, but the build-up goes on for hours. We arrived around 11am for the 7pm start. The parade started around 4, with each of the contradas (sections of town competing against each other) presenting their best armor, weapons and flag twirlers. Some pretty remarkable acts. At 7 all the horses come out onto the track and start to line up. They get randomly placed in the starting gate and all start making deals with each other, bribing each other to slow down their enemies and help out their friends. When everyone is lined up, the 10th jockey can choose to start the race whenever he likes, based on the positioning of the other horses, which ones are ready and which are not. Once he starts, there is often a false start, which I think happens when one of the other horses starts too soon, or something. Anyway, with much prancing around and jostling for position and three false starts, the race ended up happening around 9pm. Two minutes later the Owl contrada had won, fans rushed the track and the losing horses and jockeys were quickly ushered away so as not to be attacked by the enraged crowd. The crowd is always enraged because the nine losing teams are furious.

I ended up spending a week at Spannocchia, relaxing a bit, making focaccia, meeting the summer intern group and playing quite a lot of ukulele. It was strange to be back, especially in a non-working capacity. It is really a magical place, especially being able to see past the farm politics and drama that started to get to me towards the end of the internship.

I booked a hostel in Rome and ended up staying there for 3 nights and 2 full days. Of course, not nearly long enough to see perhaps the greatest tourist city in the world, but I packed in just about as much as possible. This was the most I felt like a tourist during my whole trip, but it's hard not to feel like a tourist in Rome. At the hostel I immediately met a great group of Brits and Canadians, including another ukulele player. We spent our nights wandering around the Spanish steps area and the Colosseum. Monday we went to the Vatican, which was mind-boggling. St. Peter's is the most lavish building I've ever seen, just unbelievable. The Vatican museum is packed with artifacts from all over the world. They have so many sculptures that they just fill rooms with them, lining all edges and not even labeling anything. It's almost as if they're showing off the vastness of their collection without allowing you to actually appreciate any of it. We spend the rest of the days stopping at the rest of the major sites on our way back across town, the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, etc. Tuesday I wandered around the ancient ruins and had a more reflective day, since it was my last in Italy.

The flight home was remarkably easy, quite a bit smoother than most of the travel I had gotten used to around the Mediterranean. British Airways provided three meals in two flights, so civilized. So now I'm back in Vermont, adjusting to wide roads, huge cars, being able to communicate with everyone I see, individualism and progressivism. I don't plan to continue this blog now that I'm back home, but thanks for reading. It's been a good way to organize and archive my thoughts.

Bologna, Goats

New Pictures!

Bologna, the red city.

My couchsurfing friends admiring some frescoes.

Fattoria i piani, the goat farm. This is typical landscape in Emilia Romagna.

Baby goats acting sheepish.

It turns out sheep herding skills are transferable to other ruminants.

I've made it back to northern Italy. It's quite a cultural shock, and the weather has been cooler (as low as 60!) than I've experienced since May. I would guess the average midday temperature for the past 3 months has been between 80 and 85. I spent a few days in Bologna, which is a beautiful city. It's usually packed with students (150,000 out of 500,000 total residents), but they're all on vacation right now, probably at the sea in southern Italy, so the city was quiet. I couchsurfed with Mario, and English professor from Australia at the university, along with 4 Polish girls and 2 other Americans. It was quite a party, really terrific. For the first time I felt like a real tourist, seeing most of the big sites in the city. A fun change of pace, gorgeous cathedrals. It's strange to be back in the north, it almost feels like Austria or southern Germany here. Everything is very (well, relatively) clean, organized and on-time. I'm definitely more comfortable in this environment, Bologna could practically be a US city. On the other hand, my horizons aren't expanding quite as much as they did in the south.

Now I'm on a goat farm about an hour out of Bologna. This is the first farm I've been on that is actually making money (or at least trying to) by selling its products, which is a very nice change of pace. Work seems much more real and necessary. The farmer works more than any of the other places I've been, which is inspiring to see and makes my work feel more valuable. I haven't made cheese yet, but I'll probably get a couple chances to in the next 10 days. I love the goats, though. It's great to be with animals again, they're so calming and funny. The goats are much smarter than the sheep I worked with in Siena (not as smart as the pigs, but they were a little bit TOO smart, I think), and much more friendly. The baby goats are adorable, they like to lick my hands and chew on my T-shirt. I've done the milking a few times now (it's all by machine since there are about 150 goats), I think it's work I naturally enjoy, being from Vermont. Today we're digging a big ditch, good hard work. So everything is going very well, and I'm still adding to the list of things I've never done before this trip. And after this, I'm going to go to the Palio in Siena!

Sicily to Greece

New Pictures!

Watching the sunset over the Adriatic.

Meteora, Greece. Rocks and religion.

Clearest water I've ever seen, Greece.

Parthenon, Athens. It's always under construction.

Temple of Hephestus, Athens. Best preserved ancient Greek temple.

It took me 50 hours to get from Sicily to Greece, but the journey was great. I got dropped off from the farm at the local bus stop around 4pm last Wednesday, took a bus into Catania where I caught a train to Messina where they put the train on a ferry at brought us across to Calabria. In my train car there was a Sicilian, two Americans (me and another WWOOFer who left the same day as me), one Colombian and one Mauritanian. That was quite a fun and interesting train ride. I played them some songs on the ukulele. Next I took an overnight train from Villa San Giovanni at the tip of Calabria to Taranto in Puglia where I changed trains to Brindisi, arriving at 8:30am on Thursday. With the help of a British girl who was doing more or less the same thing I was, I found the ferry and booked a ticket to Patra for that evening. I got on the ferry around 4pm and we pulled out of the harbor at 6:30pm, ETA 10am in Patra, Greece. It was really a beautiful ride, I got to watch the sun set and rise over the Adriatic (actually, it probably isn't the Adriatic the whole time. It's hard to tell where certain seas start and end). I rolled out my sleeping bag and slept on a life jacket bin, which was surprisingly soft (or I was surprisingly tired). We arrived in Patra at 10:30am on Friday, but it was actually 11:30 am because there is a time change. I asked around and found out that there was a train strike for one day, but that the train isn't very good anyway, so I went to the bus station and caught the next bus to Athens, leaving 12:45pm and arriving at 3:30pm. Greece is great, the people are really friendly and everyone speaks English. It's a totally different experience to be in a place where I can't read the signs or even attempt a conversation in the native language, though. I feel a lot more like a tourist here. So, I arrived in Athens, took a city bus to the main square, then a subway to the end of the line to Kifissia where my friend Alexandra lives. I walked to her house using the map I had sketched in my journal off Googlemaps, and arrived at 5pm on Friday.

I took a shower and we went straight back into Athens where we met Jagu (my physics professor from Amherst), Daniel Hall (Amherst creative writing prof., ), and Bill Miglore (Amherst '06). We all went to the new Acropolis museum, then to a nice dinner at some fancy club where Alex's uncle has some special position. It was very fun to have a little Amherst reunion, and completely out of the blue.

Now I just got back from a 3-day road trip around the northern half of Greece with Alex and Bill from Amherst, and Alex's sister Katy. This country is really incredible and much less settled than Italy. We left Athens heading north, passing by a number of cities familiar from ancient myths and stories: Thebes, Thermopylae, Delphi, Corinth. We stopped a number of times on the side of the road to swim in the Aegean, and later the Ionian seas. The water here is unbelievable, incredibly warm, clear and salty. If I didn't rinse off after a swim I'd be coated in salt when I dried off. We stayed in Trikala and Ioannina, two cute cities filled with Greek (but very few foreign) tourists. They have much nicer and larger parks than I got used to in Italy, probably because there is so much more space to expand. The highlight of the trip for me was seeing the Meteora, a group of monasteries built on top of some remarkable cliffs. It really looked like something out of a story book, the classic impossible-to-reach holy place. Even without the monasteries, the landscape is one of the most spectacular I've seen, and those just made it that much better. We've also explored Athens a bit, which has been fun, and may go to an island in the next few days.

I've put all my pictures up until leaving for the road trip onto this computer, so I'll put some on the blog now. If possible I'll add them to the appropriate entries, so go back and see if there are new things!

Bella Sicilia

New Pictures!

A main square in Catania, Sicily.

On Mt. Etna, you can almost see towns and the sea in the background.

On top of Mt. Etna. I'm not sure we were supposed to get so close to the crater.

A view of Etna from the terrace at the farm in Sicily.

Digging a hole is Sicily. This hole was the source of much anxiety.

Ah, Sicily. It's beautiful here. Of course the rest of Italy is beautiful as well, but there's something about the shape of the land here that's a little bit more rugged, less refined. The cities are a little bit dirtier, the people a little bit friendlier, everything is quite a bit cheaper and the food quite a bit fresher. I'm staying with a friend I met WWOOFing in Calabria, Andrea, which is great. It's really nice to have a home base again, a few days to catch my breath and do a load of laundry (it's been 5 weeks now?). I hiked Mt. Etna a couple days ago, which was also quite refreshing. It's a beautiful mountain, though like the rest of Italy, very settled and ready to accommidate any traveler. There is a gondola part way up, then some bus/jeep things a bit farther (if you're willing to spend 50 euro. It seems silly to spend so much to miss the whole experience of getting up a mountain). Only the very top (officially 'forbidden') feels like actual hiking, and it is definitely the most beautiful part. There are sulfur vents all over the place, and you have to be careful not to breath in the fumes. The ground is yellowish white all over, and the wind is spectacular. The summit is about 10,900 ft, making it the tallest mountain I've climbed yet. I went with a guy I met at the hostel who had climbed 11 of the 52 14,000+ ft peaks in Colorado, which was a bit humbling. I guess if I live in Colorado I'll have to get more serious about climbing mountains. I'm in good enough shape from biking and farming that this one wasn't a problem, but the air does get pretty thin up there! I'm staying with Andrea for a couple more days (so far we've made homemade pesto with basil from his garden, lasagne with besciamella (no idea how to spell it in English, beshmell?) sauce, and crepes), then I'm going to a farm near Catania which advertises meditation as one of the common activities. I'm excited to give that a try for a bit, I hope I have the will power to do a bit every day while I'm there.

Under the Calabrian Sun

New Pictures!

The Amalfi Coast. Biking on these cliffs was incredible. The road was winding but not too steep.

The town of Amalfi. We went on a hike up the cliff between these two towns.

This is Atrani, our little town on the Amalfi Coast.

Maybe my tractor driving was part of the problem?

I am in a tree watching the sunset on my Calabrian farm.

Well, a lot has happened since my last update! I spent a week in Atrani with friends from Spannocchia, which was great. The Amalfi coast is gorgeous, filled with enormous cliffs. We took lots of walks to Ravello, a little town where Virgina Woolf and some other famous artists worked. I can see why. Also did a lot of sitting on the beach and cooking. All in all, a great week. Next I took a train down to Catanzaro in Calabria to work on another farm. I was pretty much on my own the whole time, which was a cool experience. I don't think I've ever had so much unfocused time to myself (i.e., not biking all day). I started writing some songs, drawing some, doing yoga and meditating a bit. Another WWOOFer came for a few days, and that was also fun, and a nice change of pace. He's from Catania in Sicily, and I'm actually on my way down there now to meet up with him and hike Etna (if all goes as planned, he hasn't gotten back to me yet and email in Sicily is apparently really spotty). Any way, after several days of not showing up to the farm, the boss-man, Antonio, finally had some free time on the weekend and wanted me to basically work the entire time, 8-10 hours a day. I was not into this idea. I was already upset with him for leaving me hanging at the farm, always having to be ready for him to arrive, and him never coming. I was perfectly happy with the work (I still had things to do while he was gone), and I learned a lot about gardening, olives, vinyards, and handyman type stuff. So yesterday after working 8:30 to 1, I told him I was ready to be done working for the morning and he started telling me about how I wasn't happy there, and told me to go eat if I really wanted to. So I decided to leave that evening, half kicked out, half leaving on my own. A surprisingly bitter end to a pleasant time in the countryside. So I took a train back to the west coast and slept on the beach, which was quite pleasant aside from some mild showers. Now I'm back on the road with my bike, heading south. I'm in Tropea, a cute little tourist town with tons of Germans, English, and Italians. I'm going to keep heading south and plan to arrive in Catania around Wednesday evening. Then about a week of visiting the area, two more weeks of farming, then off to Greece!

Biking the coast

New pictures! Reverse chronological order.

On the northern side of the Sorrento peninsula. The Amalfi Coast is on the other side.

Most of the coast looked like this.

This was one of my favorite places on the coast. Very tranquil, little castle, beautiful sea.

Blue Crush on the shore near Civitavecchia.

The road flattens out after the hills of Tuscany.

I arrived in Atrani, a small town on the Amalfi coast a couple days ago at exactly noon. Five minutes later some more interns from Spannocchia showed up on their way from Napoli. Pretty remarkable timing considering that we had decided to meet in a town none of us had been to at an arbitrary time a week earlier, and hadn't talked at all since. The bike ride ended up being about 300 miles, and totally fantastic. I left Spannocchia last Monday in the afternoon after the heat cooled down and rode about 50 km through the hills of Tuscany. It was the hardest days, partially because of the hills and partially because I was sad to be leaving the farm. The ride started to level out towards evening and I got very excited about biking. I ended up sleeping next to a nice basil field outside of Grosseto. Tuesday I rode another 15 km into Grosseto, then 10 km out looking for the route south, but ended up having to turn around when all the coastal roads dead ended. Rather than take the superstrade (fast road), I hopped on a train and went to Civitavecchia, about 100km south on the coast. I grabbed a bite to eat and left south. The riding for the next few days was unbelievable, spectacular views of the Mediterranean and surrounding cliffs. I stayed in campsites along the way and went about 100km a day. I woke up early each morning (pre-7) and started riding quickly to avoid the heat, then took a 4 hour siesta from 11 to 3 to eat, nap and stay cool. The afternoon rides tended to be a bit better and more energized, and at times I really got rolling. Friday I rode along the coast near Napoli, which was the most stressful part of the trip, especially because of the cobblestone roads. It was still gorgeous, though. I slept on the tip of the Amalfi peninsula that night, then rode the last 40km into Atrani that morning. This ride was definitely one of the top two or three adventures I've ever had. I can't post pictures now, but will when I have a better internet spot. Now I'm relaxing with friends near Amalfi, making delicious meals and enjoying the beach. Next week, I'm off to Calabria. Ciao!

Moving On

New Pictures!

Here Tyler plays a traditional bag-throwing game for Derby day (Kentucky Derby!) in front of the Spannocchia Villa.

Riccio (the boss) and his band play for the Mayday celebration.

San Galgano monastery near Spannocchia. They claim to have the sword in the stone from the King Arthur story.

After cooking class, enjoying our handmade spinach ricotta ravioli.

A random beautiful church in Genova where we visited for the Slow Food event "Slow Fish." Summary of the trip: DON'T EAT FISH.

Yesterday we finished our last day of work at Spannocchia, and all the interns are leaving this coming Monday. It's a bittersweet departure (like most), I'm delighted with all the knowledge and skills I've gained, but disappointed I couldn't do more to improve the farm and make it more viable. My plans for the next few weeks are solid, then things get a bit vague again. First, I'm biking down to the Amalfi coast in southern Italy, which is about 450 km. It should take about 4-5 days, then I'm meeting some of the other interns from here and we're renting an apartment on the coast for a week. I've been working on my base tan, so I'm well prepared to sit on a beach for a while. We actually took a field trip to a much closer beach today and it was gorgeous. The water was the perfect temperature, actually a bit warmer than the pool here that they just opened (and the salt feels tremendously better than chlorine). After the week on the coast I'm biking a bit farther south to Calabria, where I'll be working on a farm with someone named Antonio. He sent me some pictures of him in his artichoke patch, and he looks quite friendly. I'm hoping to do more in the vegetable garden and learn a bit of wood frame construction. I'll be there for about three weeks, then probably take a brief trek south to Sicilia to see/climb Mt Etna, then back north. I'm looking for a dairy farm in the north to spend either my July or August, but it's too early to know how that will pan out.

There was a funny moment yesterday evening which I think captures the essence of my experience here and shows how my comfort level has changed. I was sitting on the top of the 12th century tower in the center of our villa playing ukulele and noticed that some of the piglets were rooting around outside their pen. I got Kate, another animal intern to help me put them back inside. She was already dressed for dinner, wearing a nice black skirt and shirt, I was barefoot in my boxers. A couple of the pigs were easy to round up, but one was being stubborn and kept running past the open gate without going inside. We trapped him in a corner and I grabbed his back legs. Pigs are very strong, and when you first grab them, they keep kicking their legs which makes your arms piston back and forth. I dragged him along the ground wheelbarrow-style and Kate helped me direct him back into his pen. It was quite a sight, one formally dressed and one hardly dressed intern wheeling a pig around in the evening light.

Farm Life

I wrote this one a while ago, too.

Life here is pretty incredible. The landscape is gorgeous, I get to work outside everyday, the food is gourmet, the people are fun. Here are some random pictures from all around: Florence, San Gimignano, train rides, the farm itself, another agroturismo we visited. A typical day for me goes something like this. Wake up at 7, have some breakfast, eggs or cereal, usually both. At 8 we meet outside by the wall to get our tasks for the morning. Until now, that has mostly been tending to the sheep and bringing them around to whichever pasture is the most lush. Sometimes I leave them in one place and go up to Pig hill to build fences or bring hay and straw around to all the animals. At 1 we have lunch prepared by the interns, some combination of leftovers from dinner the night before and newly crafted dishes. Lunch has been pretty spectacular, especially because I'm so hungry by 1. I like to have a cup of coffee before afternoon work starts. We work again from 2-5, bringing food around, milling grain, building, and feeding. Afternoons are more fun because the sun is out and I am less isolated by the sheep. At 5 sometimes I go for a run, play ukulele, go into town, or do whatever random stuff I need to before dinner. At 7 we have wine and chat with guests, then dinner at 7:30. Our chef, Graziella, makes amazing food for us every night. Some dishes we've had are polenta with wild boar (from our property), risotto with asparagus or saffron or nettles, pasta al pomodoro or al pesto, bean/vegetable soups, lamb, pork, lots of venison, leeks, fennel, roasted potatoes and chicken. Sometimes we have tiaramisu for dessert. It's basically like eating at a fancy restaurant every night, which is a little overwhelming. There is a lot of oil and butter in the food and much more starch than vegetable, so it's very thick. I try to pace myself and not eat too much, but it's tough after working all day. It makes salad feel like a huge relief when I get a chance to have some. We'll have more as the veggies come up. After dinner we sometimes go for a walk, or hang out in our house and socialize or read or something. I usually get to sleep around 11:30 or 12.

My italian is coming along slowly, it's hard to get into a groove because everyone speaks english on the farm. I think I'll get a better chance to practice after the program is over, but this is definitely a good start, and the italian lessons are teaching me proper grammar. Speaking of after the farm, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I haven't made any decisions yet, but it will probably involve biking around a bit and working on other farms for shorter periods of time. There is also a chance a few of the interns and I will get an apartment for a month someplace around here and just explore a city for a while and cook a lot.

I've definitely had a lot of time to think since I've been here, which has been nice. A lot has been about farming, food and sustainability, which is pretty depressing. Our food system is out of control right now, and there is no easy or obvious way to fix it. It's totally overwhelming to try to imagine how an individual can have the greatest impact improving it. I consider having my own farm, doing things right and teaching other people through that, but the effects would be slow and isolated. Maybe public policy is the most effective route, but it is a tough fight against huge amounts of capital and establishment. And whatever the method, it has to be preachy (which makes me uneasy), telling people that the way they are living is destroying our health, environment and livelihood. Basically, we've created an enormous system that we don't understand and can't control, and it's going to take some major shock for us to realize how much we have to change in order to save ourselves.

Meat!

I wrote this one a while ago but didn't have a chance to upload it until now... I've definitely been enjoying some time away from the computer!

Meat has been a big focus of this trip so far. The farm is basically a meat farm, everything else (except wine) is produced only to be consumed here (vegetables, oil). I've been working in the animali group, specifically as the shepherd. We have about 30 sheep and 15 new lambs this year. It's nice to work with the animals, and fun to try to figure them out and get to know their personalities. I feel a little bit weird about raising them only to be slaughtered, though. If I have my own farm, I doubt I will keep many meat animals, maybe just one or two a year, and use the rest for milk. Last week we took 8 of the lambs to the slaughterhouse for Easter. I was impressed with the process, and part of the reason the farm uses this one is because they do things humanely and old-fashioned. I was unloading the lambs from the back of the truck, and by the time I was ready to pass down the next one, the first had already been shocked and had it's throat slit. It doesn't take long for it to die after that point, it just has to bleed out a bit. Very quick, clean, and efficient. Then they cut off the front feet, fill them with air and skin them. They hang up the skinned lambs before they eviscerate them. The interns who stayed around for Easter (I was in Rimini at a frisbee tournament) had half a lamb for dinner, and did something fun and delicious with the head, but I'm not sure what.

The pigs seem very different to me. They are our main product, and we have about 120. The breed is Cinta Senese, which is a local breed, identifiable by the white stripe around is front half. Yesterday I worked in the transformation room helping to butcher a few of them to make salumi. I mostly cleaned bones and separated meat from fat. Riccio (the boss) was particularly upset with the quality of the meat returned from the slaughterhouse. There were bruises, cuts and welts showing that the animals were treated pretty poorly before slaughter. He is very concerned about the welfare of the animals, and said something about not using that house anymore. I haven't really enjoyed eating the pork here very much, partially because the flavor is so overwhelming, but also because the pigs are so obviously being grown to slaughter. You can't do much else with a pig. In taking care of them, I can easily understand why some religions don't eat pork. They are basically nasty animals. Unless you bottle feed them, they are very aggressive, dirty, and only live to eat. We had some dead piglets in a bucket between pig pens the other day, and while we were moving one of the moms she ran over to the dead piglets, grabbed one in her teeth, pulled it out of the bucket, ripped it in half, ran away with it, entrails dragging along, and tried to eat it. On the other hand, if you bottle feed them, they turn into sweet, smart, responsive animals, but then you regret eating them more. Tricky...

So basically, this is a very informative exploration in the world of meat, but I'll probably go back to being a vegetarian when I get home, and I'll definitely never eat anything that isn't local, organic and well-raised. Here we do meat the best it can be done, and it is still a moral dilemma for me. The babies are really cute.

At Spannocchia!

I'm finally at Spannocchia! I've actually been here a full week, but there isn't really any internet access to speak of. The place is incredible: gorgeous landscape, skies, amazing meals, and great people. I'm a shepherd and general animal care person, and so far it's great. Sheep are complicated animals. I only have about 8 minutes of internet time, so I can't say too much now. I'm going to try to write a longer post soon. Here are a couple of pictures one of the other interns took as well. Also, send me mail! I love getting it, and I'll try to send you a postcard soon. My address is:

Max Calabro

Tenuta di Spannocchia

53012 Chiusdino

Siena (SI)
Italia

I'm doing very well, and hope you are too! Writing a blog might have been a bit too ambitious...

Ciao!

On to Florence!

Well, at least on the way to Florence. After Pisa, I left on my bike to meet up with Greg in Monsummano, a small town with some cliffs and thermal baths (unfortunately inaccessible to us). Here I am leaving Pisa, all packed up.



The ride was good, about 50 km. I didn't have any bike trouble and only got lost a handful of times. I found that the best method was to just point in the direction I wanted to go and take the closest road. Otherwise, roads are very poorly marked. Italian drivers surprised me by being very courteous on the roads. They're very used to cyclists (although not like this one!), and give lots of room. It felt much safer than riding in the states. I arrived at the cliffs around sunset to see this rustico.



Greg arrived later that night and we got on to climbing the next day. I don't have many pictures of it because our hands were full, but it was a blast. A good introduction to some real rock climbing, certainly a level up from working in the gym. I still haven't figured out how to make vertical pictures appear that way, so here is Greg defying gravity as he puts his shoes on.



After 3 nights camping at Monsummano, we took off on our bikes for Florence, another 50 km or so. Aside from my chain snapping and a sign for 'Florence, 30km' and good 10km after exactly the same sign, the ride was quite good. We got into town and relaxed on the grass at the train station before setting out to find a hostel for the night. Our bikes snuggling:



This morning I'm using the hostel computer, so I feel a bit rushed. I'm glad I got the pictures up, but I don't have time to include much more than a summary of activities. If I find a more relaxed place to update, I'll try to include some of my thoughts and impressions of Italy! Now we're meeting up with another Spannocchia intern and will explore Florence for a couple days, then maybe head down to Siena, depending on the weather.

Ciao!

Pisa and Cinque Terre

It took me longer than I was expecting to put photos online, but I've figured it out. It'll be hard to recap everything that's happened in the past week and a half, but the images should help. I arrived in Pisa on Thursday and met Chiara, my couchsurfing host. She is terrific and really took me into her group of friends for the time I was there. The first day we went all around town, then to a pub with a couple other couch surfers from Poland and her roommates. Here's what it looks like:

The next day we went to the beach for the sunset and I taught Chiara and her friend Andrea about throwing a frisbee. They were quite good for the first time! The sunset was beautiful (the second of many, I seem to have more time to watch the sky out here!), with the sun melting below the horizon.

Saturday I took a the train up to Cinque Terre, deciding it would be better to wait to start biking until I got back to Pisa. I spend three days there, and the landscape was unlike anything I'd seen before. Very steep hills in all directions straight up to the sea, with terraces carved everywhere to grow wine. Much of the area is overgrown and has reverted back to forest, but there are still remanents of stone terraces everywhere. There are lots of broken down ruins and old farm houses, giving a feeling of abandonment. It makes sense, their main economy is now tourism (and there is a lot of it in the towns!), so the vinyards are mostly for show. The ones that do work are supported by the government because they can't compete with other places.

I hiked all around the area for 3 days, and returned exhausted on the train to Pisa to stay with Chiara for a couple more nights.