Northern Field Trip and Spring Break

I’ve travelled a whole lot in the past month, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

February 21-27th:

This week went by really quickly (well, they all are at this point). Spent the first half of the week studying for the Italian quiz and Rome as Spectacle midterm, which both fell on Wednesday. The midterm wasn’t too bad (though I still haven’t seen my grade so who knows) and I was pretty pleased with how much I was able to remember, since it’s been a good 2+ years since I had to memorize buildings for a test.

Thursday was very busy- full of classes, an internship interview over Zoom, and packing up a week’s worth of clothes.

Then on Friday, the Northern Field Trip commenced at 7am. All 40-something of us piled into a charter bus and headed on our way. I’ll organize the field trip by days.

Day 1: Our first stop was Spoleto, where we walked around a bit, saw the Cathedral and the aqueduct, and had lunch. Loved the feel of the small town and the tiny arches in the streets.

We then stopped in Assisi. Loved the pink and tan color scheme of the buildings and roads, the mountain views, and the Basilica di San Francesco d’Assisi was gorgeous inside and out. Didn’t have a lot of time there though so had to walk through it quickly.

Finally we made it to Urbino at 6:30pm where we would spend the first night of the trip. We stayed in dormitory housing, which was the nicest little dorm set-up I think I’ve ever been in. Had delicious ravioli filled with Casciotta d’Urbino (cheese specific to the region) for dinner.

Day 2: We woke up a bit before 7am to snow! It’s the first time I’ve seen snow in about two years, I thought I missed my chance this year. It was very windy, and slippery wet snow though (the hilly, old roads were a bit hazardous). We started the day at the Ducal Palace for a tour. The best part of it was the basement- it felt kind of like a cavernous labyrinth, and it also had a really cool drawing exhibition inside.

We then traversed the slippery landscape to the nearby school (Il Magistero, I believe, part of Urbino University) designed by Giancarlo De Carlo. It’s unassuming on the outside but really cool on the inside, having some cool courtyard spaces, spiral stairs, and roof terraces. We talked a bit while in a lecture hall, and had time to sketch and find lunch on our own.

After getting our luggage from the dorm, we went to different dorms (can’t escape dorms even while abroad it seems)- the Collegi Urbino dorms also designed by Giancarlo De Carlo. We talked a bit in another lecture hall (also can’t escape lecture halls), then were able to wander around as we liked in the limited time we had. It was very empty and you could definitely tell the buildings could use some love and maintenance (especially when it comes to rainwater management hah).

We arrived in Mantua around 8pm, so the sun was set, and our hotel was kind of on the edge of town so it was a very empty Saturday night.

Day 3: The bus left for Verona at 8am, and we arrived around 9:30.

Went into the Castelvecchio Museum designed by Carlo Scarpa. After hearing about it so much in lecture it was cool to see it in person, though I feel like there is always a disconnect in my mind about how I imagined it versus what is the reality. Unfortunately the pedestrian entrance designed by Scarpa and third floor walkway (which has the view/approach the Equestrian Statue of Cangrande) was closed so that was a bit disappointing.

Left around 12:15 to do a walking tour around Verona. Saw the ‘Juliet’ balcony (from afar- not about to wait in line), lots of graffiti about love/love locks in the street, some outdoor tombs, waited way too long for a very good panini, saw a bank façade designed by Scarpa, and stumbled upon a Carnevale parade with horses and people dressed up.

We got back to Mantua to finally walk around in the daytime, unfortunately lots of things were closed or not wanting a large group of students to be admitted so we just saw the outside of some palaces. Did get to go inside of Rotunda di San Lorenzo and the Basilica di S. Andrea though. Ended class with some Carnevale confetti. Later that night had dinner at a little family restaurant (whole family was accounted for) and since we were the only ones there they gave us a great experience with free soup and lime sorbet, really nice.

February 28th-March 6th

Day 4: We spent some more time in Mantua, seeing the outside of the Ducal Palace, going inside some churches, and taking time to draw in S. Andrea.

After lunch we set off to Vicenza, arrived around 3pm. We walked around the historical center and saw several Palladio buildings for about two and a half hours. Had dinner- went to a burger restaurant (we miss our creature comforts of American food truthfully). It was a very good burger.

Day 5: Another Carlo Scarpa day! Visited the Brion Cemetery from 9-11am. It was a really cool experience. They had recently restored and cleaned up the cemetery, though it was just our luck that the water door was out of service- since apparently the glass keeps cracking from the movement. This is another ‘always talked about in lecture’ project, which didn’t totally line up with my visualization of it, and was actually smaller than I thought it would be.

Then visited Villa Maser by Palladio. It’s still used by the family though so we could only see a small portion of the inside, with no photographs allowed. Afterwards we had the second group meal of the semester- a lunch of risotto that was a questionable grey color but deceivingly delicious.

To finish up the day we visited the Canova Museum by Scarpa, for about 2 hours. We had time to sketch and wander around. Touching on museum design again like my last update post, I think I enjoyed the experience and relationship between the architecture and art of the Canova Museum more than the Castelvecchio museum (but both are great don’t get me wrong). The Canova Museum with the white-on-white and simple forms gave the sculptures room to breathe and let you look at them as the subject of the space. Meanwhile Castelvecchio overpowered the artwork in a way, even with all the strategic placements and thoughtfully designed platforms/brackets to hold the art.
At any rate, we drove back to Vicenza for our last night there.

Day 6: Around 7:45am we began our journey to Venice! Had to ride a ferry with our luggage to make it to the hotel. We only had time to drop off our bags in the lobby before walking around. We took a little boat across the grand canal (all 40-something of us across 3 boats haha), saw St. Mark’s Square, and went inside Chiesa di San Moise.

We only had a fifteen minute ‘coffee break’ before going to the Olivetti showroom, designed by, you guessed it, Scarpa. This is another example I think of the architecture overpowering the thing it is trying to display, in this case typewriters, though I think they don’t mind- I’m sure having a showroom (or museum or anything) designed by Scarpa doesn’t hurt when it comes to getting visitors.

After 2:30pm we finally got a break to eat and explore for the rest of the day. We wandered around aimlessly for a bit- Venice is very fun to walk around. A combination of narrow but very nice alleyways, bridges of all sorts of shapes and sizes, and a complete lack of cars all equal a fun walking experience. Our Italian professor struck a deal with a gondolier which gave us a 30 euro discount, so me and four others took advantage of that to get the iconic gondola through a canal experience. We went on it near sunset and at low tide so it was very pretty (and smelly). Ended the day with some shrimp gnocchi at a local restaurant.

Venice is another place that I had envisioned in my head, so it was kind of surreal being there, where it didn’t align completely with my version of it (not a bad thing, I think it was mostly the fact that it clicked in my head- oh, this is a real place).

Day 7: Met up at 9:30am to visit the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, which had a first floor renovation designed by Scarpa. We spent a good chunk of time walking around, I really enjoyed seeing the stair connection down to the canal. A bit sad that they had the Scarpa bridge and his intended entrance inaccessible though.

We had the afternoon free again so a couple classmates and I (and we ran into quite a few others who had the same idea) took a ferry ride out to Murano, an island known for glassmaking, also where Carlo Scarpa learned to make glass before he started designing buildings. We went to the The Murano Glass Museum which went through the history and techniques of glassmaking, I think having seen ‘Blown Away’ on Netflix (would recommend) I have a greater interest/appreciation for the craft so it was neat seeing a whole museum about it. Afterwards we went into a lot of glass shops and even saw some glassmakers at work in their studio.

Ended the day with getting back to the mainland around 6pm, walking across the Rialto Bridge, and eating some lasagna.

Day 8: Last day! We had the morning off so went window shopping/ church looking to little success. Then at 11:15am we got on a ferry to get back to the bus.

In the afternoon we stopped by Giovanni Michelucci’s St.John Church by the Highway. I think it has been probably one of my favorite churches so far. I just really liked the forms/materials and honestly it has some unflattering angles on the outside but inside it was really cool.

Got back to Rome around 9pm. First and second orders of business was eating dinner and doing alllll of my laundry.

Saturday was a nice day off in Rome. Went on a couple walks, did some window shopping, caught up with a friend on a video call.

Sunday was another day of travel, this time it was a small group of classmates and I going to Milan, mostly because it wasn’t part of the North trip so we were all curious. We arrived around 10:30am, walked around, ate Chinese food the first time in several months because they have a Chinatown in the city, also got bubble tea.

Went to the Triennale Milano design museum. I really enjoyed seeing some examples of Italian furniture and product design over the decades, since we don’t really talk about those things in class. Ended the day with some more Asian food, and a fortune cookie in Italian.

March 7-13th

The Milan trip continued into Monday, however we decided to take a day trip (yes, a day trip, from our spring break trip, from our study abroad program) to Como, on the shore of Lake Como. It was really gorgeous being surrounded by mountains, technically the foothills of the Alps I think. We were about one-hour walking distance from Switzerland but didn’t opt to go that far. Unfortunately all the museums and things were closed but we could still see the outsides of some Palaces/Villas. Saw swans, several seaplanes, and bought a lil model car Fiat. Grabbed some more bubble tea before getting on a 6:30pm train back to Milan. Also we figured out how to use the subway- it is definitely cleaner (and cheaper-though not by too much) than the NYC subway, but I like the ads more in New York.

Tuesday was the last day in Milan. It was an early morning- going to see the Last Supper at 8:15am, and we had to show up half an hour early for the 15 minute appointment. I think the Last Supper was bigger than I was expecting- I know the Mona Lisa is tiny compared to what most of us think for instance, so I was preparing myself.

Then afterwards we went onto the roof of the Duomo. A good portion of it was under scaffolding, but it was still a cool experience with a nice view. We ended the day with our train ride back to Rome, getting home around 9pm or so.

Wednesday was another break day, used for laundry and running errands to prepare for my next part of Spring Break…

On Thursday a friend and I set out to Puglia (the heel of the boot of Italy). It was a very long morning of a train, to a plane, to a bus, to another train. Our main attraction of the day was Ostuni, a completely white city right near the coast. It is definitely not tourist season yet, and perhaps for good reason because it was so cold and windy, so lots of places were closed and it was pretty empty people-wise. The layers of stairs found in the streets was really enjoyable to walk around in though. A highlight of the day was taking a Piaggio Ape down to the train station to catch our next train.

We arrived in Bari around 4pm, where we had a pretty relaxed night where we had dinner at a local restaurant.

Friday was another early morning- after some confusion we figured out the correct bus to take to the Grotte di Castellana. It was a pretty long bus ride, but we got to our tour in time. We went for the longer tour, about 2 hours and 2 miles long. The first and last cave ‘rooms’ were the coolest, though photography was only allowed in the first. Got lunch nearby, waited very long for the next bus to come but thankfully we were able to catch it and make it back to Bari around 5pm.

Got more bubble tea, got dinner- a vegan burger that was very good actually, got desert- Pasticciotto Lecceses which are little filled cakes that originated in Puglia. Very good.

Saturday was spent window-shopping, looking at the old city area of Bari, and filling in some time before catching our train to the airport, then flying back to Rome, and just barely (talking less than five minutes) catching our train back to Trastevere. Then had to walk half an hour home. Tiring to say the least, went to bed close to 8:30pm.

Sunday was a much calmer day spent in Rome, getting groceries, taking a walk in the nice weather. There has been a noticeable increase in tourists since we came back from the north field trip, that’s for sure.

March 14-20th

And just like that, the north field trip and spring break was over. Monday was back to class, with drawing, Italian, and a lecture.

We kicked off Tuesday bright and early with an overdue walking tour of the Imperial Forum. Then had design class in the afternoon.

On Wednesday I was treated to a free morning after a class got rescheduled. In the evening we had an interesting lecture about marble by an author/architect.

Thursday was a day half inside, half outside. First had a lecture and walking tour of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza (well, just the courtyard part since the church is closed except on Sundays). Then in Design, after our desk crit, my partner and I went to the Victor Emmanuel II Monument since our building design has to repurpose some of its marble as part of the design prompt from our instructor.

Saturday was a very full but very good day. Started off around 9:30am at the Capitoline Museums, at the insistent request of our professor on Tuesday. The museum houses a lot of cool relics from early Rome including sculptures and other art.

In the evening I got a last-minute ticket to the Turandot opera thanks to my Italian professor. I wasn’t originally in the selected number of people to go, but some tickets opened up and I ran (literally, and then used a taxi for the first time in my life) to the opportunity. It was really cool, but it definitely was not a traditional performance. The costumes and set are by Ai Weiwei which I thought was really cool, and the background was a projection of current day events like protests. The contrast between that and the opera was pretty interesting.

Sunday morning was also an early start, getting up around 8:30 to get to Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza to see the inside of the church before mass. Had to fill in some time though as it turns out it only opens at 10:45, and I only got a very quick peek of the inside of the church before mass started. Then stopped by Largo di Torre Argentina on the way home to photograph some cats (time well spent). Then ended the day by getting some Korean food with a group of classmates.

So that’s all I’ve been up to the last month. In this upcoming month we are doing a trip to the South and have a nice long weekend for Easter, which we normally don’t get, so I’m looking forward to that.

Thanks for reading!