Pillar #6: Romans will suffer lines, but only at the airport

Last weekend's trip to Campania seems like the distant past after last week's mad rush to complete my first studio project in Rome. What is actually maybe only 4 or 5 days seems to double when you're spending most of your time at a desk while not sleeping regularly, meeting several times with an official from the architectural accreditation board, and being verbally held hostage by various professors before, during, and after the presentation. As it turns out, the fact that my tuition is paying for my housing, transportation, field trips, some living expenses, etc. is less of a perk and more of a way of buying ownership of our lives for the three and a half months. Frankly though, I can't complain too much, because I am learning a tremendous amount and visiting some incredible places along the way.

This is the first of two semesters in my urban design concentration, and our first project was to design our "ideal" city, or more appropriately titled, the city of our imaginations based on Roman and general Medieval European precedent. It has been a fascinating exercise and has opened the door to many new possibilities for urban planning. We applied the lessons I mentioned in my second post and created our own armatures within an imagined landscape, and then filled the city with various other streets, piazzas, squares, civic and religious institutions, housing, etc. While not necessarily my ideal city (I think it's far too early in my learning for me to be making judgments about this), I did learn a great deal and was able to apply various lessons from classes and travel to the project.


Which brings me to Campania, as I'm sure that's why you're actually reading this post. This is the region south of Rome (although sadly not much warmer than Rome) where you can find Naples, and the ruins of Pompei, Herculaneum, Paestum--all places I went during my first study abroad in Rome. This time, however, our trip was a bit more limited and VERY quick. We started Saturday morning with our usual 6 am departure and by 7:30 am, we were climbing a tremendous amount of steps (let's not forget I already climb 125 at least once a day already) to the top of the hill town of Palestrina, a Roman settlement with a large theater complex nestled in the side of the mountain overlooking a valley and another ridge of mountains. (Still in Lazio, and as you can see, in some places the snow stuck around longer.) Later, the Barberini family built a palazzo on top of the theater, creating a curving facade that acts like a set piece unto itself. You can see here the seats of the Roman theater with Palazzo Barberini on top.


After Palestrina it was full speed ahead to Pompei with Angelo, our driver from the Umbria trip, and TomTom leading the way. Pompei is, of course, the ruins of a formerly great Roman port city with Greek foundations destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and you can see that it still looms ominously over the city.


After Pompei we went to Naples for dinner and a night walk with basically the whole faculty of the Rome program. The undergraduates were there also visiting some of the same places, so we took advantage of some additional professorial perspectives for a few hours. We also got to mingle only briefly with some of the undergrads, but we still only know maybe 3 or 4 by name. The next day we spent a rainy Valentine's Day on the Amalfi Coast, which is across the Bay of Naples and has some of the most incredible landscape I've ever seen. Unfortunately, we missed going to Capri because we missed the earlier boat and would have only had a few hours to explore the island otherwise. We started with half a day in Sorrento, and from there drove southeast and stopped in Amalfi and Ravello, which was higher up in the mountains. The picture is just one of the small towns we saw during the 3 hour drive.


Which brings me to Bruges, where I currently find myself for the first 8 days of my "spring break." One of my professors from the South Bend campus flew over to take us to Belgium for what he refers to as the first week of our fall semester. After a riding in a car, a plane, a bus, and a train (all planned this time, thankfully), we finally made it to Bruges. We flew RyanAir, which is a cheap European airline that gives you the absolute minimum (ie, a seat on the plane with a small carry-on bag) and charges you for anything extra (ie, checking a bag, checking in at the airport, food and beverages on the plane, etc.) There are no assigned seats, so people began lining up about an hour before take off in order to get "good" seats, as if there were actually seats that were different from the usual small, cramped coach seats. This is apparently quite different from normal Roman behavior where, as my professor pointed out, they normally do anything they can to avoid a wait, like when ordering at a cafe or bar, getting on the tram, or taking communion. (The first two I have witnessed. The latter I have not noticed, but it seemed to be the general consensus of the group.) At any rate, we took a bus into Brussels and then hopped on a train to Bruges in time to check into the house we're staying in and take the last bus tour around town. Aside from the cold and rainy weather, I am really loving it so far, and we are moving slowly and really taking in the city. Ahead on the week's agenda: museums, walking around town, day trips to Damme, Ghent, and Antwerp, and of course, a brewery tour.