Cooking Like the Italians

Tonight I took a cooking class where we learned how to make our own handmade pasta and then we cooked vegetables and fresh bacon to add to it. The chef made it look incredibly easy, and while it wasn't as challenging as I expected, my noodles came out with a rather inconsistent thickness. But I figure it just proves how "homemade" it really is. I'm now looking forward trying my own recipes with things I can find in my local supermarket. It looks like my dinner cereal days are over!

Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens

In addition to visiting museums and the Dome in Florence I also visited the Palazzo Pitti and it's 11 acres of gardens. The gardens were beautiful but I haven't been out of an urban setting in weeks so probably anything would have seemed nice to me. The center of the garden, built for the Medici family in 1550, is one of the best examples of 16th century Italian gardens and rightfully so. The heart of the garden is a large Roman amphitheater located near the palace with a reflecting pool dedicated to Neptune behind it.

I wandered around the gardens for hours discovering fun architectural follies, hedge mazes, sculptured flower beds, and even a garden villa overlooking the Tuscan countryside. The views were amazing from the top of the garden. We could see the setting sun to the west and the entire city of Florence to the east behind the Palazzo. It was a great stop on the trip since I got a chance to draw some quick sketches of fountains, and take a brief break from city life.

The Cars of Italia

Around Rome I have seen a variety of cars, but the vast majority are either Smart Cars or Fiat 500s. In the United States people purchase these vehicles because they are environmentally friendly but here they are purchased out of pure necessity. No other car is as functional because no other car would be able to fit down the narrow streets of Central Rome. Many people also drive mopeds and small motorcycles so they can park almost anywhere and don't have to wait in regular traffic. I have seen only a few very exciting cars, such as a Lamborghini, which I honestly expected to see everywhere in Italy. But I am told they are more common in the north around Milan. And as nice as these Italian luxury cars are most people drive German sedans, such as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes Benz instead of their Italian competitor Alfa Romeo. I can not imagine having to drive around Rome, due to the driving style and location. But if I had to choose a car I would be among the Fiat 500s squeezing under Aqueducts and down the medieval alley ways.

The Capitoline Museum

I, along with the entire abroad program, visited the Capitoline Museums located in Palazzo Senatorio and Palazzo dei Conservatori, both designed by Michelangelo. We went to see a new exhibit featuring the sketches of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, in addition to the collections of ancient sculptures and relics. The sculptures are mostly Roman but there are also small Greek and Egyptian collections. The most amazing part of the museum is actually the rooms themselves, built and designed by Michelangelo with carved gilded ceilings and painted frescoes on the walls.

The featured exhibit, with the sketches of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, was truly inspiring. Most importantly it taught me that I can sketch all of my ideas without having to worry about how good the drawings are. As talented as Michelangelo and Leonardo obviously were, some of their sketches, as they thought through their pencil, were surprisingly average. An important skill that I hope to acquire while here in Rome.

The Pantheon

Today I wandered once again in to the Piazza della Rotonda to check out the Pantheon, and to get some Gelato. This time, however, I ventured inside, which costs nothing. The entire façade is made of granite and the dome is made of concrete, and remains the largest non-reinforced concrete dome in the world. Inside, the carved squares in the domes interior exaggerate the already magnificent arches that meet at an open oculus at the top.

Marcus Agrippa first built a Pantheon on this site in 27 BC but the current building was not constructed, during the fourth and final attempt, until 126 AD by Emperor Hadrian. The interior floor is entirely marble and the walls hold a collection of old Christian and Italian artifacts, including a memorial to Victor Emmanuel II and the tomb of Raphael. An amazing building and one of the oldest remaining structures in Rome. 

The Trevi Fountain

After visiting a modern art exhibit featuring Piet Mondrian I ventured through the city until I discovered the Trevi Fountain, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Rome. The fountain is one of the best examples of Baroque architecture in the city and possibly one of the most famous fountains in the world. In 1730 Pope Clement XII held a competition to pick a design for a newly commissioned fountain. Nicola Salvi won the competition, with Oceanus, the God of all Water, featured in the center.

Although the surrounding area around the fountain is busy with tourists it is still easy to get down to the fountain, and even drink from some of the free running faucets on its flanks. Many people throw coins behind them in to the water because of an old superstition that this will result in your eventual return to Rome. As a result, the Trevi Fountain is estimated to collect an estimated 3,000 Euro a day, which is used to subsidize food pantries for the cities homeless.

The Giuseppe Garibaldi Monument

The Janiculum Hill, or Gioncolo in Italian, is not one of the ancient seven hills of Rome as it sets on the west bank of the Tiber, but today has the best view of the city. Because of its distance from the center of the city the hill does not have the same rich ancient history as almost everywhere else, but instead made its claim to fame in 1849 as the site for the decisive battle between Giuseppe Garibaldi and the French forces defending the Papal state.

Garibaldi, who commanded the Italian forces against the French in the First Italian War of Independence, defended the hilltop from French forces but was eventually defeated which led to the siege of Rome in 1859. Garibaldi would go on to lead Italian forces in the Second and Third Italian Wars of Independence. His legacy lives on in that the entire city of Rome is a part of the nation of Italy and not a separate Catholic state, like the Vatican City across the Tiber from Rome.