Week 7 - A fairly unorganized but worthwhile trip to Pisa & Siena

This last week was a pretty busy week in studio, with a presentation for our piazza studies and our design presentation around the corner… Thursday we presented what we have so far for our two piazzas and got feedback for the final board that is due back in Moscow. 

That night was our second last group dinner. At that dinner four of us spontaneously decided to leave the town and go travel for two days. The plan was to leave Friday at 7am from Termini to Pisa and later that day to Siena where we would spend the night. Well by Thursday 11pm we had neither a place to stay nor did we know the train connections to either of our destinations. To top it all our internet decided to shot off and not work for the rest of the day. So we got up Friday at 5:30 (hoping the internet was back on) got some addresses for hostels in Siena and at least got a glimpse at the trains and left the apartment at 6:20 heading to Termini. We were lucky there was a train leaving within the next 8 minutes, the only thing was that the train was waiting at the 2 E track, what was about half a mile from the regular tracks, but that didn’t bother us for the next 5 min until somebody of our group asked out loud “hey what does 2 E mean?!” By now the it was 3 min before the train leaves and we started sprinting… (our poor girls were wearing sandals!!). Beside that little sprint in Termini everything else went pretty smoothly, if you consider the huge amount of time that we spend on organizing the trip… Pisa was very interesting, I heard about the leaning tower so often but never seen it in person, and I must say it is leaning pretty bad, more than I thought. So of course we took some “touristy” picture, we hit the tower leaned against it, hugged it, blow it over, caught it and tons of other random poses. After that giant photo shoot, we split up to explore Pisa for a little longer before we were heading Siena.Just a 2 hour train right and we got into Siena. And Siena is beautiful! I liked the city from the very first moment on. I have been to so many beautiful places here in Italy, and Siena is definitely one of the most memorable ones. I was impressed by the main piazza, piazza del campo (famous through the “Pailo di Siena", one of the hardest horse races in the world). The piazza is sloping down so at night there are hundreds of people sitting on it (almost like in an amphitheater, with the exception that there is no stage that they are looking at). The piazza is one of Europe’s greatest medieval squares. I have always heard about its beauty and architectural integrity, and now that I have seen it I can say that it is true.All in all it was a really worthwhile trip that we made, I was debating weather I should go or not because of studio that is due next week, but I know I would have regret if I wouldn’t have gone. Here is a panoramic photo of the Piazza del campo.

Week 6 - Field Trip to Umbria

The past weekend we had our second field trip of the program. We started Friday morning from Termini to Spoleto, later that day to Perugia, spend the night and the next day there and went Saturday night till Monday in Assisi.

It was an interesting weekend, one thing that I noticed was the change of pace . Termini was (as always) super busy, Spoleto was the complete different, life there was just moving with a way slower pace, it almost seamed kind of “sleepy” but not in a negative way but in a comfortable way. Late afternoon we moved on to Perugia were we spend the night. Perugia was again another pace; it was not as loud and busy as Rome but vivid in an other way. The people in the city were younger; you could tell that Perugia is a college town. At night we were hanging out around the piazza 4 Novembre, it was a really nice evening although all of us were a little tiered after that long day.

Saturday we had a short introduction tour with matt and after that we toured around the city on our own and got some worthwhile sketches in; it was a pleasure to sketch in such a great environment. In the late afternoon we moved on to Assisi, I was kind of sad that we already leaved Perugia, there was so much more to explore, experience and to draw.Assisi was just as beautiful as Perugia and Spoleto, but as I already said earlier again with another pace. Assisi was touristy to some degree, we saw many pilgrims, so it was touristy but in a more comfortable way. Sketching and studying the different cities helped me to experience them in a much more meaningful way. After all 3 places that we have been to I felt like I haven’t had enough time. Here is one of the sketches I did in Assisi, probably one of the best ones that I did on this field trip.

Week 5 - Vatican City

The weeks are flying by, this week we are already into the second half of the program…, I cant believe that we already been here for over a month. We started last week with a whole day in the Vatican. Tuesday morning we sketched at the Saint Peter’s square for 3 hours. I tried to tackle the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica. I was sitting in the shadow of the big obelisk in the middle of the square. I got all my line work done but when I wanted to add some watercolor the sun moved a round the obelisk and I decided to do watercolor the sketch later and tried to get some other drawings in.After our sketching session in the morning we broke for lunch and met up around 1 for the Vatican museums.The Vatican museums were definitely a highlight of the program so far. I have been already up at the St Peter’s Square a couple of times but never made it into the Museum, so I was looking for that for quite a while. The Museums are among the greatest museums in the world, the show parts of the work from the huge collection built by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries. Within the 5 hours we spent so many art masterpieces, on our way through the Museums we saw the Sistine Chapel, the Stanze della Segnatura and countless other artworks that I dreamed to see for a very long time.The only downside was that the walk through the Museums felt like they funneled us through like cows. It was hard to enjoy and experience all that artwork, because either somebody tried to squeeze through and you got an elbow in your hips, or people just positioned themselves right in front of you to take photos of the artwork or so… but that just shows how popular the museums are I guess…Later that week we went back to the Vatican to visit. St Peters dome. Matt gave us an introduction about the Basilica and after that we wondered around by our self. Before breaking for lunch we climbed up the dome and I must say, those were the best 5€ I spent in Rome so far! The view from up there was amazing, it was kind of a fight to get a spot at the railing, but once you stood there you had a beautiful view over the whole city!