17th
Sicily
Its hard to believe its been 10 days since I last updated. Life has been beautiful but hectic here, which seems to be becoming the routine. We left Florence in the evening, last Monday, October 8. We chartered a bus to take us to the train station, then boarded our very first night train. There was an even mixture of excitement and anxiety as we found our cuchettas, six person sleeper cabins. My group ended up composed entirely of HUF students, but a few others shared their cabins with strangers. Knowing we had an early day today, we went to bed shortly after the conductor came around to collect our tickets. Sleep was somewhat fitful, as we all held tightly onto our belongings. Mona had warned us (read: scared us beyond reason) about the commonality of theft on these trains, so we took more than the necessary precautions. Luckily, we enjoyed an uneventful night. The train pulled into Reggio Calabria around 6:15 am, and we walked off the train into a beautiful sunrise. In keeping with tradition, we began our trip with pastry and cappuccino. We ventured down to a beautiful beach to kill some time before the museum opened.
The National Archaeological Museumin Reggio Calabria houses some of the oldest artifacts in the world, including two remarkable Greek sculptures of bronze dating to the 4thcentury B.C. The museum was fascinating, but at the time we were so weary from the night’s travel that we underappreciated it.
From there we went to Taormina, where we spent two nights at the Baia Azzura Hotel. My room was on the upper balcony, looking out into a beautiful bay. The first morning, after visiting an ancient ampitheater, we had the rest of the day free to walk, swim, and shop. The next morning we awoke early to head out to Piazza Armerina, then to Agrigento.
Agrigento has been dubbed the Valley of the Temples. We stayed in the Athena Hotel, right inside an archaeological site deemed “World Heritage” by the UN in 1998. The site is home to highest concentration of Greek temples in Doric style. We saw the ruins of an ancient temple to Hera, walked through the rubble that was once an enormous temple to Zeus, and hugged an ancient column (cheesy tradition) in what was once the temple of Hercules. The most remarkable is the Temple of Concordia, which was preserved by the early Christians, who “purified” it and made it into a Christian church.
We visited Palermo, yet another beautiful sea-side southern Italian city. It never gets old. The Mediterranean Sea is magnificent. Most remarkable probably, was our trip to Pompeii. The ancient city was swallowed under 100 feet of ash after Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. To this day, 40% remains buried. The artifacts that have been uncovered (seen earlier in the day at a museum in Naples) are incredible, as they were surpisingly well preserved. Once frescoed walls still had traces of color and shape, art created almost 2000 years ago. Walking throught the city on the original Roman roads was definitely a humbling experience. It was hard not to imagine the lives of the people who once lived (and died) there. (this effect may have been helped by the british re-enactment documentary we viewed the day before our trip). We wondered through the remains of the city for a few hours, entranced by how similar their lives and living conditions seemed to ours today.
From Sorrento (where we stayed the night, outside Pompeii), we took a ferry across to the Isle of Capri. The island more than lived up to its reputation as a paradise destination. We began the day with a boat tour around the rocky cliffs that protect the isle. We rode a chairlift to the top of Ana Capri to enjoy a bird’s eye view of the island and its turquoise bays. Finally, we strolled through beautiful flower gardens before riding back across to the mainland.
A scenic drive on the Amalfi coast landed us back in the bus station, exhausted and still spinning from the fast-paced week of unforgettable travel.
