Watercolor Sketches

View from the steps of Rome's Capitoline Hill

Il Portavio d'Ottavia

FIRENZE

Florence was nothing less than stunning. The first thing I was struck by was the serenity of this city. Most of the time the only noise I could hear were my footsteps. This sounds strange, but it made me realize how noisy Rome is. Everything was calmer here. The people were very friendly and we were valued as customers at restaurants. The food was tastier and reasonable, the restaurants quainter, the portions bigger. The only disappointing thing about Florence was the bread. But WHO cares? We couldn't find any other flaws whatsoever. The restaurant owners even lured us with bottles of free wine and cheese platters! IT'S ALL TRUE. We drank up.

River Arno, our first glimpse of Florence. We took the train in early Saturday morning and left Sunday night. 

Perhaps my favorite part of Florence was the relationship between country and city, as shown above. The mountains seemed to go on forever, and they were dotted with buildings as they rose. Florence is part of the Italian region of Tuscany. It was awesome to see the difference between the city and countryside of Tuscany. Green to red. We were able to walk back and forth between the two, which was so refreshing. The sun was shining, the temperature mild, and we just explored until we found a charming little restaurant. I think it used to be a wine cellar...or possibly a crypt... I had pasta l'arrabbiata, one of my favorites. 

Gorgeous view, but not even the best yet.

A sketch of Il Duomo

The yard of the Medici's. We walked through garden after garden. They even had an Egyptian Obelisk next to their outdoor stone tub! It's unbelievable to see how much these people had, and obviously they wouldn't put in the work to walk up the hill to enjoy it because, A) They would get a tan, god forbid, and B) They would get skinny. They also owned the land around these gardens, which was probably vineyards (below).  I also stole a lemon and a mini clementine out of a greenhouse. 

A view from a part of the Medici Palace

Giotto's Campanile was over 400 steps to the top, but that didn't stop us. And in fact I rather enjoyed hearing the painful sighs of weaklings.

View from the top. You could see for miles and miles. I didn't realize how big the city was until I stood up there. It was really breathtaking. We were going to climb Il Duomo (pictured), but it is closed on Sundays. I am glad we climbed this tower instead. The bells also started ringing while we were descending. I've never heard anything like it.

Our First Art History Tour

We went to Trajan's market. There is a glass door to enter the museum part of the ruins. I really loved the integration of ancient decayed architecture with modern materials. The inside of this room was not insulated at all around the edges of the glass, so it still had the illusion of being outside.

There were beautiful views...

Trajan's market (essentially a mega plex) actually functioned as a retaining wall in addition to being a smelly little marketplace. The place was beautiful though. I wish I had more time to sketch. Trajan had a huge chunk of space cut out of the hill in order to make room for his column and other buildings, so the structure held back the dirt. Amazingly it only took 5 years. It is mind-blowing to imagine all of that being done by hand. Trajan wanted to show how prominent he was next architecture built under Caesar. A fun and random fact: The first bible was translated in Armenian!

We also went to the Pantheon today. I already posted about that, so here is a picture of an Egyptian obelisk right in front of the Pantheon that the Romans took out of Egypt. Molto bellissimo! 

The Ara Pacis

Means "Altar for peace."It was meant to celebrate the peace established in the Roman Empire after the victories of Augustus. The altar is slowly being put back together. Pieces have been found all the way in Turkey. Many of its white marble pieces have been burned in order to make concrete, or just used for  materials (This is what happened to most stone structures unfortunately).

I also got to hear our architect chief critic's snarky comments about the design and layout of the modern building that housed the piece... "I'm like, dude, no one cares where the electrical box is placed. There is a 2,000 year old altar in front of us..."

"Thien's Dinner  Creation."

Sketching

Drawing, charcoal

This is the start of a drawing I did today. I will try to return tomorrow to work more on it. It is probably less than a mile from my dorm. These ruins are called "Palatine Hill," and the field area in front of it is called "Circus Maximus." Palatine Hill was an ancient palace. Circus Maximus is an ancient chariot racing stadium, which was a source of entertainment. Today it is a public park. From this spot on the hill, I was able to watch a little pug prance around through the grass and it made me miss my little Buster. I have found that I really enjoy drawing ruins. I love drawing architecture, but sometimes it makes for a rigid or stiff drawing. Ruins are great to draw because they have been decayed naturally over time and are essentially "organic" architecture.

Oh, and I booked my train tickets to Florence! I will be there Saturday through Sunday.

Sketching

Sketchbook drawing, graphite

I've been trying to get out and do sketch during the day. I usually walk around until I find a peculiar building, and then just sit on the curb. It's great to draw the unique architecture here, since it is often a fusion between ancient and medieval. This building is medieval.

A guy making Pinocchio toys. The store eerily merged children's toys and saws equally into it's decor. That's what drew me in.

Cats

Abnormal. Graphite.

Today we went to a cat sanctuary situated inside of ruins called Largo Argentina. It isn't pictured here but it's right down the street from my dorm. It is literally a ditch filled with crumbled temples and... cats. Cats GALORE. Inside of the cat shelter there are at least 50 of them in two small rooms (one for the adoptable and one for the mentally challenged). There are about a hundred more outside which live in potted plants. The place REEKS like cat food and old ladies. I was mostly alarmed when a cat in the "special" room literally ran up my body as I entered the room. It didn't even ask! I had to rip it off talon by talon. I made friends with normal cats after that.

The Vatican

This was my first day after an intense orientation. I took it pretty easy. This is me in front of the Pope's house (St. Peter's Basilica: architects Bramante, Michelangelo, Bernini, among others). It is a monstrous building. We had to walk through security in order to get in. Even though my bags were beeping like crazy through the scanner, they let me go through without a fight. Unfortunately some renovations were going on which took away a bit from the view on the outside.

Most of the churches here in Rome are too ornate for my taste, but still amazing in scale and detail. It's incredible to imagine these architects designing every aspect of detail in this church, let alone the scope of materials necessary to create the structure.

The Pietà (Michelangelo) is on the right when you walk into the Vatican. It is actually smaller than I imagined, and very shiny.

New boyfriend in the background. He's a papal Swiss guard in uniform, but he looks like a jester.

Gelato cioccolato e mente! Delicioso.

Sales until the start of Spring... New clothes for me! All the stores scream "Saldi!" in the windows.

Spelunking! 

Today we climbed through this tunnel. It was constructed around 5 or 600 BC- Much earlier than ancient Rome. The tunnel was meant to drain water from the adjacent Lake Nemi in case of flooding, and is over a mile long. Apparently the Pope has a house on this lake. I was very tempted to grab the cute little bats hanging on the low ceilings of the tunnel next to my head. I need a new pet. Just about every person but myself had a flashlight... It was all well and good however.

Luckily I have night vision, and was able to find my way through the tunnel. Thank god we all had helmets, because the heights of the ceiling varied greatly throughout the course of the tunnel. At times we had to crouch really low to get through small bypasses. I felt like an explorer crawling through a tomb. It was amazing!

At this point, everyone turned out the flashlights, and we sat in complete darkness and quietude underground. It is essentially impossible to hear that type of silence anywhere else. After the tour, my shoes were soaked after walking through the stream rich with calcium deposits, and we all went to a restaurant.

This is the charming little statue that greeted us. A fat pig proudly holding an alarmingly disgusting looking piece of of pork. Probably glad to kill of an annoying pig pen mate. In any case, the town is filled with signs saying, "Porchetta," or pork, as it is famous for its slow roasted pork with herbs and wild fennel. After our cave tour in the countryside, I actually came across some fennel planted in a field and tasted it. Molto delicioso! I didn't try the pork though.

This is a side street of the town, Ariccia, that the restaurant was in.

Ariccia had incredible views. There were donkey races about to go on behind the camera, an old tradition which was interesting, to say the least.

This is the church of the Assunta, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 

The Roman Aqueducts 

The Roman Aqueducts brought water from the Apennines, the central mountain ridge, to Porta Magiore. The aqueducts, supported by arcades, worked by delivering river water to the city through gravity. More efficient aqueducts also ran underground. No pressurized pipes. The aqueducts supplied the Romans with unlimited water, and fed the public baths, mills, and fountains.

Aqueduct ruins

Le Cibe è Bevande

Limonciello, On the House!

Fresh Orange Juice

Chinese Food because god knows we've had enough pizza...

My first home cooked meal!

Photo Cred: Susie So

San Martino di Monti

Crypts underneath underground tunnels. Our whole class trudged through piles of dirt and dust in the dark, just basically generations of human flesh. (Just kidding, they were a few feet further down).

The Scavenger Hunt

Our chief critic instructed all of the students to find certain landmarks and structures, based on "Clues."

hah..

Just some architectural decay...