Friday morning November 9 I left by train to travel to the Cinque Terra villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterossa. My hotel was in the southern most city of Riomaggiore. My train was scheduled to leave Roma Termini station at 8:10. We had a local train leaving at 7:06 to arrive in Termini at 7:50. Thus allowing me 20 minutes to find my next platform. I decided I wanted a bigger time cushion. While 20 minutes seemed plenty, I also wanted an opportunity to maybe get a caffe at Termini before I left. So I decided to take the 6:36 train instead. Giving me an extra 30 minutes than the 7:06. Good thing. The 6:36 was 30 minutes late arriving at Roma Termini and I still only had 20 minutes to find my next platform. It was indeed enough time, but not enough to allow a "momento" break. And if the 7:06 was 30 minutes late I would have missed my train to Riomaggiore.

It is a four hour train ride from Termini to my destination. The train is what I would call semi-fast train. It is not a nonstop train like the one we will take to Florence. But it also doesn't stop every ten minutes like a regional train. We stopped about every 30-45 minutes. And sometimes reached speeds of 130 km/hour. The train had assigned seating and a clean bathroom. And occasionally a porter would stroll by with a beverage and snack cart, offering to sell items to snack on.

When I made my hotel arrangements they said someone would meet me at the train station and assist me to the hotel. I arrived at the my destination, Riomaggiore right on time. I expected to see someone holding sign with the name of the hotel or my name. There was no sign. As I stood on the platform bewildered, a young man approached and asked if my name was Larry. And he would assist me to the hotel. He was a great help carrying my bag up the hill to the hotel. One nice thing about a hotel at the top of the hill is the view as you see below. The bad part is getting to the hotel. Quite a climb every night back to the hotel. Once I left the hotel I tried to never go back until it was time for bed.

These are the views from the terrace of my hotel room.

On Thursday November 8 after the aquaduct tour and lecture we returned to campus. The sky was clear. This meant only one thing to me. A chance for an excellent sunset view from the roof top of our building on campus. On a clear day one can see the Tyreanean (sp?) Sea from the roof top terrace on campus.The view of the sunset can be quite extraordinary.

On Thursday November 8 we had a tour of the aquaduct area along with a wonderful lecture from Leonardo on the history of the aquaducts. The tour and lecture lasted about two hours. The students were bored after 15 minutes. but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The area around the aquaduct remnants is both a park and an archeological dig site. the park is very picturesque. The sight of the huge arches rising out of the ground to support the aquaduct never ceases to amaze me. The roman engineers were able to design a "pipe" system that carried fresh water from the mountain springs of the Castel region to the heart of the city of Rome using gravity alone. The distance is over 20 km!

The aquaduct pictured above is still in use feeding the many fountains in Rome. The other pictures are of broken aquaducts.

But I am getting ahead of myself. On Wednesday November 7 I repeated one of my favorite rituals in Castel Gandolfo. I visited Martina for one her famous porchetta sandwiches.

Danilo, Mike and I took a few students for porchetta lunch. It was as good as I remember. Danilo says they have opened a store in the US in New Jersey, and they will ship a whole porchetta anywhere in the US. I will definitely check this out. Maybe have a porchetta party back home.

You can see from the smiles, everyone enjoyed their porchetta.

In the past, I would often take my porchetta up to the piazza and enjoyed it there. We decided to eat on the patio of the store. But after lunch, Mike and I did climb the rest of the way to the piazza for a beer and some chips. While there I took a few pictures of my favorite city in Italy, Castel Gandolfo.

Amy, I think the third floor walk up in the building to the right is available to buy. See the terrace balcony above. From there we would have a view of the lake and the piazza below.

On Tuesday November 6 and Wednesday November 7, I did not have any classes scheduled. And therefore, no scheduled trips into Rome. I did meet with every student to review their academic progress. With 16 students, these half hour meetings took up big chunks of both days. And some students met with me more than once. I was spoiled last time with only nine students!

I was also busy making plans for the upcoming free weekend. The students are planning Paris, London, Dublin, and Spain. Me, I'm staying in Italy and traveling to an area called Cinque Terra. This part of Italy has long been recommended to me to visit. My good friends Claudio (Clint) Merck and Benjamino (Ben) Lattimore visited the area when we were all in Italy in 2010. They couldn't stop raving about it. So I decided it was time to play a visit.

On Monday November 5, we had a walking tour of Laterano area of Rome led by two of the students. They did a great job. We visiting San Clemente, the Sacred Steps, and San Giovanni Basilica. San Clemente, or St. Clement, is a 14th century church built on top of a 5th century church, that was built on top of a pagan temple. It was great to wander down to these lower levels. the church does not allow pictures. which was probably good because the students and I were able to focus on what we were looking at. sometimes the camera gets in the way of truly seeing a place.

After San Clement, we visited the steps. I posted pictures of the steps in my last blog. The mythology of the steps is that they are the original steps Christ climbed to meet Pilate before his execution. The steps are covered with wooden boards because no one is allowed to step on the original stairs. Also, everyone is expected to proceed up the steps on their knees. Another legend is that Martin Luther started climbing the stairs on his knees. Only to stand up and walk the remaining stairs as a protest. I did manage to climb the stairs on my knees in 2010. Not so sure I could do it again. It is very difficult. One is expected to say prayers on each step and not race to the top on your knees. I decided to complete the task again. It was very challenging until the last 6-7 steps. At this point it actually became easier. Not exactly sure where this strength came from. Only one real explanation.

After the steps we visited San Giovanni. the church of the Bishop of Rome, the pope. While the Vatican obviously exists, it is not in the city limits. therefore it is technically not the "Cathedral" of the Bishop of Rome. The church is beyond impressive, and I have posted picture before. The picture posted below are from the walls and floor of the portico, or porch, of the church.

After we left San Giovanni, we went to the site of some of the catacombs. We were early and they had a nice pavilion, and so we held class outside. We needed to get a class in because we left campus earlier than usual to reach the churches and steps before they closed. This is becoming a common occurence on walking tour days.

The catacombs do not allow pictures. And again this is probably a good thing. The catacombs are massive. Four stories, 17 km of aisles. Over 150,000 graves. But more than 150,000 people because many graves held entire families. the exact count of people is unknown. The spaces in the wall are small and you get a real sense of the small stature of these early Romans.

On Sunday November 4, we attended mass at St. Mark's cathedral. While this mass is always in Italian, it is a great experience. Although I couldn't understand most of the homily, it was still somehow more moving than many homilies I have experience. After mass, the students all wanted to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Venice, near St. Mark's. It was at the Hard Rock, when I realized that I left my small bag in the church. If you followed my blog last time, this was like deja vu all over again. Thankfully Danilo accompanied me and was very helpful in retrieving my bag from the sacristy where the ushers had put it for safe keeping. I did not loose my camera again, YEA!

It was starting to rain. And in Venice in November, this means flooding especially is St. Mark's Square. We were all very happy that we came prepared with boots. We were also happy that we didn't need them till the day we were leaving. What a mess. What great confusion the flooding caused. It seemed to catch many visitors totally unprepared. But not me.

I am glad we were leaving before the water rose above the height of my boots. Another excellent adventure in Venice.