Canyoning in Cascata delle Marmore

Yesterday was probably one for the best days that we've had since we've been here. Five of us decided to go about an hour north to Terni, which is in the Umbria region of Italy to go canyoning near the largest waterfall in Europe. Canyoning is when a group of people go through canyons by repelling down rocks and waterfalls, swimming, and hiking. None of us had ever done it before, but we all are adrenaline junkies and thought it would be fun. The canyoning place that we went to was amazing. When we got there they gave us full wetsuits, all of our harnesses and gear, and gave us a little explanation of how to repel with the ropes. Soon after that we were on our way up the back roads of the mountain and parked on the side of a small dirt road. We got out of the car and hiked up the rest of the way for about a half and hour until we reached an open field on the top of the mountain where we could change into our wetsuits and gear. We changed and were quickly on our way again to the canyon we would be going through for the rest of the day. We repelled for the first time, which was only about a 10-foot drop that allowed us to get the feel of it before we hit bigger spots. From there we began going down the river, and quickly hit another waterfall that we went down, which was only our second one before we got to go down the biggest one of the day. The biggest drop was a waterfall a bit down the canyon, coming in at about 98 feet tall. We got to the edge of the massive waterfall, looked over the edge, and started to repel one-by-one. When it came to be my turn I got locked in and climbed out onto the ledge of the waterfall and began to repel down. The drop was amazing! At one point the rocks actually are out of reach so you have to let yourself freefall a bit, which is even more amazing to do. When I reached to bottom, the coolest feeling was looking back up at the 98-foot waterfall that I had just done, and watched some of the other people in my group go down it as well. From there we all celebrated for a minute, and then continued through the canyon to the next waterfalls...all 9 of them. Some of them from that point on were about 75 feet high, and some were as small as 20 or 30 feet. The entire journey of climbing, repelling, sliding, and swimming lasted a total of 4 and a half hours.
We finally reached the end and walked back into a small town where we had parked our cars. The "town" consisted of about 5 homes carved into the mountain. Our guides took us to a restaurant that was run by a local, which was really just his house with tables outside. The owner was one of the nicest people I've ever met, and served us dinner, all of which was homemade, consisting of: red wine, break, cheese, sausage, pork, salami, quiche, and desserts. At one point we ran out of wine, and the guy jumped on his moped and went to his vineyard to get us some more fresh from the barrel. As we sat around the table in this small village on the side of a mountain eating everything that was made from scratch, I couldn't help but look at everyone and say "This is Italy. Rome, Florence, and Venice have nothing on this. This is Italy." The Italians we were with thought that was amazing that we as Americans finally understood what the real Italy was like. We all left knowing that we had experienced Italy in it's truest form. We saw the Italy that only Italians see, and just in time before we went back home. While eating dinner our guide, Stefano, uploaded all of the pictures he had taken with his waterproof camera throughout the day, and offered for all of us to buy a CD of them, which we did, making us happy that we had even better memories of our trip. On our way back to the main shop that we went through, our guide asked us how we got there since we didn't have a car. When we told him we had taken a cab from the train station, he immediately insisted that he drive us back, saying that there was no need to spend money on a taxi. The trip ended up being one of the best things I have done in Italy so far, and only reinforced our ideas that we had about how amazing Italy and it's people are, and how welcoming they can really be.
This last week is definitely going to be hectic. Tomorrow is a study day for me, and then I have two finals on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, and then I'm done with classes here. After finals all of us plan on enjoying the city as much as we can before we finally leave on May 5th. Monday the 5th I leave to come home in the morning, and will be back in New York at 6:10 P.M. local time. Although we're all excited to see the people that we miss, we all know that we're really going to miss it here. I can't wait to see everyone soon, and hope that all is well back in the states.

~Mike

Mountain Biking in Torbole

As time winds down here, we keep trying to find some things to do that are less what tourists would do, and more what only locals would know about. That is what brought three of us to go mountain biking in Torbole, a small town on the edge of Lago di Garda (Lake Garda). The area is in beautiful northern Italy. The lake is surrounded by mountains and towns that make the area look like paradise.
We left Rome for Torbole at about 10 o'clock Saturday night. We caught a night train that brought us directly into a small town called Rovereto. The ride wasn't bad at all, and we all managed to get some sleep on the way. We arrived at around 7:15 in the morning to Rovereto station, where we caught a cheap bus for 2.50 euro to Torbole. When we got to Torbole we had some time to kill before the bike shop opened, sow e started to walk around. The second we reached the edge of the lake we knew it was going to be an amazing day. The sun was rising over the tops of the mountain, and the sky was clear blue. The water was so peaceful, and the small town looked amazing. We made our way over to the bike shop where we each rented a bike for the day. The bikes were brand new 2008 Cannondale mountain bikes (one still with plastic on it!). The shop charged us a mere 20 euro to rent the bikes for the day, and helped us plot out a route to take based on our time schedule. We began by going through the small town, all the way over to the other side of the lake. I forgot to mention that this lake is 32.25 miles long, and 10 miles wide at the widest spot; not the smallest little pond in the world. We made it to the other side and found the trail we wanted to be on. After making sure we were ready to go we all took a deep breath and began our trek up the mountain. Along the way we saw the most beautiful views that I have ever seen in my life. The entire area was beautiful, with snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, and amazing trails. We arrived at our first destination in about 2 hours, which was a small town atop the mountain named Pregasina. We biked around the town for a bit, and then decided to try to find some other spots to go to. We went about halfway back down the mountain until we found the trail we wanted and started heading back up again. Although this trail was supposed to lead us to another lake, it was poorly scaled on the map, and 2 hours into the trail we had not made it halfway. We decided to turn around and explore the area around Lago di Garda some more.
After a while of biking, we rode all the way back down the mountain into town and grabbed something to eat. The town is just as beautiful, full of small shops and places to relax. The area is known to be a good place to go for extreme sports, and there were tons of people mountain biking, kayaking, windsurfing, rock climbing, hiking, and scuba diving. Had we had more time we would have made every effort to do more, but unfortunately we couldn't stay longer than one full day. We relaxed for a bit by the water, enjoying some of the most beautiful weather we have had so far in Italy. Around 6 o'clock we took the bus back to the train station, got some dinner, and hopped on a 9:45 train back to Rome. Unfortunately the train ride coming back was not as good at the one when we went there, since it ended up being packed about halfway through and seats were hard to come by. We finally did make it back to Rome, however, at around 6 AM, somewhat tired from an amazing experience.
This week marks my last week of classes here in Rome. This coming Saturday a few of us are going canyoning in Terni, Umbria just north of Rome. Next week is finals week, and then we have the weekend to get ready to come home. None of us can believe how fast it's flying by, and now all we're trying to do is see everything we can see before we have to leave. I hope all is well back in the states. I'll see everyone soon.

~Mike

Side Note - The pictures below give an idea of the trails. The first picture is the view from the top of the mountain. The red circle marks where we started from.













The second picture is the view from where we started, with the red circle marking the town Pregasina, the highest point we went on the first trail.

London

So this weekend, me and a couple of my friends made the trip up to London for a couple of days. We left Rome on Thursday morning on a 6:30 AM flight, putting us in London at around 8:30. We got settled into our hostel, which ended up being a really nice place. The hostel had two nice common rooms, one of which had computers and a large projection screen to watch movies on, which became a great way for us to meet people. That first day we began to explore London as much as we could as three people who had never been to the city before. We walked around and ended up seeing Big Ben, Westminster, and Trafalgar's Square. We found a good place to have lunch right near the square, and of course had to have some fish and chips for lunch. We went back to our hostel for a little while and rested before going to catch our reservation on the London Eye at sunset since we had been told it was the best time to go on it. The view and "flight", as they call it, was amazing. It's so amazing to be above London in a fully glass capsule as the sun sets over Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace. After our flight we went out for some dinner at a pub near our hostel, and then called it an early night since we had been up all night the night before to catch our flight.
Friday morning we had heard about a free tour that left from Greens Park tube station at 11 Am, so we decided to give it a shot. The tour ended up being awesome. Our tour guide Gregg was the owner of the company, Nonstoplondon.com, and started it recently because he didn't like the way that other tours were run. All tours are tips-only at the end, and he worked for every pound that he got. he took us through the parks, to Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard, St. James, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar's Square, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, 10 Downey Street, Churchill's Bunker, as well as many other places. The changing of the guard was fun to see, and we managed to get pretty close. He gave an excellent 3-hour tour, and we quickly became friends with the people that were on it. A few of us decided to get together again later in the night for Gregg's Jack the Ripper tour, which was also amazing. Before that tour we went to the Tower Bridge and explored the city some more. On the jack the Ripper tour, we followed the footsteps of the infamous serial killer and learned about the top suspects and the victims in detail. After the tour was over, Gregg offered to take us to the pub that Jack and most of his victims believed to frequent. The pub was left the same as it was at the time of Jack the Ripper, with tiles on the walls that are hundreds of years old. We enjoyed seeing the pub and talking to everyone that we had met, and eventually made it back to our hostel to rest up for our third day in London.
Saturday we woke up pretty early and headed to the Globe Theater, which has been reconstructed to look exactly like it did in Shakespeare's day when he put on his plays there. From there we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was beautiful to see. We ran over from there to the one spot we all insisted on going to, which was Abbey Road. We saw the Abbey Road Studios, and made our own desperate attempt to imitate the cover of the album by walking across the road, even though it didn't come out too well because we were trying not to get hit while doing it. We grabbed some lunch at the original Hard Rock Cafe, and made sure to act like tourists and take pictures of all of the memorabilia. Since we were in the right area, we then went over to Hyde Park, and Harrod's. Hyde Park was amazing, and reminded me so much of Central Park in NYC, but it was not as good in my very biased opinion. Harrod's was amazing as well. We all were stunned by the store that was really the original one-stop shop, with everything from cars, to clothes, to steaks, to electronics. We spent some time in there before heading back to our hostel to relax for a bit. After a nice nap, we all met up with our friends from our tour the previous day at a nice pub, and talked about our travels. We ended up saying our goodbyes and going back to our hostel to grab our luggage and head to the airport, since we had to catch a bus to the airport at 2:40 in the morning for our 6 AM flight. We got back to Rome around 9 AM and ended up sleeping pretty much all day.
Although London had the worst possible exchange rate and was insanely expensive, we had an amazing time, and managed to live on a budget pretty well, although that meant not going into some of the places that cost 10 pounds for entry. As of today, I have exactly three weeks until I land back in New York, assuming I manage to make it through Heathrow's Terminal 5 in one piece. This coming weekend one of my friends and I are going mountain biking in the Dolomiti Alps, and next weekend five of us are going canyoning in Terni in the Umbria region of Italy. Time is really flying by now, and I hope that all is going well at home. I'll see everyone soon.

~Mike

Congratulations

Before I post another blog, I need to post this to congratulate Private First Class Marc Gibson for graduating from Boot Camp as a United States Marine. Congratulations man, we're all proud of you.

Semper Fidelis.

Two Weeks "Free"

As time beings to wind down here and the exchange rate continues to go up, us students living on the dollar-to-euro lifestyle have become more and more accustomed to trying to find anything that is mildly cheap. Lucky for us, March 25-31 was Cultural Week in Italy, meaning that all of the nation's monuments, historic sites, and parks had free admission. As you know from reading the post below this one, we already took advantage of going to Pompeii for free on the 25th. We decided, however, to take advantage of this week during the beautiful days we had a few more times.
The first place that we went was Castle Sant'Angelo. The castle has an amazing amount of history, offering a beautiful view of the city. The castle was originally built in 135 AD as a mausoleum for Hedrian. In 401, the building was converted into a military fortress, and remained as such until Pope Nicholas III converted it into a castle for him to escape to in the 14th century. From the Pope's residence in the Vatican down the street, there was (and still is) a bridge that ran all the way to the Castle, allowing the Pope to safely escape into a fortress when the public became upset with him. The castle is beautiful, and has an amazing amount of history. The fact that the building is still standing as strong as the day it was built is amazing, and the views that it gives is amazing.
From there we went over to the Palantine Hill, and the Circus Maximus which is one of the most historic spots in Rome, right next to the Roman forum, the Imperial Forum, and the Colosseum. Recent excavations have shown that people were living on the hill as far back as 1000 BC. The hill is also the site where Augustus' Palace was. The hill has amazing views of the city, as well as parks and ruins that are amazing on a bright sunny day.
That same day, we went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is a massive building filled with Italian military history, as well as a symbolic tomb flanked by two eternal flames, and guarded by soldiers at all times. Although most Italians tend to not like the building's design and form, it provides great views of the city, as well as a great museum showing the Italian military history that can't be seen anywhere else.
Lastly, there have been some great free concerts that we have seen around the city. One of the best of these was in the center of the city this past week, honoring the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. The ceremony was very nice, but the chorus and the band that honored them was even better. The Chorus was the Life Water International Chorus from the United States, and the band was a fusion orchestra with amazing talent.
When it comes to other events happening here, I also was lucky enough to get to go see the Roma vs Manchester United soccer game this past week. the game was a Champions League game, meaning that it was very important as to how far Rome gets to go in the finals. Security was very tight at the game, and the stadium was more fired up than I have ever seen it. Manchester United fans are known for being pretty insane, and I can tell you from experience that they lived up to that title. Unfortunately, Roma did not win the game, although they do still have a shot to advance if they win by enough this coming week.
It does appear as if I might not be living the "free life" for much longer, as I'm about to travel to London this coming weekend, where the exchange rate is even worse than the one in Italy. I'll update everyone as soon as I get back from London this weekend. I hope everything is going well back at home. The weather over here is getting nicer by the day, and as the weeks wind down, we're all doing our best to enjoy the outdoor aspect of Rome as much as we can. I'll see everyone in just a few more weeks. Keep in touch.

~Mike