9 Kilometers in the Hills Is a Lot of Miles

On the western coast of Italy near Genoa (in the North) are 5 towns that span an approximately 9km distance. Linking these 5 towns is a hiking trail that takes you through the hills that over look the Thyrrenian sea.



You start the hike in Riomaggiore then make your way through Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and finally Monterosso. As you make it through each portion of the hike, you can stop in each little town along the way and soak in the atmosphere of these small towns and their smaller ports or watch the old Italian people watch you. I stayed in Riommagiore...



Started the hike at 9:45 in Riommagiore and started our trek on the Vial dell'Amore. This first of 4 legs was very easy. A simple straight shot on the cliffside above the ocean where you can watch the water crashing on the rocks.



There was also a cool tunnel where people left graffiti and messages where I saw a stencil of John Legend.



From Manarola to Corniglia, the path was a bit more difficult because it's where the uphill portion of the trip started to manifest itself, but it was still pretty simple. Leg 3, from Corniglia to Vernazza is where it starts to get tough. This path is a bit more inland as it takes you through the hills, but you can still see the water and the coast. As you go through the hills, the path becomes much more full with nature...the path is no longer paved with concrete, but total dirt and rocks. We were lucky to have some cloud cover on the day we did the hike, so it wasn't too hot.





As we left Corniglia, we saw vineyards...lots of vineyards. Terraces of grapevines just lined the mountainside. This 4km leg was challenging. Most of the path was narrow and there were multitudes of steps up and down the hillside.





My favorite part of the trek is when you can see the church of the next town a good distance away, but it's at a much higher altitude than you are and you realize you have to climb that high. But then as you turn the next corner, you see steps that lead downhilll. Lots of steps...



This path consisted of many of these moments when you would have to go uphill and downhill the whole time. We finally made it to Vernazza where we were greeted with one of the best harbors.





The final leg to Monterroso was pretty much just as difficult as leg 3. Again with more amazing views, but the path was narrower...with trees, flowers, and brush growing all around you. It was somewhere along this leg of the trip that I decided I wanted to utterly destroy the hike, so we turned on the burners and hustled through. But man, I was so out of shape, the hike was tough. The reason why I have so many beautiful pictures on the hike isn't totally because of the great scenery and views, but it's also so I would have an excuse to catch my breath while I took the picture without hurting my pride.



It was also on this leg of the trip that I got semi-recognized for the Monta-zing Ellis jersey I had on (and while shuffling across a narrow path). Some old guy had asked me who was in the NBA finals...I told him LA and Orlando...to which he responded...really? not the Cleveland Lebron's? His legitimacy rose.



One cool part of the journey for me as an engineer were these metal pipes that were running along our paths along the trip. These lines are what they use to transport things easily from one town to another without having to make the hikes.





Another interesting note of this trip is the amount of recycling in these towns. It's one of the coolest things in the world that these 5 little towns on the coast of Italy have clearly labeled recycling bins all throughout the towns that make it easy to recycle. In the big cities like Rome and Milan it was much more difficult to find any way to recycle.



As we finished the final leg and walked into Monterosso, the sun broke out of the clouds on cue. After treating myself to swordfish for lunch, we made made our way to the beach where we got the treat of a traveling band. Awesome.

Italy Doesn't Make German Chocolate

You know those little gold foil wrapped chocolate balls everybody gets for Christmas? Ferrero Rocher...

They are made by a company called Ferrero which apparently makes every hazelnut product in the history of mankind. Not only do they make the Rochers, but they also make the buttery goodness of Nutella.

Well, this company is Italian...and the Italian's love this stuff. They find every excuse to put it in their food. Breakfast in the morning consists of fake toast and Nutella. They sell Nutella dipping cups. This company is the HNIC here in Italy.

They also produce the Kinder chocolate series for children. That's right, this candy is not made by a German company despite the fact that it's named after the German word for "children". All of the Kinder chocolate is good. You should try it.

One of the things they make is this little egg thing "con sorpresso (surprise)". I had the experience of tasting this Kinder chocolate goodness.

Milan's Duomo

Duomo is a generic Italian term for "cathedral church"; it seems like just about every city or town in Italy has it's own duomo. Florence's is supposed to be exquisite, I saw one in Agrigento, but my favorite is the one I saw in Milan. It's not only my favorite "duomo" but I think it's also my favorite church. (Even better than St. Peter's Basilica or the Sistine Chapel).



This church is centered in the heart of Milan in the Piazza Duomo and is actually the world's biggest Gothic cathedral. It was started in 1386 and finally finished in 1762 when it was dedicated to Saint Maria (Jesus' moms) when her golden statue was placed atop the tallest spire. The whole theme of the cathedral is the life of the virign Mary...on the facade it says "Maria Nascentae" and there are many various statues and dedications to her within the church.



The fact that this church is Gothic, while the majority of churches in Italy look Baroque (I don't really know what I'm talking about), is what attracts me to it the most. It's an amazing homogeneous structure where everything inside the church (and outside) seems to fit and tie together. And as with many churches, but especially with this one, the attention to detail is exquisite.

On the main facade are various statues and scenes depicting bible stories. The statues all over the front facade encompass the entire building and top many of the spires.



The stained glass windows in the church are exquisitely beautiful as they depict more bible stories or the general fight between good and evil. Behind the main altar of the church (called the apse are three large walls of many panels stained glass windows, one dedicated to the old testament, one to the new, and the last to the story of book of Revelation). Being a traditional church, it is laid out in a cross-shaped floorplan with the altar in the east. This produces an exquisite effect in the church in the morning as the sun rises at illuminates these stained glass windows.



Above the apse is a cross (with the red light). Within this cross, is supposedly a nail from Christ's cross. Emperor Constantine apparently kept it around his horse's bit when going into battle. Somewhere along the line it was given to Milan, where it was placed high above the altar as it was thought to be the safest place for it.



The Trivulzio Candelabra is housed in the Duomo and is just an amazing work of detail. At first glance it's just a big bronze candle holder (with a shout out to the 12-Tribes in it's Menorah inspired design)...but a closer look at the ivy base reveals Bible stories woven into the design.





One of my favorite statues in all of Italy is this of Saint Bartholomeo. It looks a lot like Skeletor at the Jack in the Box in Malibu, but it's actually St. Bartholomeo with his skin wrapped around his body like a sash. Look at the detail in the muscles...reminiscent of Leonardo's studies of the human body.



And I'll just let the pictures do the rest of the talking...



Looks like the symbol on the back of the dollar bill...


There's a hole in the ceiling that let's sunlight in and as the seasons pass along, the light shines on this line depicting the different zodiac signs.


Then I went outside onto the roof to get a view of all of Milan.

Rome Recap

The Rome Recap.

I left Rome almost a week ago, but I guess it deserves some sort of rundown on my time there.

Before I left for Rome, a friend of mine told me that his impression of it was that it was dirty...and this coming from a guy who lives in New York. And I'd have to agree with him to a certain extent. The thing about Rome is that there are so many old features to it that it becomes hard to adequately clean it. For example, the streets are still made of cobblestone: small bits of garbage get stuck in the cracks of the cobblestone and make it difficult to get out. Despite this, though, I love the cobblestone and the rest of the old parts of town because it really adds to the historic charm of the city.

They call Rome the Eternal City, but I tend to think it's more of a time capsule than an eternal city. Throughout my time in Rome, everything I ran into was historic...even the random buildings on the corner, but I didn't run into much that was contemporary. Except for the buses or street cars, everything in Rome was centered around its preexisting buildings. (And I don't mean any of this as a criticism of Rome). When you walk through Rome, you are just taken aback by all the history.

The difficult part is parsing through it all...because it really is just a clusterfuck of history. First you had the Roman Republic, then the Empire, then some Christianity, then the Popes, along the line Rome was kept up with contemporary society as Mussolini came to power then fell, until we've come to today. The relics of all this history are visible everywhere and it's interesting to see them all bunched up together. Rome has done a great job of preserving these buildings and incorporating their modern life into the historic buildings (for example, the President of Rome lives in an old papal palace instead of a newly constructed building designed solely for his purpose).

Without modern skyscrapers, most of the buildings in Rome aren't much taller than 10 stories, but because the streets are so narrow, you can't see much beyond one block from where you're standing. But as you walk a bit, you start to hear the murmur of a crowd of tourists, then you turn the corner and you're hit with an ancient temple or an old church or an old civic building. And this isn't even counting the normal buildings in the city where people live, but are still hundreds or even thousands of years old.

The thing about some of the ancient Roman Empire's relics is that they only exist as skeletons of themselves, not because of time and the elements, but because of one of the most beautiful things about Rome: the Vatican. And while the Popes and the Vatican have given us some of the most beautiful statues and basilicas in Rome, they got most of the marble to build it from the older Roman buildings. It's why the forums are only shells and bricks of their former selves and the Coliseum is only half there. In fact, when the Vatican rose to power over Rome, the Popes saw fit to reframe everything that was once pagan and make it Christian. It's why there's now a cross at every old temple (the Pantheon, which is now a church, was once a pagan temple). Not only did they do this, but they also put their name on everything...most of the important old buildings in Rome have a Pope's name on them.

There's way too much history in Rome for me to understand it all, but I'm sure I'll be back. Here are some highlights of what I saw.


An Obelisk that Augustus, the first Emperor brought back from Egypt, that now has a cross on it.


The Coliseum...


The old Roman Senate...


The Trevi Fountain


Water Fountains all over Rome that give you free clean water


The Vatican Museum


...and the Sistene Chapel (Sorry Pope, had to take pictures...)

La Festa della Republicca

June 2nd in Italy is il 2 gignuo giorno. It's their independence day. While in Rome, the main street by the Coliseum was closed off while they setup bleachers for the parade.

I left Rome right before this holiday and was in Milan. They were celebrating this holiday for the whole weekend before that Tuesday, which meant everything was closed. They don't take their holidays lightly in Italy. It is for this reason that the only food I could manage to eat while in Milan was Chinese and McDonalds (although I did try to eat all the things on the menu that they don't have in America: beer, fried shrimp, curly fries, etc.)



Anyway, I got sick on the actual day of the festivities so I couldn't see too much of what was going on. In Milan, there wasn't too much, except for the free music performance in what is Milan's city hall. Didn't stick around for too much of it, but did catch them playing the National Anthem, Il Canto degli Italiani...which everyone watching sang along to. (Sorry for the shaky hand).

Il Canto degli Italiani from wizard on Vimeo.

Chi Non Salta Milanista

Didn't have plans to, but I made my way up to Milan a few days ago to catch Inter's final game of the season with Petey, Elom, and the Truth. Man...the game was amazing.

First, the stadium where the team plays, San Siro, is amazing. It's huge (...). We were in a cab driving to the stadium and as we turned the corner, it just popped up out of nowhere (...). This behemoth can hold 86,000 people.



And because people get crazy at soccer matches, they make it really really difficult to seat jump (aka paying for a cheap ticket, then moving to a better seat); There are walls between each section that prevent you from moving through.

Now, I don't pretend to be a soccer fan at all. I don't really even pretend to know the rules. Past 5th grade, when I could bend it better than Beckham, it's been all downhill. In fact, I find the game to be boring...the field (excuse me, the pitch) is so big, you might as well be watching a track meet. With this in mind, you should now believe me when I say that this game was a damn awesome soccer game. We saw everything you'd want to see in a game...one-on-one scoring, headers for goals, come from behind win, and even a bicycle kick.

Nike sponsors their matches...apparently so does Big Sky...



The story is that Inter Milan won their league a week ago (there are no playoffs in their league) so this game was essentially meaningless. This was their 17th championship. After having let the other team tie the game up at 1-1, Ibrahimovic for Inter scored a 1-on-1 goal to take a 2-1 lead. This is Ibra as he scores the goal.



They eventually lost the lead and actually went down 3-2. At which point, Inter had many chances to tie the game up...and actually did twice, before being called off for offsides. One of these called offsides was actually a bicycle kick...not just an attempt, but my man, Muntari, actually kicked it into the goal. My thinking is that for that kind of play, you have to just give it to him...but that's just me.

Well, Inter finally tied the game up and didn't take long to score the winning goal. In fact the way they did it was by Ibrahimovic's behind the back kick for a score. And of course the only proper celebration for scoring the game winning goal behind your back is to take your shirt off.



Then they had the trophy ceremony afterwards for their 17th championship.



One of the coolest parts about the experience is the fans. These are the loudest, most boisterous fans ever. Imagine all 87000 people standing and cheering at the same time for the whole game. They did not tire. In fact, one section (about 15,000 people...enough for a basketball stadium) did not stop cheering. They had a song for everything...good or bad. If someone got injured on the other team (which they liked) or a ref made a bad call, they would all start to whistle in unison. Every player had his own little song which they sang when he scored.

The most interesting cheer, though, is the song they sing for the entire team. In unison they start jumping up and down and sing "Chi non salta...milanista...e'...e'". Im not sure exactly what this means...but roughly it translates to "Get on your feet and start jumping for Inter Milan". And then they jumped, too. I'll upload a video of this as soon as internet is affordable again.