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That Ginger, Anna

That Ginger, Anna

Tag Archives: friuli

Italia in 40: Day 10…Potatoes, Cheese and Ancient History!

21 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Travel

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

cividale, europe, european, female travel, friuli, friuli-venezia giulia, italia, Italia in 40, italiain40, solo travel. backpacking, tourism, tourist, Travel, udine, wine

Ciao!

Today was another awesome one!

My friend’s dad drove us into town and we caught the bus to Cividale, another important Roman and Longobardo town. When we arrived at Cividale we toured the main cathedral before exploring the town.

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After the church, we walked around and went over the Devil’s Bridge. From what I could understand, people sold either their own souls or pig’s souls in exchange for help from the devil to build it.

The river that the Devil’s Bridge traverses is astonishing. It was the clearest and bluest river I’ve ever seen. I wanted to swim in it so bad. Maybe next time!

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After crossing the river/bridge, my friend asked a passerby how to get to the Longobardo temple and he directed us back to the municipal area with the church where we had originally come from.

We planned to go see the Longobardo temple, but it was closed until 3 PM, so we went to lunch.

As I explained in the last blog, Friuli-Venezia Giulia is an autonomous region with its own language, and as I found out today, its own cuisine. Today I was able to eat Frico and Gubano. Gubano is a dessert dish that is small knots of croissant/doughnut dough with thicker bread like dough in the middle. It looks like golf ball size knots of doughnut with banana-nut/ginger style bread in the center.

I also had Frico con patate, which is a cheese shell with mashed potatoes in the bottom. OMG. Best. Food. Ever.

I freaking LOVE cheese and potatoes are a close second, so it was AMAZINGGG.

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After lunch, we walked to the Longobardo temple and there were a group of French tourists there. We got at the student rate (if you are under 25 in Italy-and most of Europe-you are considered a student and you pay super reduced rates to get into museums) of 1,50 Euros!

The Longobardo temple was amazing because it was on the beautiful river with lots of houses and the mountains were visible, but some parts of it were built/decorated in the seventh, yes, seventh century!

It was so cool. I am not an ancient/medieval historian and normally I am not very interested in ancient history, but it was neat! It helped me tie a bunch of loose ends together from all of the classes I have taken and people I have heard talk about their theses and interests.

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After the Longobardo temple, we had to rush to the bus station to head back to Udine. In Italy, high schoolers take public transportation because after middle school they do not have school buses. In Cividale they have an agricultural/scientific high school, so lots of students got on the bus with us and it was so interesting. Two of the students were sitting right behind the bus driver so I could see them in his rear-view mirror: they were GETTING BUSY. I mean, I did my fair share of kissing boys as a teenager, but these fools were making me blush. My friend said they were only 15 or 16, but the girl was laying in the boy’s lap and he was sucking on her neck for the greater part of 45 minutes! #scandalous

The son of the mayor of my friend’s hometown also got on the bus, but only shortly before we got off to walk to her house.

We got off the bus and went to her house for a few minutes before we took her dad’s car and went to the stadium so that I could learn to drive a standard transmission car.

When I was a kid my dad used to let me shift gears in his standard truck and one of my ex boyfriends tried to teach me for like 3 minutes once (before he got worried about me burning up the clutch), but otherwise I had ZERO experience with a standard transmission vehicle.

In my opinion, I did a good job. I got all the way to fourth gear once or twice…in a parking lot! There was a carnival going on and dogs, bicyclists, and other people…I will post a video whenever I am able to upload the footage to Youtube.

 

After learning to drive we went to the mall and found a Hello Kitty story that was about to go out of business. I got a few cute things for cheap and I am so excited about it because it’s specifically Italian Hello Kitty!

We walked around the mall for a while and then we went back to her house to have dinner.

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Her dad bought us all kinds of wines from Friuli and we tried them.

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I drank a full bottle by myself and have to wake up at seven tomorrow because my train leaves at noon-it’s going to be rough, haha!

The owner of the B&B I am staying at in my next destination texted me yesterday and asked what time I was arriving at the train station and today she said she would pick me up!

I am so happy because the next place I am going to is my most rural destination for this trip and I have never been there before nor do I know anyone, so I am thankful that this woman agreed to pick me up at the train station!

I will leave tomorrow around noon and I will be to my destination around 3:30 or 4!

In Bassano del Grappa I will be able to upload pictures from my visit to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, so stay tuned!

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Italia in 40: Day 9…#Historygasms and the Sea=My Perfect Day

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Travel

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

aquileia, autonomy, backpacking, codroipo, europe, european, friuli, friuli-venezia giulia, friulian, grado, history, history nerd, history student, italia, Italia in 40, italiain40, italian, italian history, Italy, learning, nerd, palmanova, politics, regionalism, solo travel, tour, tourism, tourist, Travel, travel tips, traveling, udine, venetian history, venice, villa manin

I am still on 3G, so just be patient and I will add some (more) media to these three blog entries, eventually (probably Thursday night).

Today was AMAZING and quite possibly the best day I have ever had in Italy and the best day I have ever had as a history student! First, we went to Codroipo to an outdoor market and walked around. There were stalls for everything: clothes, shoes, scarves, plants, housewares, food, baskets, lingerie, toys, and everything in between. I bought some cookies for 60 cents and then we walked to my friend’s grandparent’s house, where her dad was waiting on us.

 

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From Codroipo we went out to Villa Manin, which was the country estate of the last Doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin.

 

My friend’s dad also said that Napoleon Bonaparte lived there at one point! Now, for those of you that know me, you know that this was SUPER COOL! If you don’t know me, let me explain:

1) I am a nerd.

2) I wrote my Masters thesis about the decline of the Venetian oligarchy, leading up to the fall of the Republic to Napoleon Bonaparte.

3) I dedicated the final chapter of said thesis to the shift of the nobility from a merchant class to a feudal nobility.

4) A large portion of that chapter discussed the buying-up of land on the terra firma and the adoption of the mezzadria (sharecropping) system.

So, guess what I saw today? An actual place where all of this took place! I was kicking myself the entire time because I know writing my thesis would have been a hell of a (helluva?) lot easier and more stimulating, had I been able to see this last summer when I was researching via Inter Library Loan and Google…>__<

They were setting up for some kind of food festival at Villa Manin and renovating the main estate, but we got to go into two small museums (one for weapons and one for carriages) and then into the back garden.

A French designer, who modeled it after Versailles, created the garden in 1714. There was a beautiful pond (it was crystal-blue and so clear), statutes and all kids of trees. I also heard a beehive for the first time…it was a little scary! The villa and garden would be a great filming location for any of you cinematographers out there.

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Walking around the estate and the gardens is free, but if you want to enter the museum in the main house, you have to pay (8-10 Euros) or get a Friuli-Venezia Giulia Card. Just like the Firenze Card, the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia has a card that provides access to museums, WiFi, and public transport!

After Villa Manin, we went to Aquileia, which was a prominent Roman city and the point of origin for many of the original inhabitants of Venice. We saw the basilica and baptistery of Santa Maria Assunta and passed many ancient ruins. I also mentioned Aquileia in the first chapter of my thesis. So, I basically got to tour the places I wrote about at the beginning and end of my thesis and beginning on Sunday I will be in Venice and get to see all of the places I wrote about in the body of my thesis! So exciting! #historygasm

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After having a short tour of Aquileia, my friend’s dad drove us to Grado and dropped us off. Grado is on the ocean and if you didn’t know, the ocean is my favorite place. Other than dipping my toes in the Mediterranean in Cinque Terre, I haven’t been to the ocean since August 2011!  In Grado, we got to have some seafood (spaghetti with clams), play in the water (got some epic GoPro footage I will share eventually), get some sun, explore, and do a little shopping (I got some cute stuff: two scarves, some earrings, and a scarf clip to match).

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On the way back to Codroipo we stopped in Palmanova, a huge fortress in the shape of a 9-point star. If you stand in the exact center of the fortress, the three gates leading out of the town are exactly 120 degrees apart on three on points of the star. It was cool! On the way out, we drove through one of the gates and it had two layers and all kinds of gears and mechanisms, which the inhabitants used to seal up the walls during attack.

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After all of that, we made it back to Codroipo. We bought a gelato and walked around the city to do a bit more shopping. We missed the bus to Udine, but thankfully my friend’s aunt drove by and she was able to contact her dad to pick us up.

We got back to my friend’s house around 7 and we had dinner (prosciutto, Prosecco, mozzarella, crackers, and tomatoes) and then dessert (pineapple)!

Throughout the day I also got to talk to my friend’s dad about politics in Europe, the U.S., and South America (her family migrated to Venezuela during the Depression era and only came back to Italy a few years ago), which was SO much fun. I love talking to people about their political beliefs, and specifically how their thoughts on economics shape their political beliefs!

Now, I have yet to get to the most awesome part. It turns out Friuli-Venezia Giulia is one of only 3 autonomous regions in Italy and THEY HAVE THEIR OWN LANGUAGE (one could argue that it’s a dialect, but whatever). Also, since elections are coming up, I got to see all kinds of campaign posters and even passed a campaign office for Lega Nord, a political party which advocates some isolationist and separatist ideas. Why is this cool? Well, I am a total sucker for languages and dialects and have been since I was a kid. I collect dictionaries and phrasebooks, if that gives you any indication of my obsession. Of course, the more obscure a language, the better! For my Ph.D., I really want to study the history of regionalist politics in Europe and specifically Italy. Everyone studies Irish and Spanish regionalism/separatism-and that is fascinating, do not get me wrong-but Italy is unique and so I want to study its political history!

 

So, to recap: I got to explore multiple settings from my thesis, I got to go to the ocean, I got to shop, I got to eat good food, I discovered a new language, I got to talk about contemporary global politics all day, I got to explore an autonomous region in Italy…it was literally PERFECT!

Before my brain explodes, I have to go.

Pictures to come!

 

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