Where I live..

Since I've been telling you about all of the places I've visited, maybe I'll tell/show you the hotel where I live. Hotel Aricia sits off of the street at the bottom of a little hill surrounded by huge trees and green shrubs. It is always shaded, so it is usually cold inside all day from the chill at night.
The lobby has white leather couches (I know... sooo 80's) and peach floral wall paper from mid-wall to the floor.
I've learned one thing about Italy, and that is that ANYTHING goes. Anything. I've seen women wearing sweat pants and a blazer...
The people who are at the front desk are usually friendly and greet us with "Ciao!" Some of them have learned our names. When we leave the hotel, we leave our key at the desk, so when we come in, they have to give it back to us.
We all live on the first floor, which is nice since the elevator is tempermental. Margaret, Kellie, and I share a room, and our beds are so close that we could hold hands while we slept. We LOVE our room and it has begun to feel like home.
Our bathroom is tiny, you have to close the doors in the shower before you turn on the water, otherwise water would spray all over the entire bathroom. The towels here are amazing, they are like a thin waffle material and you wouldn't think they would dry you off, but they do!
We do have a bodet, which is great for doing laundry. On the top floor of the hotel, there is a washing machine for us to use, but here in Italy, they don't use dryers.
My clothes look so much prettier and fresh hanging from the clothes line on the roof of the hotel with the view of the city and the sea behind them.

If you would like to write. .. my address is:

Anna Bailey
Hotel Villa Aricia
Via Appia Nuova KM 26,200
00040 Ariccia (RM) Italy

Ciao!

Ancient Rome and Notte Bianca

On Thursday, we took the train into Rome in the morning and visited the Keets Shelly House, which is the building overlooking the right side of the Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spanga. Very valuable piece of real estate now, but when they purchased it, the area was the ghetto, and they came here to write. They both died at an early age- Keets of tuberculosis, and Shelly drowned.
We had a coffee at Cafe Grecco, the oldest cafe in Italy. It is located on one of the most famous streets in Rome Via dei Condotti- lined with storefronts of Dior, Gucci, Cartier, Bvlgari, Hermes, etc. etc. etc.... Cafe Grecco was a main stopping point for writers and thinkers on the Grand Tour. Below is part of display case of all the beautiful pastries. This is my friend Roberta who lives in Ariccia and works in Rome. She met us for a coffee.


We visited Keets' and Shelly's graves in the Protestant cemetery, which was a beautiful lush green garden..
The white marble gravestones and sculptures add to the beauty, very contrary to the previous visit to the Etruscan tombs. Keets and Shelly were buried there because they were not catholic. To be buried in the cemetery, you must be from another country, have lived in Rome, and you must have died in Rome.
Friday and Saturday we spent walking all over the entire city of Rome doing an assignment called "The ancient Rome scavenger hunt." We went to the Colosseum,
the Forum, up and down the Via del Corso, lunch at an awesome restaurant, gelatto at the Trevi Fountain (which has become our favorite spot for gelatto), in and out of shops along the way. Later, we met and had coffee with my friend Libby Brackett, who did the Italy program this past summer and is now interning with a wedding gown designer in Rome...
Last night was SO much fun. We took the train back to Albano around 7, and grabbed appertivo at Sesta, a little cafe/bar here. Appertivo is served in most bars (bars here serve dessert, wine, and food.. they are not what we call "bars" in America) every day around 7-9pm.You pay like 6 euro and you get a glass of wine and appetizers- all you can eat..
Once a year in Albano, they have a festival called Notte Bianca. All of the stores and restaurants stay open all night and it is basically a street party, very similar to Mardi Gras or Bayfest. Bands on several corners, men walking on stilts, cotton candy, etc.
It was SO much fun. Ali and I met an older couple from Albano and we are meeting them for lunch this afternoon! She is from Poland and speaks a tiny bit of English, and he is from Albano and hardly speaks any English at all! I'll let you know how it goes.

We think we have antiques in America??

On Tuesday, after a weekend of strolling the streets of Ariccia, we boarded the bus at 7:30am sharp to head north towards Rome. I love our bus driver, Ezio. If the traffic is bad, he makes his own road, usually down what looks like someones driveway. The crazy thing is, there are no dead ends here (or that I've seen) so the road is bound to lead us somewhere. He honks while we are speeding down the narrow roads incase there is another car coming the opposite way. We always get to where we are headed, I'm not sure if he gets us there faster by taking the detours, but we never sit in traffic!
We stopped at an Etruscan burial site. It was erie to imagine that these tombs were built seven thousand years before Jesus was born. The inscriptions above the doors were legible (not in a language, but you could make out the inscriptions).
Some tombs were ornate, some were very plain.. the ornamentation was a sign of wealth. Some tombs had marble chairs carved into the wall, some had a "bed" and a pillow of marble.
The were cold, and damp. They smelled like dirt and it felt like death. The only sign of life was the awkward shiny green of the ivy and creeping weeds whose that clashed with the browny blah color of the mud/dirt/sand/rock.
We were the only people there, just us and the tombs. and if you've seen one, you've, for the most part, seen them all. So we loaded the bus and headed for Ostia Antica, where the ancient roman ruins are. They, on the other hand, showed signs of life, even though they were 3000 years "newer" than the tombs. I think they date somewhere around 2000 BC but I could be totally wrong.
It was amazing to see what the built with their bare hands and a few tools they constructed. The massive columns, the arches, the ampatheater, and the baths seem so "easy" to us because we have machines to do all of the work.
But to think that they created these columns to be perfectly circular meant every move of carving had to be precise. The whole town was very though out, and you could tell where their shops were by the mosaics that were carefully made outside of each structure with images of what was sold their. I think the town was about 2 miles long, but we just walked half of it because we were starving. While we were there, it was hard to grasp how old these ruins were, and how they were once underground until someone noticed a little protursion of brick in a field. Little by little the entire thing was excavated... amazing.
Afterwards, we headed to the town of Ostia, which is on the coast of the Mediterranean. We grabbed a piece of pizza and walked to the pier in the center of town so we could see the beach and the water. It is so neat to see the little terracotta villas lining the coast.
They even have the umbrella guys with their muscles and tank tops and leathered skin and chairs to rent. We are spoiled in Alabama with the prettiest beaches in the world. The sand in Ostia was brown and grainy and shelly, and every hand-full of sand had a cigarrette butt to counter it. We may have been in a lesser area, so after next weekend on our trip to Sorrento and Capri, I can make a better judgement, but home sweet home may be the prettiest. Maybe this is ignorant, but I doubt I could ever think any other way.

I'm still curled up in bed this morning, sipping a cappuccino while Margaret and Kellie are still asleep. It's 11 a.m. I can't believe I slept so late but this is the first morning we've been able to sleep in and obviously we all needed the rest!
So we made it through the first week! For some reason it feels like we've been here for months, in a good way though. I know how to get around Ariccia and the surrounding towns, how to get to and from Rome on the train or bus, how to successfully order meals in Italian, how to find the supermarket, etc.
The highlight of my week was on Wednesday when we took the bus to the little towns around Ariccia. If I try to tell you about where we ate lunch, I won't do any justice, but I'll attempt. The pictures ARE NOT worth a thousand words, they too don't capture an ounce of the beauty of what I saw.
So we drove up to Montecavo, which used to be a monastery but then became a naval base. We hiked the Via Sacra, which is the Sacred Roman Road-
As I was walking over the worn massive black, seemingly polished stones, I just couldn't imagine how old that road was. And to think of the famous Roman soldiers actually walked those same steps.
We went to several other towns, as well as Castel Gondolfo,

the pope's summer residence, which was beautiful. But nothing compares to the lunch experience Marizio had set for us...
We were all starving by the time we were on our way to eat. We had no idea where we were going. We drove down these winding roads along the coast of Lake Nemi ..
until the bus pulled over on the side of the road. Cinzia said we had to walk from there.. I was wondering what kind of restaurant had successful business by requiring their customers to walk to the restaurant! (and back after a huge meal).
We walked down this little country road with green ivy and queen anne's lace growing wild along the side. There were overgrown vineyards and abandoned little huts on both sides. We took a left, and the side of the road to the right was a huge hill. We kept walking. Eventually we saw a little road veering off to the right and on top of this hill we saw a lady waving her arms for us to come up. So we walked up the hill and she was standing at the other end of a huge table that sat about 25 people.
Above was a simple cabana old and torn, so only some of the table was shaded. Behind the table was a hut- nothing special- maybe the size of a small closet- where 2 little kittens played in the doorway. The table was set for us. I was wondering where the food was!
Her name was Maria, and this beautiful vineyard belonged to her and her husband Carlos. We sat and they served us homemade wine.
Then, Maria presented a huge pan of lasagna- she made it- the sauce alone took five hours! It was the best thing I ever put in my mouth.
Marizio, Marco and Mary Lou, Francesco, and two of their friends joined us as well.
There was no stove or refrigerator- everything was that fresh - and the lasagna had been cooked over the fire behind the hut. We walked back to see - we weren't finished with our meal! There was a huge barrel of fire with skewers of sausage and pork roasting. Also, Maria had just picked tomatoes from the vineyard and was making bruschetta.
There we were, sitting on a hill in the middle of a vineyard overlooking Lake Nemi, with the Alban hills in the backdrop, perfect weather, good wine, in ITALY. I was in disbelief. It was an out of body experience. I love how Italians enjoy a meal for like 3 hours.
We all were falling asleep after lunch because it was so fine, but afterwards we drove to the little town of Nemi, where they are known for their tiny strawberries called fragolini. I tasted some, they were very tart, but good!
Banner day...

Yesterday we went to Rome for the day, but it was so cold and pouring rain. The flower market in Campo di Fiore was just as I remembered from when mom and I were here. The rows and rows of spices were so pretty and smelled so good.
The prettiest thing happened amidst the flood :)
We went to the Pantheon, where the only source of light is a massive hole in the very top. It was so beautiful to see the rain pouring in.. There is a tiny drain below the massive hole..
We were so tired yesterday when we got back, plus it was raining, so we just ate dinner at the hotel and went to bed.
No plans for the day yet! I'm still the only one awake!

Ciao Palazzo Chigi!

Yesterday right when I woke up, I went downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel for a cappiccino. It tasted like silk. We went to Palazo Chigi (the Chigi Palace) where we will be
every day.
On our walk to the palace, we just leave our hotel and its a 10 minute
walk there. We walk over this beautiful bridge and underneath are
villas and little streets, in the distance are vineyards and beyond
that you can see the Mediterranean.


This is a view from the bridge at night.
We had an amazing meal at a local restaurant yesterday for lunch. They just kept bringing
out food. The town is like Fairhope sort of- everyone knows we are
here and they want to impress us so we will come to their restaurants
alot, so they basically bring us everything in the restaurant.
The town next to us is called Albano, and it is alot bigger than
Ariccia. We walked there last night and I went to the sepermercato to
get shampoo and razor blades. EVeryone was shocked at how little I
packed. Most girls checked atleast 2 bags and had a huge carry on and
they had to pay extra because all of their bags weighed over 50 lbs. I
only checked one back and it weighed 44 lbs! Aren't you proud!? I
haven't needed anything except shampoo and conditioner. Oh, and I
realized that I did forget my bathingsuit for when we go to the
beach... but thats fine...
We went to a little Pruschetta stand down the street for some wine later, then came back to the hotel. I slept SO well.
This morning it was very cool out and we got a complete tour of the palace.
I took some pictures but they do not do anything there any justice. This is a fireplace in the palace.

We had an italian lesson from Mary Lou and a history lesson from Marco (picture above from dinner on the first night.. arent't they cute?!) . Then a late lunch at La Rupa... we were all sooo hungry. Italians eat lunch at like 3!
Later we took the bus to Genzano, the town on the other side of Ariccia from Albano.
In Genzano each year, there is a flower festival where they cover the entire streets with flowers... This is a picture of a street in Genzano. There are lots of little shops there, but the streets were very crowded, so we decided to take the bus back to Albano where Ali, Lauren and I had dinner at a little pizzaria. It was definitely family owned and he brought us every kind of pizza he had and brought us wine and charged us five euro each.. They were so sweet. His wife was so patient with my extremely extremely broken Italian.
Tomorrow we will Visit the towns of CastelGandolfo, Frascati, Genzano, Tuscolo and Montecavo. In the afternoon there is a possible visit to a grape harvest.
I cannot get over how wonderful the weather is. Another thing I'm shocked at is the unbelievable sunsets on the Mediterranean. I thought Mobile Bay had the most beautiful I'd ever seen, but the sunsets here are competition for the eastern shore. But I wouldn't trade a day on the bay for anything in the world.

I'm here!!!!

We got here this morning around 9 (italian time) which was around 3am at home. Maggs and I sat together on the plane but didn't manage to sleep much.. After gathering all of our luggage (everyone's made it) we found our driver and loaded the luggage onto the bus and headed towards the Alban Hills where Ariccia is located. It is just about thirty miles south of Rome. It was a beautiful drive, there were sheep on the hills as we passed and beautiful abandoned villas.
When we got to the hotel, we grabbed our luggage, went to our rooms, began to unpack, but crashed because we were all so tired. After a five hour nap, we are getting ready to head to dinner. I am so excited! Can't wait for some VINO!!!



When Maggs opened her phone, she said, "Oh noooo, I have FULL service.. This is not good!! "
Cha Ching, Cha Ching Mr. Richard!!


Maggs and I headed straight to find some coffee when we woke up.. This is the the bar in the hotel, they don't serve coffee like we were looking for- they go straight for the strong stuff.. Straight expresso in a tiny cup. It definitely works.
We took these pictures with my computer which is why the pics are a little blurry..


The weather feels AMAZING. It is in the low 70's. At night it will be in the high 50's. The doors to the hotel are wide open and there is a breeze in the lobby. Walter, who works at the front desk and serves the cafe, said the summer was extremely hot, so this cooler weather is unusual..
It feels wonderful!