Author: thestudiojosie

On our eighth day, we woke up and ate an 8 a.m. breakfast in the hostel. The daily breakfast assortment was made up of espresso or juice, pastries, and fresh fruit. My favorite was the chocolate croissant; I looked forward to it every morning.

After breakfast, we walked towards the bus where we would drive to Ponte d’Augusto, an ancient arch bridge in Narni. Half of it is collapsed which, I learned, happened as a result of natural disasters. We didn’t spend much time here, but I took a couple of photos. We were really close, however, so I couldn’t get any great ones. Here’s a faraway shot I found online for you to get a better sense of its size.

After visiting the bridge, we headed to Covestro… a plastic factory.

Yup, on this trip I toured both a steel and a plastic factory. I certainly never thought I’d witness either in my lifetime, but here we are. I enjoyed Covestro a lot more than the steel factory, mainly because I wasn’t jet-lagged and sweaty the whole time. We sat in a fancy conference room (with A.C.!) for the first hour or so, learning about the factory and watching informational videos. Then, we got on fancy goggles, shoes, and hard-hats and began the tour.

After eating lunch in the employee’s cafeteria and getting a loaded goodie bag from them, we headed back to the town. We got off the bus and decided to have some gelato at the gelateria in the main piazza.

After gelato, we went to another concert. This was a student piano player we watched in one of the churches. The one thing I will forever remember about this concert was the bat that flew around throughout the entirety of it. We saw lots of bats, especially on the hostel’s balcony, but this one was inside the church and it flew around a lot. I was pretty nervous watching it swoop constantly, and I kept thinking of this scene from The Office.

We had dinner at 7:30 and then began walking to our final destination of the day: Narni Sotterranea. This had to have been the coolest tour ever, and I’ll explain more in the captions below. Before coming here, I had no idea it existed, and it just makes me wonder how many other hidden gems there are all around the world.

In the 1970s, a group of young men discovered this underground, twelfth-century church filled with frescoes on the wall. After uncovering the church, they found additional rooms that were all connected. Narni Sotteranea is the museum that it was turned into, and it is such a well-done and fascinating tour.

I didn’t take any photos, but we went into a torture chamber that was just next door where they would, well… torture people who were convicted of witchcraft, heresy, bigamy, etc.

The next few photos are from my favorite part of the tour. After the torture room, we were led into a small cell. A man named Lombardini was imprisoned here, and during the time he spent there, he drew symbols and characters on all the walls. This article states that he was imprisoned because of his interest in “Masonic rituals” and he was “convicted as [a] heretic.” I recommend checking out that article I linked to if you’re curious to read more about it since I can’t explain every detail myself.

After seeing the cell, we walked upstairs and were surprised to be inside the San Domenico church which is where the tour ended. We were just there the day before for the gala concert, so it was crazy to know that there was so much history right underneath us we didn’t even know existed until that moment. Here’s a sixth-century mosaic they found in the church. There’s glass over it, so you can see right into it as you walk by:

Here’s the link to Narni Sotterranea’s website. If you ever find yourself in there — or even in Umbria — I highly suggest visiting this place and taking a tour. I genuinely had no idea this existed until we walked into the underground church, so it was a thrilling experience for me. Surprisingly, there isn’t as much info online as I would think. But regardless, it was one of the coolest things ever, and it is well worth your time.

The next day was pretty uneventful, and I don’t have too many photos to share anyway. To sum it up, we went to three different concerts and ate gelato. By the final concert, we were all exhausted and concert-ed out. We all sat in the back row of a huge church, making little puppets from the pamphlets we got and giggling at the worst times. So while we were all so tired and bored, we made the best of it. I have so many great memories from that night.

But anyway…
tomorrow we go to ROME!
Buonanotte! 

We took a tour of Narni during the second week, and to be honest, I wish we had taken it on the first or second day. Learning the history and knowing the names of certain places/ structures we had passed every day made me appreciate our temporary home that much more. But, regardless of when it happened, it was still very interesting and a great morning.

The tour began as a history lesson. The teacher, who was also our tour guide, was super fun. The lesson was about an hour, so after the slideshow (which I included some funny transitions and pictures), we headed outside and began to tour the town.

After touring the churches and learning a bit about the town, we had some lunch and then went to a mosaic-making class! As you know, I love love love mosaics, so I was really looking forward to this.

After dinner that night, we had to go back to the hostel to change into nicer clothes for a concert. This was the big gala concert for the Narnia Festival’s grand opening, and since part of the scholarship was attending the festival concerts, we were all invited to attend. It was held at the Chiesa di San Domenico, a church that was elegantly decorated for the event. Despite the modern decor and design, its history was still very much preserved, presenting a lovely contrast as we walked through the doors.

For some reason, our group was not saved any seats in the audience. We were told to move to the side of the church and sit on the steps behind the walls next to the audience. This was a bit unexpected, but it ended up being a perfect surprise. My friends and I lied down on the steps, staring up at the most idyllic ceiling and listening to Vivaldi music. It felt like a dream, and I often wish I could go back in time and relive this moment.

Halfway through the (very long) concert, we noticed people beginning to set up food behind us. It smelled so good, and there was so much of it, so we all got kind of antsy and were dying to eat. Once it ended, we were the first ones to get to it (score!). I can’t remember much of what I ate, but I do recall having some very good pizza and some sort of pesto pasta salad.

Believe it or not, that was just one day. The next day was a little less eventful, so I’ll share that tomorrow since it will be a much shorter post. Then, ROME! Ahhh. Buonanotte, i miei amici!

The next morning was Sunday, and for the majority of Italians, that means going to mass. We had the option of going both this Sunday and the next Sunday, so I decided to go on this day. 

We went to mass in Narni at the St. Juvenal church. It was absolutely gorgeous inside, and we got to visit it again when we toured Narni a few days later (that will be in my next post!). Going to mass in Italy was a pretty cool experience, even though I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying!

After mass, we stumbled upon an outdoor art market that was going on in the square. There were a bunch of vendors selling jewelry and other random, homemade items.

This was the main area where the artists sold their work.

I bought a little recycled bowl for my mom at this woman’s booth. She had so many pretty pieces of jewelry, and much of it was made from recycled plastic. Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate the man’s outfit who’s standing on the left?! Ugh, I love it.

Here’s some of the lovely jewelry for sale.

And this is, perhaps, the most charming moped in all of Italy!

This is a flyer for the annual Gnocchi Festival in Narni. When I applied for this scholarship, I had to make a video researching an aspect of the town, and my topic was this festival! I used this flyer in my presentation, so it was really neat to see it in person.

After mass, we got to go swimming at a nearby pool which was a nice treat. We swam for a few hours, enduring the pain of the swim cap and trying not to get sunburnt.

The next thing that was on our schedule was “Narni Adventure.” None of us had any idea what that meant, but we soon learned that it was an underground obstacle course. In the town square, there’s a subway entrance-looking staircase that goes underground. Once you make it down the stairs, there are harnesses and hard hats hanging on the wall.

We watched the safety demonstration and were allowed to begin going through the course. I’m not the most coordinated person, so this was a bit of a challenge. Once we got to the end, there’s a zipline you take to the opposite end of the room. After that, you walk back to the other side and can rock climb up a wall. It was my first time rock climbing, but I made it to the top and rang the bell, whoooo!

Despite the stress that this induced, it was pretty fun. Narni Adventure is pretty new, and the employees working were super friendly. If you ever find yourself in Narni, go check it out!

After that, we walked a couple feet to the nearest gelateria. This cone was probably the best one I had. These flavors are so simple, pistachio and strawberry, but I remember it being the most refreshing afternoon treat.

We walked by this purple house nearly every day on our way to the hostel.

After gelato, we headed back to the hostel to shower and eat dinner. Dinner was made by our two teachers, and it was buonissima! There was homemade pesto with pasta, zucchini, spinach, and fresh fruit for dessert. I still dream about this meal.

Later that night we went out into town again to eat more gelato and hang out. There was a man with a karaoke machine, singing old Italian songs. My friends and I danced in the street next to him, probably looking crazy but having so much fun. After we stopped dancing, the people sitting outside at the surrounding restaurants gave us a round of applause. It was a pretty magical night and one of my favorite memories.

I love this photo of the fountain that stood within the piazza. I threw multiple euros in there with my friends over the course of the trip.

After hanging out in the town, we headed back to the hostel and went to sleep.

The next morning, we had breakfast and then a three-hour lesson from 9-12. After the lesson, we had lunch in town and hopped on a bus to Carsulae, an excavation site. I don’t have many photos, but — despite the unbearable heat — it was pretty cool to see people working on the excavations right in front of us.

After that, we headed back to Narni for dinner. This picture is taken in the center of town.

Yup, you guessed it: another gelato! The darker-colored one is coffee, and the white one is yogurt. My friend Jane tried yogurt and said it was good, so I was intrigued and tried some for myself. I really liked it, but it was a bit weird to have with coffee, haha.

Another cute piece of graffiti.

One of the things that made this trip so much fun was the fact that we were all overtired for much of it. We’d stay up late and then wake up early, so by the end of the day many of us would either be dead or get a random burst of energy. Also, the most random things were funny to us, such as this weird bumper sticker we saw on a Fiat.

And here’s yet another beautiful sunset to end the day. This is the view from my room at the hostel.

I have a lot of photos from the church we had mass in, so I’ll share those in my next post, along with pictures from the mosaic class we took (and more gelato photos, I’m sure!). Ciao!