monin's blog: Red wine, white wine or coffee?

What is the today’s post going to be about? Christmas? Christmas food or maybe Christmas traditions in Austria/in Croatia (I’m Croatian)?

Nah, today I’m going to write about my language week in Italy. Yeah, I know. Italy and Germany are probably the most “favourite” countries for Austrian people to travel to. Anyway... we visited some really nice places where you won’t see many tourists. So one year ago we travelled to Italy, more precisely to Umbria. After a horrible, 8 hours lasting bus ride (the bus driver wasn’t the friendliest one) on an awful curvy road but a nice stopover in San Marino we arrived in Urbania where our host has already been waiting for us to take us “home”. I‘ve planned to hand over a bottle of “Zirbenschnaps” but somehow the whole Schnaps leaked out in my backpack during the bus ride :D hahaha... wurscht... after our stay I thought that this ”holy beverage” would have been too precious to hand it to my host anyway. You will see why...

But first I’d like to write about all the beautiful places we have been to.

1^st stop: City of San Marino

A small city with their own laws where you can find weapons like knifes, swords or crossbows in every corner which really surprised me in a bad way. As it is common in Italy there have been bottles with portrays of Hitler, Mussolini and Tito on the labels too.

2^nd stop: Perugia

There are two possibilities to enter the city Perugia, either by stairway or by a cable car. This town impressed me the most because of its simplicity and beauty. Like in every Italian city, the fountain is the “centre” of the town. It’s not the geographic centre but it’s the point where people meet when they set up an appointment. It is comparable to the Weikhard clock on the Grazer main square. Unfortunately we’ve been there just for two hours or so and I was searching for a keychain but I haven’t found one. This is important to me because every time a travel to a city I buy a keychain. Anyway, the city was breathtaking and somehow it remembered me of Graz. I really liked the architecture and the people.

3^rd stop: Assisi

Assisi is famous for the Basilica named after Saint Francis of Assisi. If you want to enter this church, you have to cover your shoulder and you are not allowed to wear short pants or skirts. One of our classmates had to wait outside because he had some clam diggers on. No one told us to dress properly and so he really had to wait outside. Well, the architecture inside the Basilica is really fascinating. I still admire the work the people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago with less tools than we have nowadays. It’s simply impressive.

4^th stop: Frasassi

Frasassi is famous for its caves. And I have to agree, they are really amazing. We do have similar caves here in Austria like the “Obir Tropfsteinhöhlen” but they are way smaller than the caves in Frasassi. I have no words to describe that place. It was like entering another world because you know that the climate is very different, the humidity is higher, the temperature lower. What great conditions for women, especially for those who styled their hair like they are heading to a prom. ;D Anyhow, I liked the place but more important, I found a keychain!!!!!

5^th stop: Urbania

Urbania was the town we actually lived in for 7 days. The only place we explored on our own on the very first day was the “Sunrise Bar”. The waiter was friendly, the atmosphere was great and so we decided to nominate it as our new meeting place during our stay in Urbania. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was the fact that a large beer was only 0.4 litres whereas in Austria a large beer is 0.5 litres. Of course the price for a large beer in Urbania was about 4 euro and Italian beer tastes like piss compared to Austrian beer. Discriminating conditions for those people who only drink beer (or water) ;) On the third day of our language week we finally visited some places in Urbania like the theatre or the museum of the mummies.

church of the Dead

6^th stop: Fiorini

The trip to Fiorini was short but boring. We visited a vineyard and I think it’s enough when I say that I’m not really interested in wine. Although here are some pictures:

what a wineglass :D

7^th stop: Fano

Fano was not part of the initially organised language trip but due to the fact that Umbria is not one of the coastal regions our teachers wanted to surprise us by taking us to the city Fano, where we stayed for about two hours and enjoyed the sun while laying on the pebble beach.

8^th stop: Urbino – our last stop

Urbino was kind of a challenge. I don’t know what those people who planned and constructed this city were thinking...maybe nothing. Honestly, the city is situated on a hill which means you have to cope with a really steep climb. Urbino is also known as a university town but we haven’t noticed any students strolling around.

Why I haven’t liked my host family:

First of all, their flat was on the 5th floor and our luggage was really, really heavy so our host decided to pull it up with a rope. Yes, you have read correctly!!!! At first we were standing there and watched it all happen ‘cause it was really risky to haul the luggage up this way. Luckily everything went well.

So on the next day we wanted to take a shower...but guess what? No hot water...great, huh? Furthermore, our host decided to be on a diet exactly the week we were there and my classmate loves pasta more than anything else, too bad the host never cooked pasta although there have been about thousand different types of pasta in her kitchen :D haha.. So because our host mom was on a diet, we had to suffer too! So we went out to get our pizza. The restaurant/pizzeria we went to is called “La pecora near” which means “The black sheep”.

Btw, the answer to the headline is beer. Because beer is always the answer! :D

Ordered a large beer, was not disappointed