Experiencing Italy through an urban geography lens

Introduction

Welcome to my Photographic Travel Journal! In this website, I hope to document my experiences in Italy as per what I hoped to learn previous to this trip, and what I found myself confronting. I have organized these chapters to give a peek into my thinking throughout this trip and how I internalized our course content, while also showcasing my own focuses and interests, especially in relation to art, place-making, and in/justice in the city, and how (pleasantly) surprised and eager I was to find so many symbols, markers, and landmarks that could speak to these concerns. 

Although there are textual entries here (and more I could've included), most of them are centered on what I saw and remembered, and hence, most of this journal is taken up by my favorite photos which I have curated into themes and to help anyone reading this understand where my eyes were drawn to and what I had been looking for. Before getting into each chapter, I wished to preface with my initial impressions and thoughts of our main two cities, and my own retrospective thoughts on these first impressions.

A couple days into Florence

I was glad that I had been encouraged enough to walk off by myself beyond the nearby piazza even in our first days in Yellow Square. I headed to the Carrefour just a few blocks down to pick up some groceries and get a feel for prices. It is here I discovered a lively park full of young children of seemingly diverse backgrounds, and where I was confronted with a different economic and social reality. It had become clear to me that I was in an area that was perhaps more racially diverse, and where Muslim families resided, and perhaps middle class folks lived, considering how much further they lived from the city centre. The further I went out, the quieter it was, the more humble the buildings, and the less likely I'd encounter someone fluent in English. Being able to go down and revisit this street was always a good detox from the areas that clearly were modified for tourist use. Perhaps, quite selfishly, I got the chance to escape from the buzz and enjoy in the 'mundane', even though I was myself a tourist or an outsider.

Here I felt I could breathe between the added greenery, that I could listen the melody of children's laughs and shrieks, and enjoy the larger sense of space and community. Even in the piazza, which was busier, I felt myself wishing I could speak Italian so I could at least understand what all these gathering people were saying. Here they clearly have a different idea of gathering since even later into the evening, people would sit in the public benches or the nearby pizzeria, and laugh and talk late into the night, even if these were people they saw regularly. 

To encapsulate all of this, I want to include my favorite mural which I saw at this park, and I think it's meant to be a recreation of the last supper, except with a modern twist. I'll let it do the talking.

First impressions of the City –Landing in Pisa and heading to Florence

Its interesting that I started this trip from Pisa which is much different than Florence. In retrospect it was probably to my benefit from a personal and academic perspective to enter Florence in this way – via an overpriced taxi of course – because I was able enjoy the transition from the ocean, to the endless and ethereal green fields, and into the outskirts of the city into the less ‘historic’ outer ring where our hostel was. I think rather than some other route, it helped act as a good reference point for what urbanization, or a lack thereof, looks like in Italy and what the city constitutes other than the main historical centre/district.

Looking back at this first day, I always find it fascinating and even peculiar that whenever one adapts to a new place, a couple steps away feels like miles, since we are just becoming adept to the environment, but after days, these spaces shrink within our radius. What I mean by this is that on the first day, I went off exploring the piazza right behind Yellow Square, and taking in every detail. So much so, that simply discovering every turn always feels so immense and unpredictable; but after a while that piazza became our meeting point and before I knew it, I could intuitively walk there without conscious thought.

The metropolitan aura and faster paced rhythm of the city was closer to what I was used to, but like Florence, and I suppose many Italian cities, one was never too far from the rural rolling fields, and in any case, Rome was far greener than Florence was. The large scale of the monuments as well as the higher storey buildings and larger street blocks made us all truly feel we were in a more expansive and unknown place. The city overall felt both familiar, and simultaneously novel.

Also, I must admit, that being able to have a room on the top floor, with a spacious terrace and beautiful view of the cities skyline and landscape probably added to my sensationalized idea of Rome. Speaking of which, our first day, although rain-soaked by the end of it, we decided to do some exploring. After a delicious lunch and some recommendations later, we ventured towards the Colosseum and it was there that we were struck with awe. This was something that Rebecca had said, but I think the awe that comes with this building is that it feels large in scale and yet it is understandable how humans made it with their limited technology. In a weird way, this building had been more impressive and more 'lovable' than the huge record-breaking skyscrapers of today's moderns urban landscapes. There is a level of functionality and comprehensibility to the building, even in its gargantuan size.