qui per un breve periodo

Happy November! After ten days of travel I am happy to be back in Florence, even as I realize that November means my days here are short. In just 6 quick weeks I will be back in Nebraska. My week of travel was wonderful, even though I had school projects looming in the back of my mind. The places we went and things we saw worked as good temporary distractions, and so I enjoyed myself despite my waiting course load!

The best thing about where Katherine and I traveled was that we got to experience a week of true autumn. Florence has not had much to offer in terms of changing leaves or pumpkins or cider, but simply by heading north we found all three in abundance. Although we left with no intended “theme” or connection between the places we were going, by the end of the week we realized that the somewhat morbid theme of “cemeteries” seemed to fit our travel quite well!


Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb

In Zagreb, Croatia, we spent Halloween wandering through the country’s largest and best-maintained cemetery, Mirogoj. Since the following day was a major religious holiday in Europe (All Saint’s Day), the cemetery grounds were packed with families adorning their loved ones’ gravesites with beautiful flower arrangements and votive candles. The life, flowers, and lights transformed the cemetery into a beautiful and mysterious city park.

In Salzburg our theme continued, as on All Saint’s Day we visited the cemetery of St. Peter’s church (picture the mausoleums in the scene in “The Sound of Music” where the Von Trapp’s are hiding in the convent). Prague took us through one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Central Europe, where ornately carved stone markers are crowded together and serve as a reminder of the deep roots the Jewish community has in the area.


Jewish cemetery in Prague

Finally, a day trip from Prague to the once-prosperous mining town of Kutna Hora led us to one of the strangest sights in the Czech Republic: an ossuary (chapel) decorated with the bones of 40,000 bodies taken in the Black Death during the late middle-ages. Apparently the monks who founded the chapel were at a loss as to what to do with all the bodies after the deadly plague, and eventually one monk (whom some believe was not so right in the head) and an architect decided it would be a fitting memorial to use their bones to make chandeliers, coats of arms, crosses, and other various chapel ornaments.


the ossuary chapel at Kutna Hora

Beyond the seemingly morbid, all of the places we visited were amazing, and each was unique from the others. We managed to see both sides of Croatia: Split on the coast, and Zagreb further inland, were like night and day. Salzburg - the land of Mozart, the Alps, and hills that sing – proved its beauty simply in its people, sights, and food. And Prague found a new place in my heart as the most beautiful European city by night.


Split, Croatia


Salzburg Cathedral dome


Prague by night

So, with fall break now behind me, only two field trips (to Venice and Rome) and a whole lot of schoolwork remain in my semester in Italy. Call me crazy, but I think I will be ready to put the luggage away for a while and stay in one place!