We started off our day with a short ride to a vineyard and had the opportunity to taste a variety of red and white wines with a diverse number of flavors. The vineyard produces about 50,000 bottles of wine every year! We then met our tour guide who walked us to Pomposa Abbey which is a 6th-century church with a towering campanile. The interior of the church was covered with century-old murals that stretched across the ceilings and walls. There were three layers of visual stories from the Bible, from Adam and Eve in the Old Testament to the story of Jesus Christ followed by a depiction of the Apocalypse complete with 7- headed dragons and knights with lions heads riding horses. Perhaps the most fascinating and peculiar part of this chapter of our trip was examining the shin bone (yes, an actual human bone!) of Guido de Pomposa, one of the original monks of the Abbey. The bone is set in a beautiful display case and decorated with gold and red velvet in a tribute to the life of Guido de Pomposa.
After the conclusion of our tour, we broke off for lunch and free time and stumbled upon a Medieval festival. There were traditional foods being cooked on open grills and performers dressed as knights and noblewomen. Some of our guys felt what it was like to be on death row in the medieval era, allowing themselves to be chained up in a mock guillotine while others pretended to be in Game of Thrones by playing with real swords and shields.
At night we had the opportunity to go see a soccer game where SPAL was playing Sampdoria in an extremely meaningful game. SPAL had to win in order to stay in their current league so the game was extremely important to them. We all bought tons of SPAL gear for the game but it turned out we had to sit in the Sampdoria section of the stadium so we were forced by officials to remove all of our gear so we were not put into danger. We were escorted through the back of the stadium because the police were nervous that we might cause fights or riots unintentionally in the stands! It was mind blowing to see how passionate the fans were about their teams. We even saw a guy rip a stadium seat out of the ground and wave it in the air which I didn’t think was even possible because those seats are bolted into cement! We were told to leave the game early in case angry fans attacked us because SPAL was up 3-0. SPAL ended up winning 3-1! The game was a once in a lifetime experience that let us witness the passionate culture here in Italy!
Leo (our exceptional tour guide) took us back to our hotel where we ate another phenomenal italian meal at our hotel! It was a great day to prepare us for our game today as we look to get our second win in Montecatini for the second leg of our trip!
-Nick Lord, Class of 2020
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