Perugia, the last week in Italy

The last five days I was in country were at the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) yearly conference in Perugia, Italy. The University of Perugia is in Umbria, Italy, which is about two hours northeast of Rome by train.

The photos from the last five days are in the gallery.

It was a hard, but good experience for me to travel a bit by myself. After Mark left on Monday morning, I had two days until my coworkers were due to show up, and I had to figure everything out on my own.

When I got to the town, I found out the hotel was too far away to reach by bus. I had to take the train back two towns and then a taxi to this little country hotel that was 30 miles from the conference. I was not happy. I ended up renting a car, and then spent several hours driving around, looking for parking lots, and trying to figure out my way around the crazy streets of central Italy.

The town of Perugia was pretty neat, it sits on top of a very tall hill, surrounded by high city walls and filled with old stone buildings and churches. Its small cobbled streets reminded me of Venice, but the tall houses in this city also had deep, deep basements. In fact, our poster session was held in the catacomb-like tunnels beneath the main piazza.

The conference itself was great. I got tons of great feedback, learned a lot of interesting things, and met lots of helpful people. It was so nice to be able to go out and show my work to other people, and see that they found it interesting!

It was a crazy, stressful, but wondeful week, and on Friday, I was ready to head home. We had one night at a hotel near the airport in Rome, and then 24 hours of flying and travel to get back to Fort Collins.

In all, I’d say it was a great experience, and a great trip!!! When do I get to go back? :)