For spring break- Friday April 10- Saturday April 18- Jenon, Jill, Billy, Nick, Blake, and I spent a wonderful week traveling around Italy. Here are some of my more entertaining stories from the trip:
Venice : Fri. April 10- Sat. April 11
Jenon, Blake, and I left for Venice early, early Friday morning and were meeting the other three at our hotel/hostel in Venice. We made it to Venice without a problem, but getting to our hotel was another story. We had a few problems finding the right bus and were told the bus we wanted didn't exist, which was a downer. Finally we figured out which bus to take and at one point we were supposed to switch buses. Well Blake and I made it off bus #1 without a problem, but people started boarding the bus as Jenon was trying to exit and then the doors closed and there went Jenon, suck on the bus. Luckily it stopped just a few blocks down and we found the next bus easily.
The weather in Venice was beautiful. I didn't know what to expect, but the city was beautiful as well. There were canals and little bridges all over and we took boats from place to place more than we took buses. The first night in Venice I had my first taste of Italian gelato, and it was delicious. I had to use self-control to not get gelato every night.
Florence: Sat. April 11- Mon. April 13
We arrived in Florence Saturday evening after spending the day in Venice. Our accommodation in Florence was called Camping Michelangelo. I envisioned we would be out in the wilderness with bears, way up on top of a hill a ways away from the city. Luckily, I was completely wrong. When we got off the bus that took us from the train station to a stop called 'camping.' We didn't know which direction to go and almost started just walking up the hill until the bus moved and we saw that Camping Michelangelo was right there. It turned out to be a really nice camp ground and pretty big as well. There were campers and house tents, which we stayed in. They also had a little market and a restaurant/bar. The best part of camping we the view. Right outside our house tents we had an amazing view overlooking the city and just a few blocks away was a look out point where you could see the entire city and the hills surrounding it.
Our only full day in Florence was Easter Sunday. Jenon, Billy, and I woke up early and went for a morning run first in an area with a view of the city and then we ran more within the city. It was amazing. I didn't sleep so well the first night, the house tent got pretty cold. We spent Easter Sunday looking around Florence. We went to mass at one of the five largest Cathedrals in the world (I think). I only knew what was going on about 5% of the time during the service, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime type thing and the cathedral was pretty, especially the painted dome. We spent part of the night watching the sun set while sitting on the stairs of the lookout point drinking a glass of wine.
Rome: Mon. April 13-Tue. April 14
We left for Rome early Monday morning and got in at about 10:30am. Our hostel was really nice and we dropped off our bags before heading out to explore. Rome was definitely the most tiring of the cities we visited - there is so much to see! Practically everywhere you look is a Roman ruin, a fountain, or a monument of some sort. We did the Colosseum first (way cool) and during our little lunch break we had about seven 16 year old Italian boys talk to the six of us. They didn't speak very good English so most of the time I didn't know what they were trying to say. Billy being Billy jokingly tried to sell a picture with Jenon for five Euros. They took a picture with us, but we didn't get any Euros out of the deal. It was pretty awkward actually, but we just laughed it off. After being in the Colosseum for quite a while we went over the the area that has a lot of Roman ruins, which we spent about three hours wandering around. There was so much to see. We pretty much kicked Rome's butt and didn't get back to our hostel until 11:30pm. A Rome street also attempted to kick my butt. We were sort of jogging/walking fast across a street, which had the trolley lines through it so sort of like railway tracks, to avoid being hit by the on coming vehicles. Well somehow my foot got caught in one of the little tracks, more or less I stubbed my big toe and then it almost got stuck causing me to stumble forward.... a lot. I thought I was going to face plant in the middle of the street, but luckily I somehow caught myself. Jenon was right beside me and was trying to ask me if I was okay while telling me we needed to keep walking so we didn't get hit my a car. On a positive note: my toe is not broken and I didn't completely face plant.
Tuesday we went to Vatican City. It was a beautiful day and it was really cool to see all of the sites. Most of the places I have been this semester, I never thought I would get to see - I truly am lucky.
Sailing off the Western coast of Italy: Wed. April 15
Back in the fall Billy researched sailing companies or people who take customers out sailing for a day in Italy. He found a middle aged couple and emailed them from then all the way up to now and I am so glad he did. After our tourist days in Venice, Florence, and Rome a day sailing on the sea is exactly what we all needed. Their sailboat was pretty big and only a little over a year old so it was really nice. It was an older/middle aged couple who has been sailing for years and we were their first customers of the season this year. They were from Scotland so talking to them was no problem at all. We sailed for the whole day from about 9:30am to 7:30pm. It was just beautiful and so was the weather. It was a relaxing day on the sea.
As great as the day was on Wednesday, the night was not so great. Wednesday evening was when our group of six headed out in different directions- Billy to Greece, Nick and Jill to Nice, and Jenon, Blake, and I to the Cinque Terre. We all had pretty crappy night trains and schedules in order to get to our next destination. Jenon, Blake, and I took our first train at Midnight which lasted only about a half hour, then we had to wait for 1.5 hours until our next train to La Spezia (a bigger town close to the Cinque Terre). This part of the journey went fine although we were pretty tired. Our train to La Spezia arrived at about 2:00 am and as we were boarding we were looking forward to sleeping until it arrived in La Spezia at 4:30am. Unfortunately for us we didn't know we were getting on the train from hell. We got on and since it is a sleeper train it had little cabins to the left of a two foot wide corridor. Although we had seat reservations all of the seats and cabins were filled and people lined the walls of the narrow corridor. We didn't know what to do when we got the train and saw people everywhere. We walked to the end of the corridor, found a little tiny area and sat with our bags between our legs in the corridor. My knees were at my chest it was such a small place. The first thing Jenon and I did when we sat down was look at each other and laugh. We didn't know what else to do because we had no idea what was going on. Jenon and I dozed off a couple times only to be woken by pains in my neck or back from how I was sitting or by people trying to get by. Finally with only 45 minutes left of the 2.5 hour train ride two seats in the cabin in front of us opened up and we took them as soon as we could. I immediately passed out and woke up drooling... a lot.
So we finally made it to La Spezia and I wish this was where my story ended, unfortunately it's not. Our next train to our final destination of Manarola didn't leave until 7am and it was only 4:40am. So we layed down on the hard, freezing floor of the La Spezia train station and tried to get some rest. I dozed a little, but woke up because it was so cold. Jenon was using one of her scarfs as a blanket so we shared that for a little bit, but it didn't help too much. I officially fell in love with McDonald's when it opened at 6am and gave us some American coffee and a warm place to stand. Later I found out that it was actually a little cafe that shares the space with McDonald's, but whatever, either way it was coffee and the room was heated.
Cinque Terre: Thurs. April 16-Fri. April 17
The Cinque Terre is comprised of five small towns built into cliffs along the western coast of Italy. They are the most adorable towns with the most amazing view. We spent all/most of Friday hiking the paths that link the five towns together. We hiked for about 4 hours and covered over seven miles. I had the impression that these paths were very simple easy ones, I was wrong. Most of them consisted of stairs, lots and lots of stairs - good for the butt and tiring. The weather was a little chillier these two days and at one point during the middle of one of the paths it started to rain and then hail for a little bit. It sounds bad, but it wasn't. Even the rain couldn't take away from the view we had. The Cinque Terre was probably my favorite part of Italy and the place I would really like to go back to one day.
Overall spring break was wonderfully amazing. I loved every second of it, even the trains didn't take away from having a good time. There were only a few things I would change about Italy: they don't have toilet seats on their toilets, don't ask me why and their trains suck as you read earlier.
I ate enough pizza and pasta and gelato to last me a lifetime, but now I'm happy to be back in my city aka London.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment