ITALIA!

What an absolutely incredible 10 day stretch!
The notion of living in a completely foreign country for 10 days was definitely something, I must confess, I was a little uncomfortable with. However, after the past 10 days I just experienced in Italy, I cannot wait to travel again. I feel as if I've been bitten by the travel bug. I want to see new places, meet new people, eat new food, and learn more about other cultures.

It all started at the airport. We flew with British Airways (excellent service, I recommend them to anyone) into Fiumicino Airport outside of Rome on Thursday evening after Psychology class. Considering our limited student budgets, we all decided it would be cheaper to spend the night in the airport instead of booking an extra night with our hostel in Rome. By the time we landed and settled in the airport, all the seats were taken up so we found ourselves an abandoned corner that looked semi-clean and we camped out. That night was one of the coldest I have ever spent. No blanket and only my zip-up sweater between the cold tile and myself, I essentially slept curled up like a ball in a futile attempt to conserve as much body heat as possible. At 6:00AM, we were awaken rather suddenly by workers of the airport, so we stretched and hopped on the train towards our first destination. Rome.

We arrived at Rome, and checked into our hostel. The view from the balcony was of Saint Peter's Basilica. We were literally right across the street from the walls of the Vatican. The first day was the main tour of the Vatican. We walked through all of these chapels and little churches. We got to see the Vatican museum. The entire place was adorned with gold and silver and marble. You could almost smell the earthly riches in this place. After seeing painting after painting and fresco after fresco, sculpture after sculpture, we finally had reached the end of the road where we had been following the signs point to the "Capella Sistine". Actually, I felt a bit underwhelmed by the Sistine Chapel. Sure it was bigger than I expected, but I think that the entire trip could be shorter instead of following those signs for over an hour. It was very beautiful but I the beauty was ruined by all the tourists talking loudly and the guards trying to shush everyone while at the same time, yell "no photo!" at the tourists silly enough openly take pictures of the painted chapel.
By this time, our main group of eight had broken into twos and threes so Alyssa and I continued our journey from the Vatican City into Rome on foot. With only a tourist map from our hostel to guide us, we courageously went into the city. Our first stop was the Castle of Rome. We fell into a tourist trap here and took some pictures with guys dressed up like Roman soldiers and ended up having to pay a little fee. We then walked through the city seeing the big piazzas, the Pantheon, and random fountains. The next day, our group met back up again and we took the underground to see the Colosseum. This building is absolutely ancient. It used to seat between 50,000-75,000 people which blows my mind because professional stadiums hold people in that number. The place as a whole was pretty incredible. We then went next door to the Palantino, which was the palace of Caesar back in the day. It was an enormous layout of ground which I could hardly believe was dedicated to one man over a thousand years ago.
Our group then traversed the southern parts of Rome and we stumbled on one of the local food markets where be bought ourselves delicious fresh cheese and salami and two bottles of red wine to go along with it. It was a very inexpensive alternative to the restaurants and piazzarias that Rome has. We then went to Rome's most famous fountain, the Font de Trevi, and it lived up to every expectation. There were massive amounts of people just congregating in this place, tossing coins for good luck, and even touching the actual water. We explored the rest of Rome that we could feasibly walk. We left by underground and made it back to our hostel after we took a night walk to see Saint Peters Basilica.

The next morning we stopped inside the Basilica to check it out for a Sunday morning and then hopped on our train to our next destination, Florence.


We arrived in Florence and checked into our hostel. We then walked around the city for a little bit. Evening was falling quickly so we didn't get to see much of Florence in the day time, however, seeing the Duomo (Florence's biggest church) was very impressive. Florence has a lot of leather goods in their markets and it smelled a little funny. Overall, Florence was cleaner looking, although not as impressive structurally, as Rome.

The next day, we discovered that museums are closed on Mondays which meant we could not go see the famous Da Vinci museum etc. Instead, we took the opportunity to go into the countryside on a tour of Tuscany which included wine-tasting :)
The Tuscan countryside is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my entire life. The wine tasting guy was this hilarious, short, chubby Italian guy who spoke with broken English. After tasting some delicious wines, including the famous Chiante wine, we tasted some fresh olive oil and also some rare truffle oil. Our next stop on the tour was in an actual vineyard where we were taught how wine is actually made. It is here where we were treated to an Italian meal of pasta, bread, and delicious cheese and honey. We also got to relax and admire the beauty of the Tuscan countryside. We also visited a tiny little town which has won the world's best gelato (kind of like ice cream) 2 of the past 3 years. It was good but I'm not sure what distinguishes good gelato from great gelato.

Our final morning in Florence consisted of a walk to the Piazze del Michelangelo where we got the best view of all of Florence. This was my favorite part of Florence and well worth the walk to get to the vantage point. We walked to the train station and caught the train to our next destination, Venice.



We actually didn't stay IN Venice. We stayed in a tiny town called Vigonza. The description of the place was an 8 bedroom private shared bathroom. What we didn't realize was this place was actually a HOUSE. We had the whole place to ourselves and it was by far the most comfortable place we had stayed in thus far. The owners were Italian and didn't speak much English. However, they were incredibly nice and hospitable. They went and got us some oregano for our home cooked meal of pasta, olive oil, and fresh baked bread. The owners also owned a pizziaria and actually treated us to pizza the following night. It was an awesome experience - especially when the owner's wife tried to get Steve to marry their daughter ha ha.

Venice was my favorite city. It is so unique and so impressive in every way. From it's water canals to it's Venetian Murano glassware (Venice's most famous export), Venice was a city filled with charm and class. If you can deal with an occasional whiff of that fresh fish smell from the fish market, then Venice actually smells pretty nice as well. The Venetian architectural style is a cross between the Roman and Byzantine styles which gives it a unique identity as far as structure goes. It also has more bridges in the city than any other city in the world (Pittsburgh is number two on that list). We all walked around and explored the city of Venice. Like Rome and Florence, the city can be very touristy in most areas but we managed to find the places where the locals lived and got an inside perspective of the city. The highlight of the trip must be our ride on the famous Gondola. We had a Gondola man who looked like an Italian Antonio Bandaras give us the 25 minute ride through the canals of Venice which only gave us an even deeper appreciation for the city. I really loved Venice and it was an awesome experience.

From Venice, our group split, some of us went to Milan and flew back to London while the rest of us visited the smaller town of Verona. Verona, as you Shakespeare buffs would know, is where the story of Romeo and Juliette takes place. It also is famous for its ancient Arena, which is similar to that of Rome's Colosseum. The most famous part of Verona is Juliet's balcony where the famous lines "oh Romeo, oh Romeo, where art thou..." took place. leading into the place was a wall covered and smothered with little love notes from people all over the world. Verona was a very nice place and a very relaxing part of our trip.

From Verona, we took the train to Milan and caught our flight back to London. Italy as a whole was a very beautiful place and excellent for a 10 day vacation. I do plan on visiting southern Italy and Sicily next time I return. Until then, Ciao ITALIA!