Italy Destination #1: Rome!
The first day of Spring Break began bright and early! Me, Tricia, Danielle, Parker, Brian and Liam set off to catch a 3:15 AM bus to get us to the airport for our 6AM flight. Slightly drowsy we wandered through Charleroi airport terminal looking for something to eat for breaking and ended up running into one of our good friends (who also goes to Clemson but is in a different study abroad program) who also happened to be traveling to Rome to meet his mom. We landed in Rome around 9AM and found the way to our hostel pretty easily… we’re getting quite good at figuring out the metro in other countries/languages at this point.
The first thing that we noticed is that Italy is EXACTLY how you picture it.. small side streets with mopeds zipping up and down, everyone is really happy and you can hear Italian mens bellowing voices coming out of small bakeries and pizza places. We were pretty hungry so our first stop was naturally to get pizza. We quickly realized it could cost anywhere from 12-25 euros for pasta in Italy, yet a full pizza was usually between 4-6 euros.. so you can probably guess what our diet consisted of for most of the week!
After lunch we went to tour the coliseum. I don’t even want to try to put into words how unbelievable it was. We spent about an hour and a half inside just wandering around and checking it out, and I honestly think I could have stayed gawking at it all day. The first time I caught a glance of it I got the chills, it was amazing. I still have to pinch myself thinking that at age 19 I have been lucky enough to see one the of the seven world wonders. The pictures definitely do not even do it justice, its beautiful and its enormity definitely can’t be caught on film. After our tour of the Coliseum we walked about 50 meters to see Constantine’s Arch, and the Palatine Hill with the Domitian castle and the Roman Ruins of the Forum. After both tours it was right around dinner time so we wandered into town and found a cute Italian restaurant where none of the waiters even spoke English! We ordered some red wine and spent about two hours just relaxing and eating all the pasta we could fit in our stomachs!
On the second day we woke up around 9 to go to tour Vatican City. We ended up being the only ones that signed up for the specific morning tour so it ended up that we got our own personal guide! It was super interesting learning about how the Vatican is it’s own country and all the separate rules and governments and everything that it has. We spent a decent amount of time in St. Peters Square before heading to the Vatican Museum to see all the artwork and the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican museum was incredible, and the pictures make it hard to tell but try to look at the ones I took of the ceilings – the ceiling is COMPLETELY flat, and EVERYTHING is painted.. the artists use a specific style which make it look like raised molding on all the ceilings, its incredible. The Sistine chapel was beautiful, and we spent about a half hour just memorized staring at every detail in the ceiling. We then waited in line to see the biggest church in the world, St. Peters. It definitely lived up to its reputation and was HUGE, and of course beautifully decorated on the inside. Since we only had 2 full days in Rome we went straight from the Vatican tour to the Rome City Center Tour where we saw the Trevve fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon and it ended at Piazzo Nouve. At that Piazzo we met Bruce and his mom and she treated us to a delicious dinner. We ended up sitting in the square for almost four hours just enjoying the live music, comedians, jugglers, and variety of people that all go there at night. After that we walked back to the Spanish steps and got some gelato before heading back to the hostel for bed.
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| Rome, Italy |
Italy Destination #2: Florence
We t ook a train to Florence early Saturday morning and we met up with our friend Tara from Clemson who is studying there. She let us stay at her house apartment was really nice! We walked around touring the first day and saw the famous river and Florence Bridge, the Duomo, as well as a beautiful view of the whole city from the Piazza Michaelangelo. We got delicious calzone and saw the statue of David and the famous Warthog statue that Florence is known for. We also went to the leather market which is one of the largest in the world! We ended the day with a tour of the Pitti Palace (home of the Medici’s).
Florence was really nice. You can kind of tell from the pictures that it has a small town, quaint feeling… especially because we just came from the huge bustling city of Rome! The people in Florence were all very friendly and many of them were American. It’s known to be a “college town” as the majority of students from the States that study abroad in Italy go to Florence. This made it extremely easy to communicate with everybody since most shop and restaurant owners were used to speaking English and were actually quite good at it!
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| Florence, Italy |
Italy Destination #3: Viareggio
The second day we woke up early to go to Carnival! We went to a small town near Florence called Viareggio. You’ve probably never heard of that town, and I hadn’t either.. but little did we know it has been voted the BEST place to go to carnival in the entire world! Turns out it was voted this by Italians because we were basically the only American’s at the parade. Everyone spoke only Italian which was kind of cool for a change; we definitely got immersed in the culture! One pastry owner that I met could speak some broken English and he asked “how did you hear about this?” as if he was completely shocked that any American would ever find out about/come to the parade there. Speaking of the parade, it was so fun! Confetti flying everywhere and HUGE floats bigger than I have ever seen. Everyone was just having a good time and most people were dressed up as if it was Halloween there… everyone from all age groups were dressed up in funny costumes. One float in particular caused some commotion…
As you can see in the pictures that I posted that is indeed Barack Obama. He is the ringleader of the “American circus” which was located on the other side of the float. In his hat there is a Taliban with a machine gun and a Gay Pride Flag. Guess we now know what Italians think of Americans! Also, the second that anyone realized we were American while this float was going by they would laugh and spray us with silly string or throw confetti in our faces!
After the Carnival we walked down the ocean (did I mention this whole town is located right on the ocean). This was such a beautiful view, I was sitting there with my butt in the sand and toes in the Mediterranean, and if I turned my head just a little to the left.. the Alps were like a fence bordering this perfect town of Viareggio. It was quite the view and we really enjoyed ourselves there!
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| Viareggio, Italy |
Italy Destination #4: Pisa
We got off the train in Pisa, the small town known solely for its tower, around 10AM. We didn’t actually find the tower until 11:30. We decided that since we had about five hours in Pisa that we should just wander rather than ask people for directions… not our best decision. We literally saw EVERY corner of the walled in city! It was kind of cool because we ran into a fresh market and found a really delicious pizza place to eat. When we finally did see the Leaning Tower it was totally worth the wait! It’s located next to a huge white church and surrounded by a field of green grass. After taking the typical touristy pictures of us holding it up we just settled down in the grass for a nice cat nap before our next bus. It was a beautiful day of wandering an Italian city and cloud watching!
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| Pisa, Italy |
Italy Destination #5: Cinque Terre
This was by far the most beautiful place we went on Spring Break. We arrived around 4PM and immediately went to check into our hostel. It was a nice family run establishment and it was an adorable building located right in the downtown area of Monterosso. Cinque Terre is the name for the five towns that all are built into cliffs along the Mediterranean Ocean and they all have hiking paths. Monterosso, the town that we stayed in, is the only one with a beach and it was beautiful. When we first arrived we set off on a hike to see the sunset from Punta Mesca, a point on top of the mountain bordering the city. It was about a 45 minute hike to the point, but it was totally worth it once we saw the view and the sunset over the ocean.
We then hiked back and grabbed some food at the local market and sat on the beach eating dinner and drinking wine. Auntie Beth I hope you saw the picture for you! We bought fresh fruit and I made all my friends separate it in the bags overnight because I told them your theory on when fruit touch it bruises! We went to bed very early that night because we knew we had a full day of hiking ahead of us!
The next morning we rolled out of bed at 6AM because we wanted to watch the sunrise from the beach. Once again it was beautiful, and we took some silly pics while waiting for it to peak up over the mountains.
We then took a train to Riomaggiore, the first of the 5 cliffside towns, and began our hike. I don’t even want to try to put these views into words and the pictures do not do them justice. It was the most beautiful views of any ocean/cliffs/cities that I have ever seen! The hike was really fun and it was a beautiful day, we even jumped in off some rocks and went swimming at one point!
After that first four hour hike between towns we ended up back in Monterosso. We hungout in our hostel and re-hydrated before heading out on hike #2. This hike was recommended to us by one of the owners of our hostel and he said it led to a “fun town, parade, beach.” (that was what we understood at least from his broken English!) This hike was about two hours through mountain woods, where suddenly you’d be out overlooking a beautiful view of the whole ocean! It was unbelievable. Finally we ended in the town Levanto, which was truly a gem! The Fat Tuesday Parade was going on and we danced with the locals in the streets and ate plenty of gelato and baked goods! It really was a fun beach town, and the parade was awesome!
We hiked back just in time to go to the restaurant owned by the brother of our hostel owner (everything is in the family in Italy!) It was the best meal we had in Italy… we split pizza and pasta and ended with some homemade dessert and lemoncello which is liquor that is supposed to aid digestion. (both the liquor and dessert were on the house since we knew his brother!) After that we went straight to bed since we had a train to Venice early in the morning.
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| Cinque Terre, Italy |
Italy Destination #6 Venice
Venice was the last stop on Spring Break but we were all very excited for it. As you can tell by the pictures it is pretty much as you would picture. It’s very charming during the day and there were not a lot of tourists around which was nice. The streets are all “people-sized” since cars don’t exist! We took water buses everywhere and it was so fun being in a city entirely of canals and boats! On the first day we were waiting in line to buy a two day pass for the water taxi when an Irish man came up to us… to our delight he handed us 3 7-day passes which he said were his families but they only stayed for 4 days! He saved us about 50 euros and needless to say we were super excited with the way our Venice trip began. Our hostel was really nice and offered a free breakfast and the people in it were friendly and all around our age. We took a water bus to Murano, an island off Venice that is known for its Blown Glass. We got to watch a demonstration and then shopped for a little before returning to Venice. Once we got back we went to Saint Marcs Square and then on a Gondola Ride! The Gondola Ride was amazing, we just relaxed and our driver showed us Cassanova’s house as well as Napoleon Bonapart’s Castle and the only place in Venice where Gondola’s could be made. It was an amazing time!
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| Venice, Italy |
Spring Break was amazing, I could not have asked for a better nine days!! :) Hope everyone is doing well I love and miss you all!
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