Here is my attempt to adequately describe the first leg of our Italian adventure:
After taking 3 exams on Friday morning I set off with Esther, Juliet, Lauren and Julianne for Milan, the first city on our agenda (because it was the cheapest one to fly in to). We managed to make it to the airport and after the first of many mishaps - waiting in the
EasyJet check in line for Spain instead of Italy – we somehow made it on the plane in time for take off!
Upon our arrival in Milan things
weren’t looking good – I immediately got a text from my friend Allison, whom we were supposed to meet up with for the night, saying that her flight had gotten cancelled….We then learned that there was a city-wide public transportation strike (we were about an hour away from our hotel, and planning to wake up in the morning and take a train to Venice) – NOT good! In our non-existent Italian we managed to find a seemingly legit luxury bus company running buses to the city center,
Centrali Statione (which we learned, exists in most every Italian city), and decided to take it. Once we arrived in Milan the transportation strike was evident – the only form of anything we could find were incredibly overpriced taxis that
wouldn’t take 5 people and so in a most ridiculous taxi caravan we made it to our one star hotel (where we had booked a triple room and planned to sneak 2 people in) down a very sketchy street in the middle of nowhere. Of course, Esther and I got voted to be the ones to sneak in so we handed off our bags to the 3 others and made our way down the lighter end of the street to find a decent restaurant (it was nearing 10 o’clock at this point). Luckily, we ended up finding a fabulous little restaurant and had the first of many colorful, tasty, and memorable Italian meals. Esther and I split the classic, Margarita pizza and
Gorgonzola gnocchi (unbelievable!). The topic of discussion at dinner ended up being how to sneak 2 people into a hotel in which there
isn’t a fire escape, only one door, one front desk, and one receptionist – all of which are located in the same 10 foot radius….the answer ended up being: not possible (which we learned after 2 failed attempts). So LUCKY for us they had an extra double room available, for the price of 50 euros with a fabulous view of the building next door, a “spacious” stand-up shower (conveniently located just 5 feet from the bed), and 2 whole windows that we could open to air out the smoke smell. It was cozy none-the-less and we were lucky enough to be woken up by the cleaning man, about 10 minutes before check out time (which was better than the triple room that woke up to banging and shouting approx. 30 minutes after the check out time)!
Our next task of the day was to somehow get to Venice. All we knew was the name of the cheapest train station and a tip from someone that the green line would take us there. After 2
ticketless tram rides and a 20 minute train ride (on a completely deserted train that could well have been taking us out of the city) we made it to the station and managed to purchase 14 euro tickets to Venice, via Verona – we were amazed at our brilliance and took this as a sign that getting around Italy would be cheaper and easier than we thought (wrong)! Our lunch consisted of various Italians vending machine foods while waiting on a train platform….as we sat waiting and bored I decided to read the ticket to everyone, coming across the phrase TICKET MUST BE VALIDATED, but I got the response “No Borden, we obviously do that on the train…” When the train finally came we lugged all of our bags on and into the overhead bins and settled in for the 2 hour journey to Verona. About 20 minutes into the Italian countryside the train conductor came around to punch our tickets, we nonchalantly handed them over….and he started talking to us in Italian which we
didn’t understand until the words “50 euros each” came out of his mouth….we stood there shaking our heads and gaping at him until he called over his English-speaking counterpart who asked why our tickets
weren’t validated and explained that without the stamp from the yellow box in the station, we owed 50 euros a piece. After a LOT of arguing, hand motions and offers to get off the train immediately, we managed to talk her down to 5 euros a piece (a small price to pay for our
new found yellow box knowledge). The rest of our traveling day continued along these lines…we got on the wrong train from Verona to Venice and ended up getting kicked off in the middle of nowhere and having to switch again before arriving in Venice which was fun (and included our very memorable first
gelatos of the trip) until we had to find our hotel by waving a piece of paper with the address on it to any Italian who would stop. A 20 minute, body to body bus ride got us there and it was, to our delight, a lot nicer and a lot bigger than our first hotel. Esther and I successfully snuck in and the 5 of us slept well squeezed into 3 small twin beds!
We spent all day Sunday exploring the absolutely gorgeous city of Venice. I had never been and was absolutely blown away by the Grand Canal and all the beautiful and colorful buildings lining it. We spent the day exploring the area around San Marco square, playing with the pigeons, adoring the art and architecture, and splurging on a gondola ride through the adorable little canals. I think my favorite part of Venice was the boat ride at sunset we took back to the train station….one of the most beautiful sunsets I’
ve ever seen and it just took my breath away on the water. Julianne also managed to find the Wake house in Venice on the ride back, very neat to see, but it made us a bit jealous! After all 5 of us purchased Venetian masks to wear on Halloween we bored our (a lot more expensive) train to Rome…
Seeing as this covered only 2 of our 7 days in Italy there will be more to come, but dinner calls for now in Paris!
Our 5 hour train ride to Rome left us surprisingly tired, so upon arriving in Termini station at 11pm we decided it was bed time. Due to some very strong differences of opinions our sleeping arrangements were split up. I was to be situated in the quaint little hostel on the 4th floor of a building, located just 8 minutes on foot from Termini, with Esther and Lauren. We managed to use a lot of hand motions to find our way to the hostel and then miraculously crammed ourselves (plus 3 suitcases) into the miniscule and ancient elevator that took us up to the fourth floor. While disembarking we saw the sign that recommended no more than 200 pounds in the elevator at once (we continued to fit 3 people in all week). Our room turned out to an adorable green little space with 3 single beds, an armoire, and a sink. It was charming, cozy, and European…the only downfall were the shared showers whose water pressure was literally, a trickle and would occasionally stop all together (I wish I were exaggerating)!
Our first day of sightseeing in Rome, Monday, may have been my favorite day in all of Italy. We started out at the Coliseum where were jumped to the front of the line with our “Roma Passes!” It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so warm and perfect for exploring the Roman Forum after the Colisuem. In addition to the sights of Rome, we experienced the very crude men of Rome…while walking to lunch, Lauren got a “Hi Miley Cyrus,” Esther was shouted at “Hey Cleopatra” and I was greeted with “Bon journo Blondie!” Determined not to eat at a touristy restaurant we wandered down side streets until we deemed ourselves far enough away from the Coliseum to eat.
We had lunch in an adorable little cafe and then promptly found the largest cones of gelato at a nearby gelateria. Without patience or a guidebook we plopped down with our ice cream on the huge steps of what we deemed to be an “Italian palace” not until we had finished our ice cream and were attempting to navigate to more sights did we realize we had been sitting on the back steps of a very famous church! Our next stop of the day was the Trevi Fountain, but in finding our way there we happened to stumble upon a side entrance to the Italian Presidential Palace, flanked by 6’4’’ guards in very ornate outfits. Esther and I befriended them and ended up with our very own photo shoot in the courtyards, mere yards away from the Presidential gardens. The Trevi Fountain at dusk was my favorite sight of Rome – everything was lit up and so beautiful at such a lively time of night! We ended our perfect Roman day with dinner near the Spanish Steps – a very memorable one for me complete with fried artichokes, gorgonzola and pear gnocchi, and tagliatelle with duck sauce!
Of course we all managed to sleep through our alarms on Tuesday morning so Esther and I flew out of bed at 1100 to meet Julianne at the train station where we miraculously caught an 1120 train to Napoli. Once in Napoli we caught another, shorter train to Pompeii that provided us with marvelous views of the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. We spent our day “hiking” around Pompeii and taking more pictures than necessary. We stayed to see dusk fall on the stone city – another beautiful sunset in Italy. The three of us found another pizzeria when we arrived back in Rome and had a really fun dinner with free wine and a dessert platter provided by owner – it pays to be female Americans in Italy!
Wednesday was our “holy” day in Rome. We all woke up early and made our way to the Vatican where we had tickets to the Pope’s public “audience.” Being the only non-Catholics in our group of friends (and perhaps in all of the Vatican that day), Esther and I felt especially lucky to have been blessed by the Pope! On our way out of the Vatican, among the masses of people, I had my first small word Wake meets Italy moment and ran into my friend Albert – what are the odds! We finished our day in Rome eating another fabulous lunch and seeing the Sistine Ceiling before boarding our 4 hour train to Florence.
