Nancy

WOW, this is gonna be a long one….so I’ll just congratulate you now if you make it to the end of this post…

I'm sorry it's so detailed, but I mostly wrote it for myself, so I won't ever forget how great this trip was.

Before coming to Ireland, I really didn’t think I would travel to mainland Europe unless it was in the UK because I had already traveled around a major portion of that three years ago. But my friend Danielle really wanted to plan a trip around Italy, so how could I have passed that up? It worked out that just Danielle, Caitlin, Kacie, and I were able to make this trip. We decided we would hit up Venice, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, parts of Tuscany, and end in Rome. It was a long week, but one I will always remember. It was so great to get to a little bit warmer climate and where it doesn’t rain all the time! (Even though it did rain on a couple of our days, but not nearly as often as we are used to!)

P.S. I’ll probably be throwing in some random facts about these cities which of course I can thank Rick Steve’s for. Cassie was my savior and brought me the Rick Steve’s Italy travel book to London with her-they don’t publish Rick in Ireland! I have definitely got everyone here to love Rick Steve’s just as much as I do. We never left without him!

Venice

Venice is simply the most unique city I have ever been to. This was actually my second time visiting here, but the first for the other girls. The first time I went here I was only here for a day and didn’t really see a whole lot-our day was basically just spent walking around and drinking wine. So this time around, I wanted to see the sites. It was weird to be back in a familiar city though because I remembered a lot of different places where I had been before. This ended up being our catch phrase of “Hey, I think I’ve been here before”.

We arrived in Venice in the afternoon but being that we flew Ryan Air, the airport was about an hour and half outside the city. So we took a regular bus to get to the Water Taxi that brought us into Venice. We found our hostel pretty easily which was awesome considering the directions to find the place was about a paragraph long with probably over ten different turns. And let me tell you, navigating Venice is not the easiest thing to do, but that’s what I love about it-it’s such a fun city to get lost in because you know you can never REALLY get lost considering your on an island. There are so many alleys (about 2000 and over 400 bridges!) and side streets and you always end up somewhere worth seeing.

So anyway, we found our hostel which was really a guest house. It was such a nice place and the man running it was so nice and helpful. So the first night, we walked around a bit and grabbed some dinner and had our first Italian pizza which was delicious! And then of course we had to end the meal with our first of many gelatos! Experiencing Venice at night was such a different experience. Being that there are no cars in Venice, the streets are just so peaceful and quiet. We found our way to St. Marks Square, but decided we would be back in the morning to see it in the daylight as well. I’m still curious what the nightlife must be like for college students there because I didn’t really notice a lot of people out (but I guess it was a Tuesday…)

The next morning we were greeted with breakfast brought to our room which consisted of croissants, baguettes, coffee/tea/hot chocolate, and orange juice. We walked around Venice for most of the morning exploring the other side of town which we hadn’t walked the night before. We went a different way around and then found St. Marks Square. Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) is a huge square in Venice- almost 2 football fields long. The square holds St. Mark’s basilica, The Doge’s Palace, and the Campanile bell tower. We walked around the square and then went inside the basilica. We grabbed lunch, and then took a gondola ride. It’s so easy to bargain with the gondoliers, and we ended up getting the 40 minute ride for 20 a piece which was a pretty good deal considering they were asking 35 a piece from the start. Even though our Gondolier wasn’t wearing a stripped shirt (right, Danielle?) it was still a lot of fun and just something everyone has to do when in Venice.

We spent the rest of the time in Venice walking around and shopping. My favorite spot to shop was on the Rialto Bridge, which is one of the world’s most famous bridges, and markets and shops surround it. After this, we headed back to get our bags and then majorly power walked to make our train that was leaving that night for Florence . Don’t worry, this was just one of many times that running was needed to make our trains/planes on time.

One of the things that I wanted to see was the Bridge of Sighs but it is covered in scaffolding for restoration that will take place the next few years. Only a little part is uncovered that you can see. The meaning behind the bridge is that when a condemned man is led over the bridge on his way to prison, he looks back one more time on Venice and “sighs”. And it’s also said that if you kiss under the bridge at sunset on a gondola you will have eternal love.

Venice-The Grand Canal

St. Marks Basilica

St. Marks Square

view of San Giorgio Maggiore

on the gondola ride

Rialto Bridge

all of us on the gondola!

Florence

We arrived in Florence around 11 pm and found our hostel pretty easily with asking directions only a few different times. We actually had walked by it a couple times, and didn’t even know it because the sign was not noticeable at all. So we grabbed a really late dinner of pasta and pizza and went to bed. Our hostel was actually really nice, and we shared a room with just one other guy which really was fine it was just a little awkward at times. There were 5 beds in the room and he chose the middle one which I thought was a little odd. But anyway, we were really only there to sleep, so it wasn’t a huge deal to share with someone else. And there were lockers in the room so our things were safe.

The next day we took a three hour walking tour in the morning. I’m not usually big on walking tours cause I usually end up pretty bored, and I’ve had a few bad experiences here with tours, but this one ended up being pretty good. Our tour guide was an American that had studied abroad in Florence and loved it so much that she moved back. (As must as I love Ireland, I don’t think I see myself living that far away from my friends and family forever). So anyway, she was really informative and knew so much about Florence. After the tour we went to the Duomo which is Florence’s Gothic cathedral. This is definitely the biggest church I have ever seen! It was just absolutely huge! We climbed the 463 steps to the top of the dome on the Duomo for some great views of all of Florence. After this we headed to an open market and did some souvenir shopping (added one more scarf to my collection). We then had lunch and then headed to hear this Gregorian chant at a nearby church called San Miniato. I wasn’t too excited to go hear this but Kacie and Caitlin wanted to see it, so we went along. I had actually never even heard of Gregorian chants before, and it was definitely not what I was expecting. Kacie agreed that it was not very good, so we stayed for about 15 minutes and then headed out. The views from this church were great though of Florence all lit up at night! We had taken a bus to this church, and on the way back, Kacie and Caitlin couldn’t get the machine to work that needed to validate our tickets. Danielle’s and my ticket had worked just fine. And of course, the one stop before ours, the ticket people jumped on the bus to check everyone’s tickets, and they ended up having to pay a 45 euro fine for not validating their tickets. The guy was just a huge jerk and had no sympathy at all.

So being that it was Thanksgiving we wanted to have a nice dinner. We couldn’t find where we wanted to go just yet, so we went to get gelato first. Then we found a restaurant and we all had spaghetti, bread, and wine for our Thanksgiving meal. And then of course we ended the meal with another trip to a gelateria. We all agreed that two gelatos in one day were deserved on Thanksgiving! This was definitely a Thanksgiving I will remember forever.

Walking Tour-we really didn't like tourists at all, huh?

Florence!

Duomo

Kacie, me, and Danielle

on the top of the Dome in the Duomo

such great views!

Duomo again

Now you can kind of tell just how large this cathedral really was

Florence at night

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gelato for dessert :)

Pisa and Cinque Terre

Friday was the beginning of our major mistake day with missing trains, getting off at wrong stops, and buying wrong train tickets. This day was definitely the most stressful of any of them, but we still had a great time once we actually made it to all of our stops! It probably didn’t help that we tried to cram in 5 cities in one day. But we made it through and it was all worth it in the end.

So we left Florence fairly early to get to Pisa at a decent time. There really isn’t a whole lot to do in Pisa besides obviously seeing the Leaning Tower, so this was a quick stop we made. I thought it was really cool to see the tower in person and it is leaning way more than I thought it was going to be. I think my favorite part about stopping here though was watching all the people doing the classic pose holding up the tower while their friend tries to capture it on camera. I have never laughed so hard watching literally everyone there trying to attempt this pose! (Don’t worry, I definitely took pictures of these people!). But of course, we also had to take these pictures-I’ll post them below. So we ended up getting wrong directions to this other train station we were going to go to, so we missed that train and had to basically run to the other train station to make the next train which thankfully we did. This just set the tone to the rest of our day…

So from Pisa we had to take a train to La Spezia where we then would catch our train to the first town of Cinque Terre. We ended up getting off at the wrong stop at La Spezia and ended up losing another hour to spend in Cinque Terre. But we figured it out and finally made it to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns that make up Cinque Terre. These five small towns rest alongside the Italian Riviera and are quite remote. The five towns that make up Cinque Terre are 1)Riomaggiore (a workaday town), 2) Manarola (picturesque), 3) Corniglia (up on a hilltop), 4) Vernazza (most touristy and dramatic), and 5) Monterosso al Mare (beach resort)….as described by Rick Steves.

This was one of my favorite places we visited, and I can’t wait to go back in the summer someday. These towns would definitely be better to visit during the summer, but it was sort of nice to be there in November where almost zero tourists existed. Riomaggiore was absolutely beautiful, but the second we got off the train, it started to down pour. Luckily, this only lasted for a short while and then the rain completely stopped. You can hike in between all five towns, but we only hiked between the first two for sake of time. Otherwise you can take the train. The hike between Riomaggiore and Manarola is called the Via dell’Amore (Pathway of Love). The popular thing to do on this path with your significant other is to take a padlock along this pathway and find a spot on the bridge to close it onto.

We then arrived in Manarola and walked around a bit and then grabbed a crepe at a place suggested by my friend, Spenser. And they were delicious! (Thanks, Spense!) We then took a train to Vernazza which was our last stop. We only were able to make it to 3 out of the 5 which we did in about 4 hours! I really think this is the only thing we didn’t plan correctly out of our whole week in Italy. I would have loved to stay a night at one of the towns…so I guess I’ll just have to come back some day. Vernazza was my favorite out of all 5 of the towns. We stayed there till past dark and just sat and watched the waves crashing. I didn’t want to leave there. We then headed back to La Spezia to catch our train to Sienna. Turns out we had planned to catch the train that was a Eurostar train which we had not bought tickets for. We had purchased tickets for a different train, so yet again, we missed our train. This put us into Siena around 2am instead of 11pm. I called our B&B and let him know we would be late, and he said it was no big deal that the door would be unlocked. So we finally arrived at our B&B with the help of a guy that called us a taxi because the train station was closed by the time we arrived and there was absolutely no taxis around. (So thankful we ran into him!). There were signs in our B&B directing us to our right room, and I don’t think any of us were ever happier to have finally been at our destination! The B&B was really nice, and I was just sort of bummed we would only be staying there for another 7 hours.

Pisa!

Leaning Tower!!

hahah this family was so entertaining

Danielle and I (notice the person in the background!)

yes, I know, we are lame

Riomaggiore

Beginning of Via dell'Amore (notice the locks)

walking to Manarola

there were so many everywhere

Manarola

sunset on the Italian Riviera

Vernazza

Tuscany

Danielle and I woke up earlier than the other two to walk around Siena a little before breakfast and before our tour guide picked us up to go on our tour of Tuscany. We walked down the main square called Il Campo which is the heart of Siena. Siena was such a cute medieval town and in the center of Tuscany, and I was just sad we didn’t have more time to spend here. I’m glad I gave up extra sleep to walk around that morning. Our original tour guide was sick, so he sent another tour guide named Silvia. She was so nice and such a great tour guide. She picked us four up at our B&B and we headed into the country side of Tuscany. We requested to do a wine tour, but it ended up just being a general tour and at the end we tasted two types of red wine at a shop. So it wasn’t what we expected it to be, but still ended up being my absolute favorite day in Italy! I just loved Tuscany, and I can’t wait to make it back someday when the sunflowers are in bloom.

We first went to a cute little town called Pienza. This town is known for its sheep’s cheese called Pecorino, which we got the chance to try. It actually was really good! We then headed to Montepulciano which just so happens to be where the movie New Moon was filmed! The town is so cute, and the tourism has definitely boosted quite a bit since the movie was filmed here. They even have New Moon souviners now and you can buy a map to find certain locations where the film was shot such as the clock tower, the wine cellar, the arch way, etc. We all hadn’t seen the movie yet, but did once we got back, and it was really fun to be able to say, “Ive been there!”. Silvia was really great to put up with our obsession (mostly Danielle’s J) with finding the areas where New Moon was filmed. We had lunch with Silvia in Montepulciano, and got to walk around a really old wine cellar. We tried two red wines (didn’t like either of them) at a shop, and then we headed back to Siena. We had time to kill when we got back there, so we walked around a bit, collected our bags, and then headed to the train station for the last time to catch a train to Rome.

Siena

Il Campo squre

Countryside

Tuscany :)

Pienza

Clock tower in Montepulciano (in New Moon!)

Montepulciano

I wanted to stay here forever

Really old wine cellar- Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (the type of wine)

New Moon was everywhere-even had New Moon Wine!

the archway in the movie that Alice drives through

vineyard

Siena at night

Rome

Rome ended up being my least favorite place in Italy which was surprising because I love big cities. But for some reason, there was just something about Rome that I didn’t like all that much. There were too many people on the streets coming up to you to try to get you to buy things, and I just had had enough of that. Our first night in Rome, we just went straight to bed, so we could get up somewhat early and get a start on our day. Our hostel was pretty nice but smelled so bad of sewage!

The next morning we headed to Vatican City to attempt to go to the Vatican Museum where the Sistine Chapel is. It was a Sunday, and usually this museum is closed on this day except it is free the last Sunday of each month which happened to be that day. The line was almost 2 hours long to get inside, so we opted out of the museum that day, and just went into St. Peter’s Square. This might be sort of ignorant of me, but I had no idea that the Vatican was it’s own country. Smallest country I’ve ever been to! We were actually pretty lucky because it turns out the Pope gives a speech at noon every Sunday, so we were able to see the Pope! Most of it was in Italian, but towards the end, he said several things in different languages, so I understood only a couple lines. We then went inside St. Peter’s Basilica which is the largest church and it was pretty impressive inside. Afterwards, we walked around Rome and walked this suggested path by Rick Steve’s to see many sites of Rome. It basically consisted of many Piazzas (squares), fountains, statues, and some random buildings. We saw the Pantheon,(a domed temple), the Trevi Fountain (my favorite!) and the Spanish Steps. After too much pizza and pasta, we decided to eat at Hard Rock Café that night, and then afterwards we headed to the Colosseum to see it at nighttime which was really cool to see. We were headed there the next day, but we wanted to see it at night. That night on our way home, a couple guys stopped and talked to us because we spoke English. Turned out they were from Canada, and we ended up getting a drink with them. They were on quite the Europe trip and had already been to so many places for the last month. We decided we would all go to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum the next day.

The next morning we got up and went to the Trevi fountain so we could see it during the day. It was definitely prettier at night, but I still loved it during the day. We then headed to Ancient Rome to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. This was my other favorite part of Rome cause it finally felt like we were actually in Rome. I didn’t really know much about the Colosseum and how it was an arena used for Gladiators to fight. We toured the inside and then headed to the Roman Forum. The Roman Forum is basically the birthplace of Rome and just about anything important in ancient Rome happened at this place. We then headed to Capitol Hill which is the home to the city’s government, and then to the Victor Emmanuel Monument which is a monument to Italy’s first King. We grabbed some lunch and had the funniest waiter ever. It was this cute little Italian man that just wouldn’t stop talking and saying “Prego! Prego!” “Ciao Ciao!” over and over again! He even insisted that we take a picture with him!

This was our last night in Italy, and I think we were all pretty exhausted by this point. We were just going to stay in for the night and play cards, but then some people from our hostel invited us to go to dinner with them, so we went along. It was us four girls, two guys from Amsterdam, a guy from Germany, and then another American student that was actually studying in Dublin. We all had dinner and then went to a bar afterwards. We only stayed for a short while since we were getting up early the next morning.

The next day our plane didn’t leave until that afternoon, so we spent the morning going to the Vatican Museum. Since we saw how long the line was the first time we were there, we got there early before it opened, so we didn’t have to wait long. Ok, so I really don’t like art museums at all and neither does Danielle, so we really just went so we could see the Sistine Chapel. As Caitlin and Kacie took their time in the museum, Danielle and I breezed through it all the way to the end where the Sistine Chapel was and we were out of there in about 45 minutes. The Sistine Chapel was really impressive though and really cool to see. We went shopping for a bit (another scarf!), and then met up with Caitlin and Kacie for lunch before heading the the airport.

We had quite the stressful plane ride home. We were to change flights in London and being that we were flying Ryan Air, they do not do connecting flights, so you have to re-check your bag, get your passport checked again, and go through security as well. So we only had about 45 minutes to do all of this and go through immigration. So after we got through security, our flight on the screen was already reading “last call”. So Kacie and Danielle ran ahead, and I waited for Caitlin since she got held up at security. I could have sworn Kacie told me gate 15, but it turns out it was 58. I knew in my head that I should have double checked so I could have actually seen the screen cause I never looked, but I just didn’t. So we ended up at the wrong gate with no way of getting back to the main terminal unless someone came to pick us up. So this guy picked Caitlin and I up, drove us to as close as he could to gate 58 and then we sprinted to our gate! This is as I’m hearing, “this is the second last final call” We finally reach our gate and Kacie and Danielle are the only ones standing there! They had not a clue where we had been cause nobody’s phones were on! In the meantime, Danielle had started crying, so they guy would feel bad and hold the plane. Haha We really only had minutes to spare and we were drenched in sweat! So in the end, it was all ok, but it definitely was not a great way to end our trip.

I had never been happier to be back in Cork!

(Congrats again if your still reading this...)