Last blog for Italy (a bit delayed)

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Sorry it has taken so long to update my blog, after moving on to Austria and starting my summer school class life became very hectic. Though I have already left Europe I want to recap some of the highlights of my last week in Italy and then finally the rest of my trip.

My last week in Italy (which was the last week in July) I met up with my roommate from Sacramento and one of our friends, together we saw the last two places I had yet to tackle in Italy: Roma and Florence. I loved Roma; it was exactly how I pictured it to be. Though it was extremely hot the entire time we were there, the lines were not too bad and we were truly able to see most of everything that we wanted to see. We stayed at this amazing hostel right next to Termini Station, with marble floors and free breakfast, so needless to say it was probably the most hostel experience to date. Plus one of the workers surprised me with champagne at 12am on my birthday  My favorite sight was without a doubt the Coliseum. We were just walked down the street searching for it and out of nowhere, in between two buildings, there was it was!! It was so beautiful. It is so unbelievable how intact it still is despite how much time has passed. The main floor of the arena is huge, and you could actually picture the gladiators wrestling lions. It’s crazy to think that when the coliseum was first built the seats were covered in marble, but now all that is left are concrete benches. There are a lot of artifacts that have been placed in the museum part of the coliseum which were interesting to see… Mainly marble statutes that managed to survive.

Next to the Coliseum are ruins of the most important buildings of the Roman Empire! While they are almost completely gone, just knowing what once stood there was enough for me. I bought an amazing book (so if you ever go to Rome I would strongly recommend it) which has pictures of the ruins in their present state and then reconstructed images of what they would have looked like during Roman times. This way you are able to make out the ruins and then you truly understand just how beautiful the buildings were.

For my birthday my wonderful friends went on a pub crawl with me, however to celebrate the 4th of July the crawl turned into a pool party instead. I received a free “Happy Birthday to Me” Shirt, which happened to be pink and purple (my favorite colors) as well as a few free drinks through the night  I also managed to find a hotdog stand to satisfy my Independence Day hotdog craving. Though the dog was served on a ciabatta roll instead of a bun I did not mind since it is Italy after all.

Also in Roma we of course saw the Trevi Fountain which was beautiful, though VERY VERY crowded. The Panthon was also beautiful, it wasn’t quite what I expected, it being much smaller than I thought it would be, but the dome was amazing. Vatican City was very impressive. Though we unfortunately missed the pope since he was at his summer house, we toured St Peters and the Sistine Chapel. St Peters was beautiful, but given all of the churches I have been in this summer I would not list it as my #1 favorite (that title would go to the Duomo in Rivenna). The Sistine Chapel was truly breathtaking, though it was definitely a trip getting there. We were in a line with hundreds of people that toured through the whole museum; this took at least an hour and a half before you get to the chapel. The walk just keeps going on and on, up more stairs, then back down, into another room, then another, then up more stairs, etc. With no AC or open windows it was brutal. And then inside the chapel itself there are so many people, whom the workers were screaming at the entire time to stop taking photos. But the ceiling was beautiful and I can honestly say now, looking back, it was worth the long ordeal it took getting there. Given that we were only in Roma for 3 days I feel like we barely made a dint but I definitely fell in love with the city and cannot wait to go back.

Next we went on to Florence which from the beginning started bad, and unfortunately the city itself was not so great as to redeem itself. We arrived at our hostel a few hours late and consequently they gave away our room. He claimed I gave him the wrong phone number on the reservation but lucky I didn’t (he just typed it in wrong) so he moved us down the street to their sister hotel. Our room was definitely in someone’s house and fake plants filled the hallways but at least we had a place to stay.

My favorite thing in Florence was without David… I could have stared at that man for hours (even after waiting in line for hours). He was physically so much bigger than I thought (13 feet!) and so detailed. My favorite part was definitely his hands, you can make out each vein and muscle, I have no idea how you do that to marble. The rest of Florence I was very unimpressed with, minus the most delicious gorgonzola gnocchi I have ever had, which I will never forget. The main river was dirty though the view of the buildings from the outside was very pretty at night. Florence is also supposed to have the best gelato in Italy and though while it was good I felt like it didn’t taste like the BEST.

When I left Italy after my 6 weeks there I truly felt like I saw everything I wanted too. Though I didn’t spend long in each city, I at least got a taste so now when I go back I know exactly where to go and where to skip. The 6 weeks were amazing though I could not wait to move on to Austria. We took an overnight train to Salzburg and it was the longest night of my life. We had a little room (not a cabin, just a compartment like the ones in Harry Potter) which had 6 seats so we of course were in it with 3 other people, sitting knee to knee. There was no AC and the horrible man next to me refused to open the window, oh and it was like 85 degrees outside, so it was probably 95 inside. One person in our compartment left and was replaced with a man who brought his dog into the compartment. It was small but it walked all over our feet, drank water from a bowl and spilling, and just being overall annoying. The hallways were packed with bodies of sleeping passengers, most of whom did not have tickets or were trying to get into Germany/Austria illegally. At 5am we transferred onto a German train so the last 2 hours of the trip were wonderful. German trains are clean, smell free, in English, and just generally wonderful.

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