Italy! Part 1

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Hello from Roma!

Well let's just say our trip in Italy was definitly an adventure full of many many stories! We started our Italian trip in Milan, which was pretty much a big city full of Italians who love to buy expensive designer brands and drink espresso coffee standing up at bars. I have now learnt to have espressos as I can't live without coffee and for some reason Italians don't like soya milk so no lattes for me (Italy doesn't even have a Starbucks so I can't even get a crappy soya latte!).

Anyway Milan was great for its duomo (cathedral), a place to run and the best cocktail bar in Europe. We we're going to go to Venice from there but we're told the night before that they were going through the worst floods they had had for some time. So to avoid wading through water with our suitcases we headed in the opposite direction to Genova. Went and saw cinque terre (five villages) along the cliffs and they were stunning. Genova itself was beautiful, full of twisted, narrow, crazy alleyways that were so fun to explore and we found a vegan cafe so I got my latte!

After Genova we headed to lucca. Lucca is a small renaissance style town that is completely surrounded by a great big stone wall. It dates back to before the 6th century and is a beautifulshown full of cobblestones streets with so many churches! (as with the rest of Italy). It had great resturants and wine bars and shops and was easy to spend a lot of money there. Aswith all cities in Europe that are flat, a lot of the locals rode bikes there, so one day we decided to as well...was great fun I can't wait to buy a bike when living in Berlin (now that I'm pretty much a pro). As our luck would have it we were in lucca for the areas worst flooding in over 50 years! So was a struggle getting to visit Pisa but we made it there to be able to spend the 15minutes taking typical posing photos with the tower and leave again (literally nothing in Pisa except for the tower).

From lucca we headed down to Naples. Now this is we're the stories really begin. We were a bit hesitant about the city as we were told that it was a bit high on the crime rate. It was a dirty city full of street sellers trying to sell you anything from iPads to scarves, but in a way that was all just a part of the crazy character that the city had. We went horse ridding up the side of an active volcano (not the most fun I have had to be honest, I just couldn't get it!) and then Pompeii. Least we can say we have been to Pompeii as it was not the most exciting place to go. I think we were there for an hour and then it just got really repetitive and it's a massive place so we felt we had seen enough. Maybe it's because we didn't do a guided tour of it to understand what everything meant but it was good to at least go check it out for a bit. The rest of Naples went well, we explored the historical centre and checked out a castle. Then on the way to the train for Rome my wallet was stolen, not that I even realized until I was in Rome! Ah well guess if it were to happen anywhere then it would happen in Naples! It all got figured out and I have access to my money again unfortunately as I was hoping Jaime would have to pay my way for the rest of the trip 😉

Then... Roma! What can I say, it's no Berlin but its an amazing city! Everywhere you look amazing history is just starring right back at you. From the massive attractions like the colleseum, Trevi fountain, Spanish stairs, to the smaller things like the thousands of sculptures that line its unstructured streets to the many many churches that make up the city, there is something so unique to rome everywhere you look. I even managed to find soya gelato which was so good! Me and Jaime have been eating sushi a lot in Italy (I've only had pizza and pasta once!) and we even found the best sushi place I would argue to be in all of Europe here in Rome. Met up with a friend for drinks at the local bars and she also took us to the Sunday market, the whole 2km of it! It was a crazy busy place but was awesome to see.

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Comments

[Jenny Canovan]

Sounds like you are having a great time!
Just read your blog-it sounds like you are having a fantastic time. Sorry to hear your wallet got stolen but it sounds like you were on top it quickly! Cheers Jennyc