Ti Amo Italy!!!!

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So our italian getaway had finally arrived. I think I can say both me and Bee had both been really looking forward to Italy! I mean sunshine, pasta and pizza!!!! What more could you ask for????? The real question was were were we going to go? So many places to visit so little time! We could go to Milan, Rome, Venice, Silicy, Pisa, Tuscany, Naples, Florence etc...Some people might not agree with our decisions but after being here for 13 days I think we chose pretty well. We decided to by pass touristy Rome, I know, I know how can you go to italy and not to Rome? Pretty easily actually when you look for hostels and they all look terrible, when you have a bad feeling on just how touristy its going to be and the fact that apparently the whole of Rome starts to smell reallllllllllllly bad in summer with the huge influx of tourists. Venice was a hard choice, we really wanted to go but finding accomodation that wasnt camping 30mins out of the city was hard so we had to pass it up. Silicy was a bitch to get to and Pisa apart from having a building on a slight slant was apparently pretty boring.

The first thing we realised about Italy was the fact you can fly into it, pick up your bags and walk straight out of the airport without seeing any customs or immigration agents. We couldnt believe it.... they just let everyone on the plane jump off and walk into the country! So back to our itinerary, we flew into Milan on possibly the wettest day ever. Which for me was awesome considering that a few days before I had sent home my rain jacket and my other big camo jacket. The instructions to get to our hotel were horrible which resulted in me and Bee walking around like idiots in the pouring rain for 20mins trying to find it. When we finally did we were in no mood to go outside so our view of Milan was whatever was in our room. But thats fine, we were there for a stop over anyways because the very next day we packed up and got ourselves to the airport again. We found out that 8am is the worst time ever to catch public transport with our packs. The metro station was packed, we missed three trains simply because we couldn't fit on them. By this time I was starting to stress we were going to miss our flight. Luckily we mangaged to squeeze onto a train and get to the airport on time. (Bee: what he means is we learnt the way of the ruthless Italian and made SURE we got on the train) our destination? Naples!!!! Now we had heard some fairly bad stuff about Naples, our travel book even warned us that it was dangerous and ripe with crime, apparently its run by the Mafia. This however did not deter us, (Bee: because we're gangsta haha) what we had read and seen on the net was that Naples was surrounded by amazing places we could take day trips to and was also one of the best places to eat in Italy. Because of all these day trips we could take we decided that Naples was the place that we would spend most of our time there. We couldn't have got it more right! The ten days we spent in Naples or Napoli in Italian were awesome!

So We arrived in Naples, the sun was shinning and we are excited about heading to our hostel. Hostel of the Sun had really good reviews and we were hoping it would be better then some of the crap we have stayed in lately *cough* Vienna *Cough*. We werent disappointed. It was one of best we have stayed in. It wasn't the newest, or the most technically advanced, or the biggest, hell it wasnt even the cleaniest (though it was very clean) but there was something about the place that really draws you in. One of the main reasons for this is the young owner Luca. He looks like he is in his late 20s and he is so full of energy. He was really friendly, went out of his way to help us, give us advice on where to go etc. You could really tell he cared about the people staying at his hostel. During our stay he even asked us and a few other people for advice about advertising his hostel, how things should be done, what we liked etc and you could tell he was taking everything we said into his head to improve for future guests.... I also may like him because he gave me a free hostel of the sun shirt that all his employees wear hehe. The place also had a really good feeling about it. It felt more like a home then a hostel, people would all chill out and watch tv together.

Bee Dandy says: SO HOMELY, it had everything we needed. Plus, for breakfast they had 5kg jars of Nutella YUMMMMMM. Luca is awesome, he wakes you up in the morning with his roaring voice but in a good way. He speaks like this: "THISA is the doora, you can makea yourrrr food in HEREA!" I loved it.

Day 1 Checked in, went to the supermarket, bought food, cooked and ate awesome pasta, relaxed, slept!!!! Pretty crusiey first day as always and was what we needed.

Day 2 Just because we ditched Rome because it was touristy didn't mean we werent going to hit up some tourist attractions in Naples. Day 2 saw us head off to Pompei to visit the ruins of the city which in 79AD was completely wiped out by the Mount Vesuvius, the only active volcano in continental europe. It cost more then we thought (11 euro each!) but we decided to go anyways. We weren't disappointed, the ruins are pretty interesting. It was crazy thinking that this whole city was destroyed by a Volcano that we could see in the distance and was still active. Throughout the ruins are the casts made from the bodies that were found, not all human, there were pets as well. A lot of the casts show you that the person must have been huddled up trying to protect themselves when they died. It was pretty sad. We headed back to Naples got some dinner and turned in for the night.

Bee Dandy says: I thought this would be mega boring but it's not. There are lots of tourists there but it's so big that you find yourself wandering through parts of the ruins with absolutely no one around you. Some of the ruins are blocked off but you're able to walk through a lot of the destroyed buildings. It's a really surreal feeling to sit down in between what's left of the walls in a room of a house and try to imagine what the room was used for and everything. Some houses were really well preserved and you can see how the walls were decorated and tiling that was used. It's a really unique and interactive day, exploring the whole city - it must've given archeoligists such a great insight into Roman history.

Day 3 Friday was a public holiday in Naples - May day. So we smartly decided to stay in doors and relax at our hostel. There were protests everywhere and the city was jam packed so wouldn't have been able to do anything anyways.

Day 4 Saturday saw us checking out of Hostel of the sun because they didnt have availability for us for that night and to save us the hassle of changing again we had just booked our next hostel for 7 nights instead of coming back to hostel of the sun (This was a hugggggggggggge mistake!!!!). We didnt want to lose a day though so we left our bags at HOTS and jumped on a bus to the Amalfi coast. To get there was a 2 hr bus trip through the mountains and along the coast. Oh and when I say along the coast I mean along a tiny road curling along the mountain with the coast hundreds of meters down with only a tiny little barricade stopping us from plummeting to the rocky shoreline below. It was to say the least amazing!!!! The views are spectacular, I hope the photos do it some justice. Once we arrived at the coast we strolled around the beautiful little streets, sat on the pier, took loooooooooooots of photos, relaxed in the sun and ate gelato (We got ripped off, guy realised we couldnt speak Italain and even though we asked for a small in Italian gave us a large and charged us 10 euro for both! Ouch! Mine was really good though). We decided to go up to Ravello as well which is a little area up the mountain from Amalfi and we had been told had amazing views. The views were great but the highlight was our bus driver we had driving back down to Amalfi. The roads are so small that two cars can barely get past each other let alone a bus! But our driver did everything from squeezing past cars, directing traffic when a big traffic jam occurred on the mountain to telling a woman to get out of her car and driving it himself to get her out of the way of our bus. Amalfi is a really cute little town and was exactly the kind of place we wanted to see, its exactly like postcards showing really exotic coast lines. So we had really enjoyed our day but then came the horrible task of having to get home when everyone else in the italy it seemed was trying to do the same. Every time a bus showed up all the people would run to it and start pushing to get on. We could have taken a bus to Sorrento and from there a train back to Naples (Which we now know would have been much smarter)instead we waited around for a bus going straight back to Naples (Or so we had been told!). We waited for about an hr for this bus to show up and got on it only to be driven all around southern Italy by our bus driver, it took over 3 hrs for us to finally show back up at our hostel only to have to pick up our bags at nearly 10pm and try find our next hostel. This was pretty stressful because we had been told Naples could be a bit dangerous at night with a lot of theft going on. We made it to our hostel safe and sound though and checked in and crashed out for the night.

Bee says: Almalfi Drive - do it if you dare. I'd only trust the experienced Italian bus drivers to take me down to Almalfi! They beep the horn literally every 30 seconds as they go around a corner so any cars there will stop, I'd be sooo scared if I had to drive. Despite being dangerous, it's known for being one of the most beautiful drives in the world. It has GOT to be, it's stunning - except when I almost threw up of course haha. Almalfi is everything Smic said, I loved walking up the little streets looking at all their crazy coloured pasta and traditional handmade sonveiners. To my delight, I realised that Italians love lemon - just like me! Smic got to sample a shot of their famous lemon liqeour, which was good. It was hilarious when our bus driver started screaming at the women to get out of her car so he could drive it, everyone was cheering for him lol.

Day 5 Saw us relax at our new hostel, eat some food, relax watch some DVDs from the hostel and stuff. Nothing major just trying to recharge our batteries.

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