Italy

Italy exceeded all my expectations! Venice, Florence, Rome, Verona, and Pisa were absolutely incredible. I can’t believe how fast the past six days have passed!

My trip tour guide affectionately known as “Mama Anna” was a true Italian. She walked, talked and breathed Italy. She was the best tour guide I have ever had! Her knowledge of Italy was incredible and she always had a smile on her face no matter how many times she was forced to count our group of 43!!! Our whole tour group known as the gems became very close very fast. I made some great new lifelong friends. Now every time we see each other we scream “SEMESTER!” and “STICK LIKE GLUE” in our Mama Anna accents! It’s always funny.

Here is an overview of the past six days.

Day 1: Woke up at 7am to shower, finish packing, and grab some breakfast. I met up with 42 other students including Drew, Emily, and Alex in the union to start the Gems of Italy tour. I managed to fit 6 days worth of clothing into my backpack! Job well done! Lots of other students had full rolling duffle bags, which def. was a hassle. After a short Naples city bus tour (Yes, Naples was dirty) I arrived at the train station and headed out on a train to Rome. Around 2 hours later I switched trains and headed to Venice. A total of 8 hours of travel later….I arrived at the hotel in Mestra and went to bed early to prepare for a full day in VENICE!

Day 2: Visited the Islands of Torchello, Burano, Murano, and the main island of Venice. Torchello, which had an old church built out of stones and adorned with tiny pure gold mosaics was stunning. The island itself was picturesque Italian countryside with few houses and beautiful stone bridges. Burano, and old fishing village, had brightly painted houses of every color. The houses served as a way for fisherman to be able to view their house from the water. Murano was a tourist’s paradise! It is famous for Murano glass, only produced on this one island and sold all over the world. I toured a glass factory and watched a craftsman make a vase and stunning glass horse figurine. After Murano, I took a tour of the main island, enjoyed a group dinner of pasta and veal, and ended the day with a gondola ride. As the group took our private boat back from Venice, we watched the sunset across the lagoon. A perfect ending to a perfect day!

Day 3: After another early morning wakeup call I took a 90 minute bus ride to Verona, home of the two star crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliet. I visited Juliet’s iconic balcony and attempted to find Romeo’s door…but no luck. The night before reaching Verona my roommate Emily and I watched Letter’s to Juliet. In the movie multiple women are seen taping notes to the wall underneath Juliet’s balcony with questions about love. After seeing this, we both decided to write our own letters. Unfortunately, the whole letter business was only in the movie and you had to walk in a random door to drop off your letter. Graffiti and locks were placed all throughout the courtyard in front of the balcony. The guide explained that the locks were couples declaring their love for one another. After a few hours in Verona, I made it to Florence. After a group dinner everyone hit the town for a concert.

Day 4: Started the day with a tour of the Academia and saw the famous statue of David by Michelangelo. I was a whole lot bigger than I expected….it’s 16 feet tall! Then our tour guide gave the group a total of 20 minutes in the famous Florence leather market, which didn’t even come close to enough time. I could’ve spent hours there! The market was full of jackets, purses, bags, belts, shoes, and scarves. EVERYTHING. After purchasing three bags, I cut myself off and got back to the meeting point just in time to take a walking tour of Florence. After the walking tour I hopped on another bus to Pisa and took the classic tourist photo holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. Finally around 11pm the bus pulled up to the hotel in Rome. I was absolutely speechless when I stepped off the bus and saw the dome of the St. Peter Basilica lit up only three blocks away!

Day 5: A full day of Rome! I had an early morning tour of the Coliseum and Roman Forum. I was most surprised by all the roman ruins right in the heart of Rome. It was so exciting to be able to actually see all the ruins I had been learning about in my Global Studies course. Around the Coliseum and Roman Forum there were REAL AUTHENTIC pieces of marble columns and stones/bricks that people were able to sit on. I can’t believe they would place such ancient artifacts on the ground for people to sit on. It still blows my mind. For lunch our group stopped at an AMAZING pizza place for margherita pizza and wine YUM! Best wood fire pizza of my life.  I also had a guided tour of the Vatican and St. Peters Bisilica, which was overly crowded. After a couple hours of free time I had a group dinner which was in a back alley and country-ish. It was very cute. I also had a walking tour at night of the Trevvi Fountain, Pantheon, and a couple squares.

Day 6: I started out the day with a scavenger hunt that finished atop a small “mountain” which overlooked all of Rome. The hunt took around 3 hours and everyone was ready to fall asleep ASAP…but since we had 4 hours of free time Alex, Emily, Drew and I met up with Karen, Tina and Taylor and grabbed some lunch together. After lunch I got on the bus to meet the ship back in port. I had about 30 minutes to unpack before the same group decided to head out and grab dinner at an amazing pizza place. We walked in and the owner told us he would just bring us a little of everything. And by a little….he meant LOTS. THREE HUGE PIZZAS. So good.

Overall, I fell in love with Italy. The people were friendly and willing to help. The history of all the buildings and towns blew me away. One of the best parts of the trip was driving through Tuscany and seeing all of the small medieval towns on top of hills lit up in the dark. I’ll never forget Italy, and to make sure I threw a coin in the Trevvi fountain so that I will find my way back to Rome.

Tomorrow I plan on going into port with Tina and Drew to find a place with Wi-fi to upload some pictures to the blog…so keep posted!