Italy

I had a great week this past week. Italy was a wonderful place to have a week off of school. Really most places are good places to spend when you don’t have to go to school, but Italy has so much history and many places to see.
I went with 8 other people and we took the train. We left Saturday morning and there were strikes going on in France so we had to take a different route. The plan was to get into Cinque Terre at about 7 P.M. on Saturday night. Due to the change of plans we were unable to make it there and we had to stop in La Spezia late that night. This was a small problem because we didn’t have a place to spend the night. We got off the train and decided to look for anything cheap near the train station. Some of us were joking saying that we could stay in the train station, but we decided that this would not be our best option. We ended up walking around and found one hotel that only had one room but we would not all fit and it was way out of our price range. We continued and we noticed a place that looked like a hotel because there were many keys hanging on the wall but it was not well marked. There were two older people at the desk and we stepped in and asked if they had any open rooms. I think it was a married couple as they had a picture of the two of them on the front desk. The man took charge and he spoke decent English. We explained our situation and he said that he could give us 4 rooms at 20 Euros per person. We thought about trying to negotiate but this was clearly our best option so we agreed. The rooms were nothing special but great for college students.
The next day we continued to Cinque Terre which is a small town on the coast in Italy. It is called Cinque Terre because it is 5 different towns all close together. We were all excited to be in Italy and stop traveling for the day. We found our hostel after a long walk and a bus ride. We had to take some crazy roads to get to the hostel and there was a mini bus that we took for a small fee.
Once we dropped our bags off, we could go exploring. It was raining but we all thought it would let up. Sure enough it ended up raining the entire time in Cinque Terre. We went to all of the towns and there was some beautiful scenery
On Monday we headed off to Florence but half way we stopped in Pisa to take a few quick pictures. We all had turns holding up the leaning tower and it was fun to see. We ended up going there without spending any money. We arrived in Florence and it was still raining. Lindsay and Tony know a friend at Miami who is studying in Florence so I was able to stay in his apartment free of charge.
I loved Florence and it has so much history. There were many things that I recognized from my art class that I took last year. I don’t want to admit it but I am happy that I had a little background knowledge about some of the artwork. It was fun to see huge churches and so many sculptures. I went to see Michelangelo’s David and it was truly amazing. It was so big and for someone who normally doesn’t like art, I feel like it says something that I was so impressed by the sculpture. I was amazed by the size and could not believe that it used to be a large chunk of marble.
We went into so many churches went shopping at a market. I thought it would be a lot like China because you could negotiate prices. I was disappointed when they didn’t come down to much in price but was still excited to negotiate. All three of us had been to China before and we thought we would have been more successful in lowering the price; nonetheless we still had a great time.
On Wednesday we went to Rome where we rented an apartment. It was a great place for the price, the only down side was the fact that it was a little far but by public transportation it was not too bad. We went all over Rome and visited the Vatican. The Vatican was amazing because it had so many places that were simply covered in artwork. It would take so long to paint so many walls and ceilings. We went to the Basilica in the Vatican and were lucky enough to see the Pope. It wasn’t very close but it was still neat to see him. We also explored the Coliseum and it was the only place we paid a little extra for a tour guide. It was fun and it made me want to watch Gladiator again.
Saturday we decided that we had seen a lot of Rome so we would go to Pompeii. After a series of events it was clear that we were going to be unable to make it there. We ended up spending the day in Naples and it was disgusting. There was lots of trash on the street and I can say that the only good thing that happened there was the pizza that we ate.
We were lucky to return to Rome that night and we went to a few places at night. Now for those of you that made it this far I have to say congrats…….I left lots out simply because I am so tired of typing and I can’t imagine how boring this must be to read……if you want to know more just ask.