Spring break this year was easily my
favorite trip while abroad. Nine friends and I decided to spend 10 days
traveling around Italy! Our spring break started by flying to Milan, bussing to
Florence, taking a train to Rome and Sorrento.
Our journey started out a little
bumpy. So apparently, if you don’t check-in online 2 hours in advance, you have
to pay 45 euros just to check in. Well you live and you learn, I guess.
First stop on our trip was Milan.
Milan was really nice, but it was my least favorite city on our tour of Italy. First,
we decided to go see the beautiful cathedral. Then we walked through this crazy
expensive shopping center that had the stores like Prada and Gucci. We also saw
a Ferrari store that was pretty cool. After the shopping center, someone
mentioned some beautiful canals not to far away, so naturally we went to check
them out. To our surprise, the “canals” were dried up and filled with trash.
After seeing the lovely “canals,” we walked through a castle that looked pretty
impenetrable. The best part of Milan was the time spent just hanging out and talking
with friends in the apartment.
Our next stop was Florence. It was
extremely picturesque. The cathedral in Florence was very unique, implementing
green and red stones nicely and was my favorite cathedral so far. We climbed
all the way to the top of the tower next to the cathedral and took some
pictures with a great view of the city. We then walked through the interior of
the cathedral followed by the famous bridge in Florence. The next day we walked
to the vantage point, which had the best view of Florence, followed by some
gardens.
Our first day in Rome we saw the
Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and Roman Forum. We had a pretty terrible tour guide
for the Colosseum, but then had the best tour guide (GREG) of the entire trip
for the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. Seeing all the ruins made me think about
all the rich history of the city. Coincidently, it just happened to be the ides
of March while we were touring the Roman Forum. So that was really cool. There
was also a man who came to the Forum dressed in ancient Roman attire to recite
an excerpt from Julius Cesar. That evening we decided to cook in to save money,
and it turned out to be one of my favorite nights of the trip. We made a pasta
dinner with dessert bread! The company and conversation were just awesome! It
really did feel like we were a family just sharing stories and laughing. We did
go slightly overboard…(a wine glass and a glass door panel happened to break).
The following day we took a tour of the Vatican museum, St. Peter’s Basilica, and
the Sistine Chapel. We saw statues on statues on statues while in the Vatican
City, and all of them were impressive. I really enjoyed the Sistine Chapel. The
artwork was just so incredibly impressive! The Chapel is still an active place
for worship (at least I think) so we had to be silent and could not take
pictures while in the chapel. After our Vatican City tour, we went and visited
the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, which were also remarkable. Although
Rome was super hectic, I really enjoyed seeing some of the key sites of the
city.
The next day we took a train to
Naples followed by a ferry out to Sorrento. Sorrento was just jaw dropping. The
town easily had the best views compared to any of the other cities on our trip.
The environment was just so peaceful. One of the reasons Sorrento was my
favorite city on this trip was that we really got to relax and just do what
ever we wanted to do with out having a schedule of “must see things”. On the
first day we checked in to our apartments, which were in the perfect location.
We then found this really cool English Inn with great food and friendly
workers, who gave us our drinks on the house. For the rest of the day, our
group went out to explore while I took a fantastic 4 hour nap. That night, we
had another “family dinner” followed by a night out at a bar and teaching some
orange trees a lesson on our way back. The following day we slept in and had breakfast
in the apartment. After breakfast, we set out to explore Sorrento. We came
across a soccer field and ended up playing some soccer and handball for 3
hours! After grabbing some coffee and walking down to the coastline, we found a
black sand beach. It was a fantastic way to spend the sunset: skipping rocks
and just chilling out. Our last day in Sorrento, which happened to be the
warmest day, was spent hiking to this cove near our place. A few of us went
swimming in extremely cold water. While swimming in the cove, we experienced
three stages of cold. At first, it was just an initial shock of cold and was
somewhat manageable. Second, our bodies stated too feel like they were on fire.
Third, everything goes numb. After warming up, we spent a little more time
hiking and taking in the view. That evening, we had our first meal out at a
nice restaurant in Sorrento and reflected on our time together.
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