Big bus. Tiny roads. Winding cliffs.

We went to Amalfi!! Past tense because we didn’t have internet and are now back in Rome. But Amalfi is SPECTACULAR! It’s so ridiculously awesome, no lie. Before I keep talking about Amalfi, I’ll start from the beginning of our trip from Venice. We had to check out of our hostel at 10am so we had the entire day to hang out at some tables seeing that our train wasn’t until 9:12pm. Wooooo. So basically I caught up with the blog, posted some pictures on facebook and tried to figure out a little more with how to get to our hostel in Amalfi – it seemed to be a little bit of a hit or miss type deal at the time. Oh! I also finished the book I was reading (and had attempted to read for the past year…for some reason I just never finished it, so I started over), Into Thin Air. It was good but now I have to power study for the GRE. Oye.

We caught a bus for the Mestre station at 7 and hung out for a bit before we left. The guy at the ticket counter was really nice! He printed out the two tickets we needed and couldn’t figure out how to do ourselves at the self-service ticket thing. We’ve had a couple interesting interactions with people at train stations, usually involving them not really wanting to help us, so I’m glad this one went well. Our first train ride was fine – only 2 hours to Bologna, but the second one was…less than ideal… First of all, it was late, so we were sitting at the train station in Bologna for like 2 hours in the middle of the night and second, it was jam packed. We had seat reservations so we ended up having to kick people out of our cabin thing (all but two) but they had already put their baggage in the luggage holders…annoying. So basically we were on an 8 hour train ride throughout the night with a bunch of random people who didn’t have seat reservations and were just hanging out in the little hallway. But whatever, we made it…dreary eyed and ready to get off. Unfortunately we couldn’t go straight to a hostel and take a nap…we still had a little adventure to go…

We arrived in Salerno at 9am and got on a bus to Amalfi – which, for reasons we understood about 10 minutes in, would take over an hour (Google maps said it would be half an hour by car). What Google doesn’t take into account are the TINY roads, HUGE cliffs and ridiculously meandering roads one must navigate to get from Salerno to Amalfi. I know I wrote about the roads in NZ on that blog, and for the first 20 minutes that what the trip reminded me of…but then I decided this was a little bit more intense - if not only for the shear distance that these roads encompass but for the cliff drop-off on the side of the road. The roads really are only big enough for two regular cars to travel somewhat safely past each other and there not be a shoulder. Now imagine a coach bus traveling these roads, with the curves and the cliffs, trying to get by said normal sided vehicles. Let’s not even get into when two coach sized buses have to pass each other…talk about a close call, you don’t get any closer than that. Moral of the story: bus drivers here get major props from the Americans.


TINY little roads

Something else to add about all bus rides here (not just to Amalfi but all around the Amalfian Coast), there’s a whole lot of honking involved. Not an I’m-angry-because-your-driving-sucks honking but an oh-hey-huge-barreling-vehical-coming-around-the-0 visibility-corner honking. Literally, every corner the bus drivers honk a couple times – thank goodness it’s not an annoying honk because 100 honks in you’d be dying to get off the darn thing with the whole trip minus 10 minutes ahead of you. However, speaking of dying to get off, we had a couple minor motion-sickness casualties on the ride from Salerno. Nothing full-fledged, but Kayla and Holly were not feeling so hot after the initial ride there. No fun – first time for everything. I on the other hand was having a grand ‘ol time…weeeee.

Once we got to Amalfi, we chilled for a bit to let people recover while we waited for the next bus to Agerola/Campora…apparently where our hostel was. The bus driver we had was really awesome and let us know where the exact stop was when we got there, good thing because their stops are not marked AT ALL. After wandering a bit the wrong way down a road (which by the way there were only 3 roads marked on the map I had to get us to the place) we finally found our way. Trucking up the steps to the place we passed the neighbors, who didn’t know much English but helped us actually identify that this was where we needed to be. The gate we came to was locked and no one appeared to be there. The neighbors told us that we had to call them, which wouldn’t have been an issue if we had had a phone – I had the number, no phone. The neighbors pulled through for us and the little boy had a cell phone and called them for us – yay for awesome neighbors! Right when we got into the room we all collapsed and basically passed out for a 3-4 hour nap.


View from the bus to Agerola


Truckin along


View from our hostel...what?!

The next day we got up early (since it was Sunday there weren’t many buses running) and got to the beach at – get this – 8am. WOO. I can’t say that’s the earliest I’ve gotten to a beach, but it’s the earliest that I’ve gotten to one and stayed a significant amount of time (6-7 hours). Clearly just about no one was there so we weren’t entirely sure how it worked (if we had to pay or something). We ended up just plopping and seeing if anyone came over to tell us otherwise – no one did, win. Within a couple hours the beach was swarming with people – most of whom rented these nifty lounge chairs that had a moveable shade roof thing. Holly and I took the plunge into the water when we started feeling toasty- it was like heaven. A little chilly to begin with but literally the perfect temperature and since the Mediterranean is so salty, you literally just float without moving. The water is also very blue. PERFECTION.


View of Amalfi while swimming!


Cute little town

Once we were feeling pretty crispy (figuratively not literally (except Kelly…) - we reapplied sunscreen several times parents!) we got up and walked around the shops for a bit. We ended up taking an earlier bus back to eat our food at the hostel (which by the way is a basically a B&B minus the second B) and chill there for the rest of the day. Probably a good choice since we were going to be outside all day the next day too – adventure to Positano! Positano is another little town about 40 minutes from Amalfi and it is somehow even more beautiful. We went swimming almost immediately after getting there then sat on the beach until we felt like our skin was melting off (I don’t think we made it much more than 45 minutes), it was quite warm. Poor Kelly was wrapped up with no skin showing…she’s allergic to sunscreen – problemssss. After we left the waterfront, we went to find somewhere to eat and ended up picking a place right on the beach. It was SO GOOD (thanks to Kayla’s mommm!), YUM. Kayla and I split pesto pasta and a margarita pizza, Kelly got rigatoni and Holly got gnocchi. We demolished it all – I thought I was going to explode…so what do we do? Go get gelato, logical enough. After that we just walked around the town and went into shops and such.


Positano!!




FOOOOOOOOD :)


YAY! :)



We’ve been amazingly lucky with the weather everywhere. I mean it rained in Ireland but not all that much at all and it hasn’t rained at all in Italy. The only day it was a little overcast was the day we just hung out at the hostel in Venice all day before our train and even then it was still nice. I hope this good luck continues!

We are now in Rome for the night, flying out to Scotland tomorrow! SO EXCITED! I’m really glad we had 2 weeks in Italy – it really was the right amount of time for this trip. We’ve seen so much and it has been incredible but I think we are all ready for Scotland. These past two weeks have been jam packed and slightly hectic to figure out and I think we are also ready for a little less language barrier problem. Yes, the American’s are ready for some English. I know, typical, BUT we have tried our best these past two weeks, at least we gave it a good shot and semi-succeeded!

Ciao Italia – It’s been real. Bring on Scotland!

Fun Fact: Apparently the Amalfi Coast is known for lemons…? There is lemon paraphernalia EVERYWHERE, including the biggest lemons you have ever seen in your life…


HUGE lemons...those are relatively large nectarines beside them

Venice: Waving makes us happy.

Sooooo we love Venice – or at least I do and the others seemed pretty stoked about it too. It’s so pretty! And awesome! Both Kayla and Holly said yesterday that this will be the first place in Italy that they are legitimately sad to leave, I would have to agree. Don’t get me wrong, the other places are awesome and I will gladly spend more time in them…but Venice feels like a place I could totally stay for a while or just keep coming back to over and over without ever being like ‘Ok…it’s Venice again’.


Venice!!


There are a lot of these bridges - don't come to Venice with rolling luggage if you have to walk a bit to your hotel or whatever...so many people struggling.


Gondola!!

Holly and I woke up earlier on Wednesday to get on a ferry but Kayla and Kelly decided to take a later one in. Both days we were in Venice we just wandered around the city. Let me tell you – it’s most definitely a labyrinth. You don’t have to even try to get lost, it just happens. Holly and I went on the idea that we were just going to walk and see what we run in to, it turned out quite well actually. In the places we did stop, we would get out the map and figure out where we were and approximately just what direction we wanted to go in…then we just went. There are so many little side alleys and canals, we ran into a lot of dead ends but we kept truckin. Venice is split up into different areas which have names on the map. Our favorites were San Marco and San Polo (we originally wanted to stand on opposite sides of a bridge and yell to each other, Marco…POLO. It didn’t end up happening). We ran into some cathedrals and Piazza San Marco that had a ton of pigeons. Holly decided to stand with her arms out to see if any pigeons landed on here, she made a friend…and it just sat there for like 3 minutes. The square was pretty impressive but was under a bunch of construction so we didn’t get the whole effect.


Cool cathedral




Piazza San Marco


Holly found a friend

There were SO many shops…everywhere. Murano glass is the big thing in Venice, we didn’t make it over to the island with the factory on it but we saw a ton of glass shops. Holly and I had our first real Italian cannoli (YUMMY) but we were wondering if cannolis were more emphasized as a major Italian pastry when it may actually not be as popular here – only because we had a hard time finding them both days. But both days they were spectacular. Upon our wandering we decided to go sit by the Grand Canal to rest our feet and we found the BEST spot ever. It was a small docking area near some art exhibit thing, but it wasn’t somewhere that many people would go there – we had a few visitors here and there, who were probably going to the art thing first anyway. Legit, we sat there for over an hour waving at people. Yesterday when Kayla came with us (we actually found the spot again!!) she said that she thought there was an American stereotype that we say hi to everyone…we at least supported that one. But it’s SO MUCH FUN!! It literally made us so happy and giddy. People are fun and I’m glad that waving is a universal thing. So great. :)


Dock beside our waving spot!

Holly and I also decided that it would be worth our while to have another (and more so) real Italian meal. I mean one of the ‘sights’ of coming to Italy is to eat right? We have definitely exhausted the bread/cheese/nutella meals, of which we will still be participating in fully, but we came across a restaurant that had a ‘tourist special’ – 3 courses for like 20 euro…not bad at all we thought. We each got separate dishes and shared: First course: lasagna and caprese, Second course: Rosemary roast turkey with mixed salad and ‘fish’ platter with roasted vegetables, Third course: Melon, strawberry and lemon gelato and cream pudding with fruit sauce. YUM. The only thing that was iffy was Holly’s ‘fish platter’. The translation of that part of the menu was not ideal. It ended up being fried calamari, shrimp, jelly fish and some fish thing. Holly struggled a bit (kind of freaked out) because the tentacles were still on the jellyfish, legs still on the shrimp and some sort of fin still on the fish. She was a trooper and ate the shrimp after peeling them and some of the fish. Somehow I managed to eat most of the calamari (it was really tender, that’s the only reason I could) and I actually tried a tiny bit of the jellyfish – didn’t taste like much but was much chewier than the calamari. So that course was interesting but everything else was awesome. The lasagna and caprese were spectacular, turkey was random but good and the gelato was great, as always. Holly ate the cream pudding thing, it was custardy so I didn’t eat much of it (did try it though!). I’m really glad we did that, especially since we didn’t do anything particularly touristy in Venice that we had to pay for (just shopping and the ferry).

Holly, Kayla and I went into Venice again the next day – Kelly decided to chill in Fusina – and we just wandered again. We ran into this awesome mural thing made out of painted eggs. It baffles me how people put this stuff together, one thing I know for sure…I wasn’t meant to be an artist. We also got pastries again, Holly and I again with the cannolis and Kayla got some other cannoli-type thing (not sure what it was called). Like I said, we eventually made it back to the spot Holly and I were in the day before (after shopping a bit) and continued our waving escapades. So much fun.




Pastry happiness


One of the murals


Close-up of the egg murals


Kayla and I :)

Alright, I’m going to cut it off here but I can’t wait to come back already – and I DEFINITELY want to come back here. We had the best time just walking around little side streets and canals really not knowing where we were going at all. At one point Holly and I wandered around the same area for 2 hours – not making it too far, but always going down a different street with shops, we felt like we were getting places…haha. Then later we thought we had actually just walked around the same area for a while but ended up to be a lot further away. My recommendation for Venice (and just about anywhere) is to get lost and see what you run into.


Ciao Venice...for now. Next stop - Amalfi!

Fun Fact: There are 400 licensed gondolas in Venice…apparently it’s really hard to get licensed and there are only 3 or 4 issued each year. Also, there has been a whole lot of sneezing on this trip – something’s in the air.

Trail of Struggles

Well now, I have quite a bit to update…it has been an interesting couple of days – good and not so good. We left Parma with our ‘open tickets’, which literally just said “Parma to Venice” without any train numbers or seat numbers. Apparently we are to use them on only regional trains, but I was still slightly concerned. However, those trains turned out to be the least of our worries. We went to the train station (of which we really weren’t sure where it is, Magda gave us directions but more of a literal direction…we didn’t have a map) in the morning for a train at 8:30ish to Bologna. However, we got on the wrong train – in the hustle and bustle of it all we got on one that came to the same track, but 10 minutes earlier. The train the guy checking our tickets made a funny face but didn’t say anything and moved on. Not entirely sure what it was about, but I would be willing to bet he wasn’t sure if we were supposed to be on that train either. I was PRAYING that it was also going to Bologna and to our luck…it did, because after that it went to Florence (that would have been a bit of an issue).

Once we made it to Bologna we were supposed to only have 3-5 minutes to get to the next train, but since we got on one 10 minutes early we thought we should be golden. We walked down to the schedule and realized that the one we thought we needed to get on didn’t exist at 9:28am, but thankfully I spotted that it existed at 9:56am. YAY! We hopped on that one, I made a friend with the snack cart guy (picture and all) and were on our way to Venice. This is where it starts to get really dicey. So our hostel (Camping Fusina) is not IN Venice…it is on the mainland, there was only one hostel on one of the islands in Venice. There are two train stations in/near Venice…Mestre and Venice San Lucia – I kind of had directions from either and we could have gotten off at either train station. I decided we should get off at the first one because there was supposed to be a bus from Mestre to Fusina for 1 Euro and lets us off right at the hostel – good deal right? At least opposed to going into Venice city, somehow making it to the other side with all our crap and without a map to a ferry that would cost at least 5 Euro. I thought it was a logical choice…apparently not. After waiting for an hour for bus No. 11, Holly went to ask some more people about it – guess what? They cancelled bus No. 11. Um really? The only one that ran to Fusina that we could find was bus 16 which, according to the timetable on the bus stop window, only ran late at night (it was 1 in the afternoon).

So plan B started to commence as outlined above. We were going to jump on some other train going to S. Lucia and figure it out from there. Easier said than done apparently. We got on the wrong train, again, but this time it was really the wrong train. After it was speeding along for a good 20 minutes and we hadn’t gone over water, I began to get a little concerned. I told Holly we needed to get off at the next stop and figure it out because it definitely wasn’t right. And oh boy, was it not right. Good thing we got off when we did…definitely the wrong direction. So how did we get on the wrong train? The screen we looked at in the beginning was different from the screen by the train but, still being rushed it, we went with it. So now we were somewhere…S. Dona di Pave Jesolo?? I don’t know, but good news, there was a train back to Mestre and TO S. Lucia 20 minutes from then (it was now 2). At this point I was more annoyed and in pain than stressed out and Holly was at the point that it was so bad it was funny….so she started laughing, and her laugh is contagious to it lightened the mood a bit.


Random train station we got off at...

Finally on a train that was actually going to S. Lucia, we realized that Italians must be pretty lax about tickets because not once in our train hopping did we get our tickets checked. Totally fine by me. For basically the 5th time we arrived back at Mestre, stayed on the train this time and went over the water (WOO) to S. Lucia. Once there, I had iffy directions I had written down last-minute before we left – I didn’t actually think we would need them…good thing I tried). We ended up not using the directions much and just walked in the general direction the ferry was to leave from. Aching shoulders, feet and emotions we FINALLY made it to Zattere at 4:36…guess when the ferry left? 4:30. Good thing they are every hour. We were hot and tired so we indulged in some gelato while we waited in the shade…Kit-kat and straciatella (? Basically chocolate chip) for me, yum. When 5:30 rolled around we went up to get in line and board when we noticed that everyone had tickets…except us, for which we assumed in our delirious state that we just paid when we got on. A woman near us heard us talking about how everyone had a ticket and said that we needed to go to the ticket office – behind the white building behind us. She said we might be able to make it if we hurried…so hurry we did, right past the ticket office. Not just a little bit past it, a significant distance past it until we came to another ferry dock ticket office…oye. We turned around and when we were almost back to our dock (boat had left) we see a blatantly obvious sign, complete with a picture of a ferry, right outside a door that I had definitely glanced at. FAIL. Tickets in hand we headed back to our spot in the shade and waited another hour…


Going over water!!! SUCCESS!


Right outside the S. Lucia train stations...now to find the ferry...

6:30 – finally on the ferry to Fusina. It was a good ride over, relaxing and the breeze felt good. Arrival to Fusina was a little strange…everyone just started walking the same way. We followed the crowd despite thinking to myself that everyone couldn’t possibly be going to the same place – they were. Camping Fusina is a campground, with room for tents, drive in campers and little camper cabins (what we had). We stayed a place like this twice in NZ and the whole idea of the place plus actually being here made me ridiculously giddy. I’m super excited about this whole campsite thing for some reason, I think it’s great, haha. We have a little camper thing that is literally 2 rooms with 2 beds in each – its cozy. Showers, bathrooms and sinks are a little ways down from us and there is also a restaurant, mini market and bar-type place. I’m totally happy with it, that it’s pretty cheap and that we are here. WOOHOO!


Waiting for the ferry again, this time with tickets...


ON THE FERRY!


Somewhat relaxing


Our cabin thing


We had fun taking pictures



I am going to leave it off here for now. I will update about today and tomorrow in Venice tomorrow night! Just know – I love Venice.

Fun Fact: “At some point, really, all you can do is laugh.” – Holly Furman

Parmesan and Prosciutto in Parma

UPDATE: Since I posted the Florence blog before we actually left, I have some updates! We ran into some interesting things on our last day literally right from the moment we left our hostel. There was a group of Italian guys standing around 2 seconds down the road in some very colourful outfits – including tights and hats with huge feathers. Clearly we had no idea what was going on and never actually found out what it was for in the end, but we hung around to see what would happen. There was a group of them with flags, a group with drums and a few that were really intense that looked like professors in the academia walks for graduations. After waiting for a while and snapping some pictures, they started a drum cadence and lined up – assumedly for a parade-type deal, in which we followed. We followed them to a big plaza where there were like 6 more groups of the same combination of people but differently coloured outfits. At this point we were thoroughly confused, but we figured it was just a big parade. We watched them all march by – there were some bands, horses, men with old weapons and a decorated cow. Yes, a cow. After we left to go find gelato, we saw a big stadium where they all ended up, so something more than just the parade was going on…but you needed a ticket so we never found out. Owell.


Drummers!


Sick outfits and the most random thing to run into.

Also, that night after we went back to the room to rest a little, we decided to go back to the Ponte Vecchio to hang out. On our way there we ran into a marathon, for which we cheered…the entire time. 1) There are some very enthusiastic Italians, and 2) There are some not so very enthusiastic Italians. First, we were the only ones consistently cheering, especially when it got to the last few people in the marathon. So I’m not surprised that some people probably got annoyed with us, but if I were to run a marathon I would undoubtedly be at the back and would for damn sure want someone to cheer if I were still alive at that point. Second, since there is no physical way that I could run even 10 minutes…I give major props to anyone who runs a marathon – hence the cheering. So basically our overall experience is that everyone in the marathon appreciated our cheering, a lot - some WAY more than others (we got a lot of high fives, blown kisses and billowing shouts of success) and a few bystanders (including the police) did not appreciate it. However, the few that did not appreciate it and made it known either assumed we were Italian or that we looked like we could speak Italian fluently. Clearly we had no idea what they were saying, but the invention of people talking with their hands led us to understand. One kid put his fingers in his ears, but was more joking about it and the guard basically told us that if we were going to cheer to move down the street because she couldn’t hear her radio. It was fun and we made people feel good, all that matters right?


Runner in the race, didn't want to blind them with flash and I thought this came out cool anyway!

Now for Parma. We successfully made it and met up with Holly’s friend, Magda, outside the train station. She has the cutest apartment here (so jealous) and she has it all to herself. She took us around Parma, we got some gelato (surprise) and sat in a park for a bit – the weather was awesome, not that it’s been bad but it is a little cooler than Florence here. We came back to the apartment to do a load of laundry and make soup – one was successful, one was not. As a hint, Magda was apparently unsuccessful first attempt with the soup but brilliantly carried out the second attempt. Previous attempts with the laundry on her part were successful…this one was not, for the most part. The clothes are clean but the washer has seen better days. For some reason the water wasn’t draining from the washer, despite several attempts, so the clothes were just sitting in the water that had already washed the clothes twice. I thought we had decided to let them sit there in hopes that the water would drain, but the next thing I knew there was the sound of a whole lot of water pouring from somewhere. Holly and I were in the living room and Kelly was in the bathroom so I had assumed it was the toilet, but then I heard Kayla say something along the lines of “Oh dear”. I realized what it was and ran out to the kitchen to Magda holding the washer door and Kayla throwing towels on the floor. Apparently Magda decided to turn off the power and force the door open. It was quite the laundry experience. We had to mop up the floor with towels, empty the remaining water into a pot and dump it and wring out all the clothes and put them up to dry. So funny.


Entrance to a park....a park...


Cathedral - so pretty!




The organ!

Later that night we went to go get a platter of parmesan and prosciutto – both of which originated from Parma. SO GOOD. However, clearly this day was full of struggles because we had some language barrier issues with the bill at the end. It came out to be 43 euro when it should have been 25. We eventually sorted it out but it was a 15 minute ordeal that Magda handled like a champ with her Italian speaking. So it’s all good. We made dinner for Magda on our last night to repay her for letting us stay here/the food we had our first day. I’m really glad we came here – it was a really good way to get out of the touristy cities for a couple days. :)




Cool Buildings

In other news, for some reason I can’t get through a day without having some sort of body issue, it’s been my feet recently. Generally they have just been hurting a lot with all the walking, but now I have blisters of the front pads of my feet – right in the middle below my toes. Like what – who gets blisters there? We have no idea what to do about them and they are literally right where I walk. Oye.

Fun Fact: Everyone goes out on Sunday nights, like EVERYONE. Apparently people leave the ‘city’ during the day (generally just Sundays because everything shuts down) then come back and swarm the streets.

Gelato, gelato, gelato…everywhere!

____ : Florence :: Starbucks : NYC

How’s that for an analogy? That should be on the GRE, I’d win. But really, there are gelato places EVERYWHERE here in Florence – at least 2 per block (one for each side of the street). So needless to say, we are having gelato more than once during this 3 day stay. I would like to have it twice a day but that unfortunately cannot happen. However, when we do have it…it basically constitutes a meal for the day. The first day we were here, we literally had bread for breakfast, gelato for lunch and bread for dinner. Yay for Europe on a budget. We did, however, have a real Italian meal last night! PASTA! Well pasta for Holly and I, Kayla had pizza and Kelly opted out for a cheaper means of eating – you guessed it, bread. I had my first (and probably last for this trip) glass of wine in Italy and basically just because it came with what I ordered – ravioli stuffed with a bean/potato mixture and topped with a meat and black cabbage sauce…it was really good. I had 4 large-ish raviolis with a glass of wine and I was totally stuffed, my stomach is definitely shrinking.

The train ride from Rome was good, I stayed awake so that I could see the scenery as we passed by and it gave me time to go through my pictures from Rome. Finding our hostel turned out to be an interesting and semi-difficult task. We made it to the street it was on and walked down it twice before coming to an unmarked part of the building that it could have been in – so we went in. Three flights of stairs later we started buzzing some random room that said ‘Veronique’ on it, the name of the hostel. Just when we decided to keep going up a guy comes running down the stairs, lo and behold, it’s the hostel guy. Long story short, our hostel is basically an apartment building. We have our own room within an apartment room type thing and there are two bathrooms that everyone shares. We even have our own keys to the building, the lift, the apartment and our room in the apartment. Kind of cool, kind of weird.

Shortly after checking in we went out to explore Florence and ended up making our way to the Ponte Vechhio – a famous pedestrian bridge with shops on it. All of the shops actually on the bridge are jewelry, the street basically glistens with gold, silver, diamonds and other various jewels. After more walking and passing at least 12 gelato places, we stopped to get some. This time I got pistachio and chocolate…delicious. They also had a Nutella one, which was also delicious according to Kayla and Holly. Post-gelato, Kayla and I went to the Uffizi gallery while Holly and Kelly explored more of the city. The gallery was awesome, so many paintings and sculptures. Unfortunately the David is in the Accademia so we haven’t gone to see him – we are a little too cheap and we can’t take pictures. We figured the Uffizi was a little more worth it with everything that was in there – although we still couldn’t take pictures. There are two replicas of the David around the city, both of which we saw, so we were okay with that.


Ponte Vecchio


Uffizi Gallery!!


One of the replicates of David in Florence (left)

Friday was supposed to be our trip to Pisa, but we all fell asleep early and slept through all alarms trying to get us up, so basically it turned into a chill day of wandering around. Holly met up with a friend from Harvard and we met her later at the bridge. Before we met up with her we went up to the Piazzale Michelangelo for a fantastic view of the city. We had also decided not to go up into the Duomo, so this was a good alternative for a view of the city. We had to trudge up a hill for 10 minutes to get there, but it was worth it. :) The other replicate of the David is there, and is green…assuming they made it in copper or something. Last night we went back down to the Ponte Vecchio for sunset (which is at 9pm, a bit closer to NY time than the 11pm sunset in Ireland) and it turned out to be the thing to do. There was a band and people dancing – so much fun! We are going again tonight. We also got a little carried away with the fireworks setting on our cameras…there are a couple pictures below for examples.


Part of the Duomo from the outside - looks so cool.


View of the city from Piazzale Michelangelo


Kelly, Kayla and I


Sunset!



Fun with camera settings...

Seeing that Pisa didn’t happen yesterday, it was supposed to happen today. Clearly by that statement, it did not – but it was on our own accord. We booked hostels last night for Scotland, which was a little depressing to the bank accounts…or will be, and we had already decided we weren’t going to pay the 15 euro to climb the tower anyway. So we basically would have been spending 12 – 15 euro to get out there, which isn’t that bad but when all we were going to do was look at it, we decided against it. So in the end we have made Florence our recovery time. It has been non-stop and quite intense since we arrived in Europe and we needed some chill days. It would have been cool to see the tower, but I’m also fine spending that money on something else too. The rest of today will probably consist of more wandering and photo ops, then to find what Sari deems as the best gelato place in Florence. I hope we find it – it’s my dinner.


Apparently it's a thing here to place a padlock by the Ponte Vecchio to signify eternal love...I just thought they looked cool.


I adore small cars, I absolutely love these tiny trucks...

We are leaving for Parma tomorrow and we are staying with one of Holly’s friends for a couple days. From there we go to Venice! Internet is going to be non-existent in Parma we are told and it looks like they are charging an arm and a leg for it in the hostel we are staying at in Venice. Soooo for all the parents, I will probably buy a little internet once in Venice so that we can send out email notifying you of our existence but blogs and updates will be scarce past that. We arrive in Venice on the 21st and leave on the 24th for Amalfi…we’ll see how internet goes from then on. Good news is that we should have internet consistently when we arrive in Scotland on until we come home. Happy Father’s Day shout out to my dad for tomorrow!!

Fun Fact: The only hindering aspect about Florence…it smells…not consistently, but there are waves of it in the air that are rather unappealing.