Spring Break: Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius

Day 15 3/4/10
Greg and I woke up super early to catch an 8am train from Naples to Pompeii and walked from the Pompeii station about a mile to get to the infamous ruins. On our way we stopped at a really cute cafe and sat outside drinking minuscule lattes and eating warm Italian pastries. Luckily when we got to the ruins they had a free luggage check so we threw our bags in and went out to explore the ancient city! Since we got there so early it wasn't that crowded but boy was it hot! It was definitely the best weather thus far on the trip and walking around for a few hours produced a baller tan. :-)










After walking around Pompeii we took a bus to the summit of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that caused the city of Pompeii to be covered in molten lava. The bus ride up took about an hour and a half on this tiny, curvy road. Every time the driver went around a corner he honked to warn drivers coming the other way that we were there. When we got to the drop off it was another half hour walk to look into the crater. It was really dip and we even saw a bit of steam coming out! The view was amazing and we could see all of Naples, all the way to Sorrento, our next destination.





Once we got back to Pompeii we hopped on a train to Sorrento, got off in the gorgeous city, bought some groceries, found the bus to our campsite and finally made it there. Campsites in Italy are very interesting. They're basically a place for people with camper vans to go but they also have little cabins that have no heat and a few beds. There's a big bathroom facility with showers and toilets and everything as well as a mini-market, restaurant and a rec room. Within 5 minutes of us arriving at the campsite we met our neighbor, Angela and she asked us if we wanted to go to Easter mass that night. We jumped on the opportunity and left to go into town at about 9:30pm. The service started outside, the priest said a bunch of stuff in Italian that we couldn't understand, they lit the palms and we moved inside. The church was dark inside but had amazing chandeliers and paintings on the walls. At midnight, the official start of Easter day, the lights turned on to signify the beginning of Easter. I understood a few words here and there that have similar meanings in French. After the service we went to an Irish pub to watch a final four basketball game and Angela and Greg were saying that it was weird not understanding the service but I kind of liked it. It reminded me of going to synagogue. It was a great way to spend my first Easter celebration and a really cool way to experience the religious side of Italian culture.

Spring Break: Florence and Pisa

Day 11 30/3/10
Greg, Riley and I packed up our stuff, checked out of our hotel, walked to the train station and said our goodbyes. Riley left us to go back to America and Greg and I boarded a train to Florence. The train was packed and there was a sketchy Italian man sitting across from us who kept trying to talk to us but we couldn't understand a word he was saying. About an hour into the train ride two women got on and apparently Greg and I were sitting in their seats so we moved further down the car and the creepy man followed us!!!! He didn't even find a seat, he just stood near us. It was so bizarre. We got off at the Florence stop at about 3pm and found Sasha who we were staying with during our time in Florence. Sasha has been studying there since January. We walked back to her flat and sat around talking with her and her roommates. We eventually left and got wine from this adorable wine on tap shop and yummy pizza too.


As we got to Sasha's front door we looked across the street into a convenient store and there, waving energetically to us was.... THE CREEPY TRAIN MAN!!! He works at the convenient store literally 10 feet from Sasha's door. WEIRD!
We spent the night at a bar that had a Beatles tribute band and then went to this club completely filled with American college students. Sasha told me that over 5,000 American uni students study abroad in Florence every spring and I could definitely see them everywhere we went.

Day 12 31/3/10
Greg and I spent the day exploring Florence. All the buildings are very old and really gorgeous. The streets are narrow and cobblestoned so it gave the whole city an old feel to it. My favorite part of the day was walking across the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge that goes over the river. It's lined with jewelery shops and packed with people.
The other side of the bridge had soooo many gelato stands. Not only was it delicious, but also really cool to look at.
The Ponte Vecchio
Harry Potter is everywhere!!


Our next stop was the Duomo, another cathedral. This one was even more interesting than the one in Milan. It looked like one of those 3D puzzles I used to have.


Unfortunately, the inside is not nearly as interesting as the outside. Oh well.
We went back to Sasha's apartment for dinner and spent the night pretending we were back in America.


Day 13 1/4/10
Greg, Ethan and I spent the day exploring again. We started at this brewery that had really delicious beers that were literally the size of my head.


Next on our day's mission was a trip across the river to the Palazzo Pitti, a Renaissance Palace, that housed some pretty famous rulers like the Medici family and Napoleon. It cost a lot of money to get in so we decided to just walk around it. We walked around the corner and there was an entrance to the Boboli Gardens! I had really wanted to go there but we were told it closed at 4pm and it was already 4:30. After being told it was closed by a guard, we snuck around to a side entrance where there was no one patrolling and walked in. We explored the gardens until they announced over the loudspeaker that the park was closing. It reminded me of a weird combination of Alice in Wonderland, the Secret Garden and of course, Harry Potter. There were secret passageways under green terraces, brightly colored flowers and an amazing panoramic view of Florence. Since we were there at dusk, the light hitting the city was truly amazing.



Once we were kicked out of the gardens we ventured back to Sasha's, got pizza for dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Day 14 2/4/10
We woke up early on our last day in Florence to spend the day in Pisa!! The train to Pisa is only about an hour so it's an easy day trip. We spent the entire time there taking pictures of ourselves in various different poses around the leaning tower, which is actually a bell tower for the cathedral. Here are some of our best shots:




I still can't believe I was actually there. The tower is essentially the mascot of Italy and I stood in front of it!

We made our way back to Florence, backed up our stuff, said goodbye to Sasha and Ethan and Greg and I started a bit of an amazing race evening. We walked to the train station where we were told that all the 3 hour trains (the Eurostar/fast trains) to Naples for the rest of the day were already full. The woman at the desk told us that we could take a different train from another train station in Florence to get to Naples. We ran to the platform to catch the train going to the other station, took the 5 minute train ride, waited half an hour for the train to Naples and got on. We traveled using Eurail passes for our whole month of traveling and for the fast trains you have to make a reservation to get a seat. We thought it was weird that we didn't have to make one for this one and we soon realized why. When we got on the train we realized that we didn't have seats. The train was designed to have only little 6 person compartments and then fold down seats in the aisle across from the compartments. Every time someone needed to walk past us we had to stand up and stick ourselves to the wall so they could pass. The train also took 6 hours because it made lots of stops at small villages instead of the Eurostar which only stops at big cities. We ended up befriending the people sitting in the cart across from us and talked to them for most of the train ride. They tested their English on us and wanted to know all about our travels. There was one 10 year old girl, Olivia, who spoke perfect English because her father is English and she acted as translator for most of the ride. Since the train didn't get in to Naples until after midnight, it was too late to get the train to Sorrento, where we were originally planning on spending the night. We got off the train in Naples, walked out of the station and stayed in the first hotel we saw. Greg and I were convinced it was haunted but it was cheap and close to the train station which was where we needed to be in the morning.

Next stop: Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius

Spring Break: Milan

It's been a while since I posted so I'm going to try to update as well as I can about the past few months. Here's my continuation of spring break!

Day 9 28/3/10
We woke up in Nice to our first of many surprises to occur throughout the day: daylight's savings happened while we were asleep and we were an hour late to check out of our hostel. Luckily, it wasn't a big deal and we were even able to leave our backpacks in a closet at the hostel so we could enjoy our last day in Nice. Unfortunately, we once again forgot that grocery stores are closed on Sundays and had to scrounge around at a few open markets for food. Eventually we made it to the beach with picnic in hand and enjoyed our last lunch in France. We walked to the old part of town for gelato at the best gelato place in Nice (I got fig gelato!), went back to the hostel to collect our things, said our goodbyes to all our new friends at la Belle Menuieure and hopped on a train to Ventimiglia, Italy, a seaside village on the border or France and Italy. We had a two hour wait in Ventimiglia before catching another train to Milan so we went down to the beach to chill and stretch our legs. As we turned a corner we saw beautiful snowcapped mountains!

Gwen and I in Ventimiglia
The next surprise came when we returned to the train station and ran into Nathan, a Georgian that we shared a hostel room with in Barcelona. Crazy how small the world can feel sometimes.

We got on the train to Milan with the largest pizza I have ever seen in tow and spent the train ride playing cards in our little train compartment. It felt like I was on the Hogwarts Express, especially when the food trolley came around.

We arrived in Milano Centrale which is a huge and gorgeous train station, found our hotel (a proper hotel with bathrooms and towels!), hung out for a bit and crashed after a long day of traveling.

Day 10 29/3/10
Spending the day in Milan left me with mixed feelings. We went to the Duomo, a huge cathedral and really the only thing to see in Milan besides expensive designer stores. The only reason we really stopped in Milan for the day and half we were there was because Riley and Gwen were flying back to England and Milan had the cheapest flights. But the cathedral was really pretty. We went to the top and could see the skyline of the city and the amazing detail of the building.



The inside of the building was also gorgeous. It was decorated with so much art and huge stained glass windows. I saw a reservation list for confession that spanned over the following weeks. I guess you have to bank on the fact that you'll have something to confess a few weeks in advance.






We spent the rest of the dreary day window shopping, went back to the hotel, packed Gwen up, walked her to the train station, got food in the grocery store INSIDE THE TRAIN STATION!!, said our tearful goodbyes sulked for the rest of the night.

I think the reason I didn't enjoy Milan as much as I could have was because I was still on a high from the amazingness of Southern France where it was sunny and beachy and warm whereas Milan was cold, rainy and didn't have much to offer. The metro system did remind me a lot of Boston's T which was nice.

Next stop: Florence!

Spring Break: Nice & Monte Carlo

This was the first of many traveling days during my spring break. We left Barcelona at 8:45am, got to Montpellier, France where we waited for 4 hours for our next train to Marseille, waited for an hour and finally got on the last train to Nice arriving to the train station in Nice at 11:30pm. Luckily our hostel was right next to the train station so we crawled into our room and fell asleep.

Day 6 25/3/10
Our hostel, Hotel Belle Menieure was the cutest place ever. It's a little house tucked away between two bigger hotels with a pebble courtyard in from and lots of trees, a sitting area and a big iron gate. We stayed on the third floor in a private 4 bed room with a slanted ceiling... very attic -esque.

Day 5 24/3/10
We slept in for the first time which was quite enjoyable, got what became a typical lunch (baguettes and cheese) and had a picnic on the beach. I was expecting the beaches in southern France to be sandy but alas, they are pebbly much like the beach back in Brighton. While picnicking we saw a big waterfall in the distance on the side of a mountain and decided we had to go there. We made our way over and walked to the top of the hill where we got an awesome view of the city.


As we were walking around the top of this hill we saw the port with a bunch of yachts so we ventured down and took some time to fantasize about owning yachts.

There's an elliptical machine on this yacht.

Nice is an amazing city. It has this old part of town with all these narrow streets for pedestrians dotted with shops, bars, restaurants and cafes. We walked through the old town to get back to the hostel, took a nap, freshened up and went out on the town! Our hostel manager, Robert, told us about this drum and base concert at a club in town called Le Volume. The concert was free if you were a member of the club so we paid the 2euro membership fee and went in. Now I'm a member of a club in Nice, France! NICE. Drum and base is really popular in England and it was funny to go to a club in France where they were in the middle of a month-long English music festival. It made me realize how even though every country in Europe is so different, the culture exchange is huge.

Day 7 26/3/10
We woke up with only one thing on our minds: crepes. We went back to the old part of Nice for a crepe lunch, bought some presents and made our way back to the beach to get some sun.

Riley and Greg enjoying the ocean air.



Soap is a big seller in Nice. This stand had a bunch of bath salts and other soapy products.
Once back at the hostel we hung out with Robert, our German hostel manager, his British friend who was in town for a wedding and three Canadians who are on a 2 year trip around the world. We spent the rest of the evening with all the people staying at the hostel. Literally, everyone was in our room hanging out and drinking. There were so many nationalities represented in one room: American, Canadian, Danish, British, German, Estonian, French and Korean. This night was the hostel experience I was hoping we would encounter. Later we decided to venture down to the beach and a few of the boys took a night swim in the freezing cold water. It was so fun just to meet people and be talking and laughing and skipping stones into the Mediterranean.

Day 8 27/3/10
This day brought with it the best weather we'd had so far. We decided to spend the day with the Canadians in Monte Carlo, Monaco so we took a 20 minute train ride to Monte Carlo. Monaco is the second smallest independent state in the world, the other one being Vatican City. It's also the world's most densely populated independent country. The train ride alone would have been enough amazement for the day, it was gorgeous ride with the bluest ocean on one side and huge cliffs on the other.




We spent the day exploring and saw more expensive cars and private banks than I knew existed. After hanging out at the beach for a bit we went to the port and saw the most amazing yachts including the "Lady Moura", the 19th biggest yacht in the world.





After returning to our hostel, napping and unwinding from a mind-blowing day in Monte Carlo, we made our way back to the old part of town to find a hookah bar where we spent our last night drinking delicious tea, smoking hookah and enjoying each other's company.
Nice observations: This place is paradise. There isn't a ton of touristy stuff to do so relaxing is main activity and we did plenty of that. All the homeless people have dogs here which is similar to what I saw when I was in Rennes in high school. They basically whore their dogs out so people will pity them and give them money. So sad. None of the dogs are ever on leashes. New goal: train Joey to be leashless. It might not go so well, but it's possible. Time does not exist when on vacation. Similar to in Barcelona and most other cities in Europe, there is a rent-a-bike program where you can pick up a bike at one location and drop it off somewhere else. There are lots of middle easterners and north africans living in southern France.