Day 1
Marissa and I woke up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise as we pulled into Naples, Italy. Holy dream come true. It was pretty much the best thing I have ever experienced in my whole life. We got up just in time to see the sun peek out from behind Mount Vesuvius! It was absolutely stunning. After about a half an hour of being whipped by the wind, we went in to shower, get ready, and eat breakfast! We ate out on the 6th deck so that we could watch as we finished pulling into port. It looked just like all the pictures! We had our boring pre-port and then got off the boat to take our guided 5 city tour of Italy! We headed straight onto a ferry to take us to Capri. It was breathtaking over there. We went on a tram that took us up a steep hill to the top of Capri. We took some pictures and then headed to this garden in Capri that overlooked some gorgeous water and cliffs. We took many many pictures there. We spent a while there and then headed to this cute little place on the top of the hill for lunch. On the way to lunch, we passed a place that sold Lemoncelo (sp?) and our tour guides told us to go in and try it. Let me just tell you that this stuff is like lemon and sugar and 32% alcohol. They gave us a little tiny bit of it and it was more than enough to knock you off your feet. I wanted to bring some home for you all to try since it is pretty popular over here, but we are not allowed to bring alcohol on the ship. Anyway, back to lunch. We started off with bread, then some ravoli, then some nasty fish risotto (I did try it.. I just did not like it.. it had many weird fish in it and it smelled bad). After that, we had some salad with some shrimp as well as some calamari. I did try the calamari, but it was too rubbery for me. It wasn’t tooo bad, but I just did not really enjoy it. We had desert and then headed out to explore the hill for about 40 minutes before we had to take the tram back down. We hit up some shops and then got some Italian gelato! YUUUM. I got Nutella and something that was vanilla with chocolate shavings and brownie pieces. It was goooood!! We headed down the hill when we were done and we were able to spend another 40 minutes at the bottom of the hill. Marissa, Alyssa, and Melissa (tongue full I know!) went to the little waterfront where they had all the boats tied up and stood in the Mediterranean Sea! It was really cool! Of course, we took more pictures!
We then hopped another ferry to Sorrento. It is a beautiful place. As soon as we got off the ferry, we hopped onto a bus to take us up the hill to get to our 4 star hotel. (4 stars here is definitely a little less then 4 stars in the states, but its still nice). I have a random roommate and she is very nice. Our room over-looks the courtyard in the back and has a view of the outdoor pool – which is gorgeous – as well as the water, and a bit of the city of Sorrento. After we got settled, Marissa, Melissa, and Alyssa, and I tried to walk to one of the bigger plazas in the upper city, but couldn’t really find it. Along the way, we had fun crossing the roads – they followed me like little baby ducks running across a road and I had no idea where I was going, but it was HYSTERICAL. Then we stumbled across a little orchard in the middle of the city. It grew Oranges and Lemons. They also sold the Lemoncello. Since I already tried it, I tried the orange version. It wasn’t bad.. strong, but not as pungent as the lemon one. So we walked a little more and then had to head back to get ready for dinner. We went to the 5 star hotel next door for dinner. Boy, it was awesome. It was dinner with the most spectacular view of the sun setting over the water and mount Vesuvius in the back. Wow. We had pasta – SOO good – a ‘hamburger’ that was more like a big sausage patty (it was either that or flying squid – I did try a piece of the squid, but did not like it), a salad, and cake for desert. We also got a bottle of wine to share for dinner. It was a good red wine, I wish I would have looked to see exactly what it was, but we were so overwhelmed with the whole atmosphere – the live music, fun waiters, good food. The guy that was playing guitar sang stuff like “That’s Amore”, and “Fly Me To The Moon”, “New York, New York” (They LOVE that in Europe..), and “Time To Say Goodbye” but all in Italian. Wow. After dinner, the girls and I took the bus into the main square where we walked around and got more gelato. I got coffee and it was probably the best tasting coffee ‘ice cream’ I have ever eaten in my life! We finished up, walked around a little, window shopped, listened to music that was playing in the restaurants, and then headed back on the bus. WONDERFUL DAY!!!
Day 2:
We woke up and left Sorrento around 8am. We went to Pompeii and had a wonderful tour guide named Roberto! He took us all round to see the devastation that Mount Vesuvius had on Pompeii when it first exploded in 79 AD. It was beautiful and sad at the same time, as well as being SUPER hot. After our tour, we headed to a little restaurant and had some AWESOME pizza with buffalo mozzarella. We had a WHOLE plate of it to ourselves. Next, we started our 3 hour drive from Pompeii to Roma!! I slept pretty much the whole time. It was a nice nap! When we finally got to the GORGEOUS hotel, we had about 2 hours to explore before leaving for dinner, so first we got some gelato! It was so good. I got Hazelnut and some kind of chocolate with rum. We still had a lot of time, so we headed over to the shopping district. It took a little bit of time, and a stop at a store to get some water (which ended up being sparkling EW! So Alyssa got regular water and we switched, she likes the sparking!), but we finally made it there. It was cool; there are over 3,000 shops on the street, including Fendi and Ferrari label stuff!! We window shopped for a bit and had to get back to the hotel to get the bus for dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant off the well-beaten path. SAS pretty much took over, but everyone was sitting outside, so it was cool. It was so pretty; there was a band playing fun Italian music! They also put on a show with the band; there were people on the upstairs of the restaurant being silly and ‘fighting’ with the band. After a dinner of manicotti, noodles, and some weird mashed potato thing with ham and cheese in it, and finally ice cream, we headed off for a rushed tour of the Trevi Fountain, The Pantheon, and a cute square where I got a watercolor sepia painting of the coliseum. We headed back to the hotel, got some more gelato – this time I got pistachio and rice with honey. They were both good, but the rice and honey, although it sounds crazy, was actually very good!! Then, I broke down and bought an hour of internet which was 10 euro ($15) so that I could do a video chat with Steph and mom!!! It was sooooooo nice to see their faces and hear their voices! Tomorrow is a long day! Cant wait!! ☺
Day 3:
We had another 7 am wake up call for breakfast. Today is our day in Roma! Our first stop was the Vatican and we got to pass all the lines of people because we were doing the group tour. We started off with the Vatican museum and got to see a lot of cool art work and history, even the Sistine Chapel (we weren’t allowed to take pictures though). After the museum, we went into St. Peter’s Cathedral; it was so beautiful. There was a corpse of a dead pope in there – he looked fresh although he has been dead for a long time. It was… creepy. We had a little free time in the square, then hopped on the busses and got some lunch on the way to the Colesium. We had salad, bruschetta – which was amazing – and pasta, followed by some delicious fruit salad for dessert. Before we got back on the bus, we snuck over to get some gelato!! It was so cool to go and be able to see and walk around the coliseum.
Day 4:
This morning, we had to get up early again, this time to check out of out hotel to begin our journey to Naples. We stopped at Casserta and got to walk through the palace there. We had a tour aid that you have an earpiece hooked up to a walkie-talkie sort of device that the guide talked into so that you can hear him if he gets a head and so there aren’t multiple tours yelling at their groups. It was super uncomfortable and still hard to hear, so I didn’t get a whole lot out of what he was saying. It was very beautiful though! After the tour, we went back to old Napoli to get some lunch with the tour group. We had mozzarella and tomatoes, pizza margarita, and wine – which for once was included in the meal. It was okay, but the pizza in Rome was much better! The service took forever there as well, we were the last table to get served.. at least 35-40 minutes AFTER the first table to get served.. it was hard because I was soooo hungry. After lunch, we were given free time in one of the main squares by our ship. We were on a mission to find an ATM (since we could use the Euro in Greece) and stamps. We couldn’t find them, so Alyssa and I gave up to go sit by the water for a bit. We stayed down there and people watched with out feet in the water. We only had an hour, so we started back up the hill and got some refreshing gelato, for the last time, on the way back up. I don’t know if you were keeping track, but I had gelato 8 times and 14 different flavors (because I repeated 2 flavors). Gelato wasn’t as good as it was in Rome. Just as we were about to leave, Stefania told us where to find stamps, so we went up there to get some, and we told the guy that we needed to send the postcards to the US. He gave us .60-euro stamps, which was not enough, we later found out. Stefania told us we needed a 1-euro stamp, so she let us give her to postcards and money to cover the rest of the stamps and sent them out for us. How sweet! We got back to the pier at 5:30, had to go through security at the pier, and then had to go through the ship security. It took a little more than an hour and a half to get on the ship because they were letting independent travelers go in front of our large group, and needless to say, we were all getting pretty mad.; especially because they were having a BBQ on the 7th deck. We missed the actual BBQ, but they did keep some food warm for us, although it was not as good as it is when its fresh from the grill.
I LOVED Italy and cannot wait to go back and explore all the things I didn’t get to see in the places I was, and also to go explore the rest of the country!! ☺
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment