Roma

Well it's about time I start telling you all about my trip (that happened a while ago, sorry) to Italy.  If you don't want to read details, you can (if you have facebook) go straight to my page and see the photos alone.  I've made them public so friends and family can see them.

We will start with Rome!
March 27-April 1

I began with a trip from Girona, Spain to Pisa, Italy.  A short bus ride took me to Florence where I took a very fast train to Rome!
I was really pumped that I could claim "planes, trains, and automobiles."

Once I made it to Rome I got hopelessly lost trying to find my hostel when it turns out I was just five minutes away from it.  I called the hostel and discovered that their English wasn't too great so I had to bust out my (very slim) Spanish skills only to discover that I couldn't understand Spanish with an Italian accent!

Once I actually found the hostel I ventured out into Rome.  The hostel was in a suuuper central location, only 7 mins from the Colosseum, so I was able to get places fairly easily.  With that, I will start with the pictures!

From the street where my hostel was located.

Bocce in the park.

Colosseum

 Trevi Fountain 

Just about no one at the Trevi fountain understood that you could still make a wish on the other side (where I was).  There was virtually no one where I was standing.

The view from the Spanish Steps.  This street is lined with every designer from Chanel to Dolce & Gabbana.  It was incredible.

Full moon on my first night in Rome!

Day two was reserved for the Vatican.  It was PACKED.  Since I was there just before Easter, Vatican City was a zoo.  Everywhere I went in the museum, I was packed like a sardine with tons of other people.  And even in such a holy place, you'd be surprised at how selfish and rude some of them were just to get a few feet ahead of you, or to take a picture, or to be first in line for the tickets.  Humanity aside, it was an incredible museum and an incredible place to be.

View from the Vatican Museum

St. Peter's

Another view from the museum.

One of the many incredible halls at the Vatican museum.

Van Gough in the exhibit of contemporary art at the Vatican museum.

Back side of St. Peter's

The line for St. Peter's Basilica wrapped all the way around Vatican City, which was a TON of people.  So I said "hello" and left. 

This is Piazza del Popolo.  I was absolutely stunned that this place was basically empty as it was one of my favorite places in Rome.  While sitting here resting my bones, I noticed that there were people climbing stairs in the back (where you see the cream colored wall) of the Piazza.  After a serious pep talk to get myself off of the bench, I decided to trek up to the top of the steps, and man was I amazed at what I found.

This view at the top of the steps is what I found.  I was absolutely blown away at how much of Rome I could see.  This and the park behind here was my favorite part of Rome and I even came back and visited a second time on my last day.

This incredible park was behind the overlook that you just saw.  It was so serene and quiet the day that I went.  When I came back later in the week it was full of Italians.  I felt like I was in another world as little children ran around and music played and puppet shows decorated corners.  It was really fantastic.  Also, beside this park is one of the houses of the Medici family which is actually owned by the French. On this particular day I walked about 5 miles in total.

My next day was spent in Tivoli at the Villa d'Este.  I will write a separate post on that to keep up the Roman flow.

Olives!

I came upon Chiesa di San Gregorio al Cielo when I decided to take a different route to get to the colosseum and the center of Rome.  It was a great stop and I'm just now discovering how amazing of a place it is.  It turns out the church and the monastery attached to it were created around the year 570 and it was crumbling to bits when the Camadolese monks took over in 1573 and set out to renovate.

Mother Teresa graces the front lawn of the church.

The following pictures are from my last day and are of the ruins from the Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum.

It turns out that inside that arch is the incredible fountain below.

Just some side notes about my time in Rome:

I started every day like this.

I found a supermarket and made an awesome dinner of FRESH pasta (the supermarkets sell it fresh!) with prosciutto and zucchini.

I also had an incredible dinner one night of Bucatini all'amatriciana which is bucatini (thick spaghetti with a thin hole down the middle) in a spicy tomato sauce with some crunchy pancetta tossed in to add pure magic.

I found an absolutely incredible fabric shop while trying to find some sort of monument.  It was above another upholstery shop and every humongous room contained a different type of fabric from suiting wool, to shirting cotton, to lace, to sequins.  This place had it all.

And I only took one picture of myself!

Alright!  My next posts will be about Villa d'Este and then my time spent in Florence.

-Autumn

On Travelling Alone

Hi everyone!
As you may or may not know, I spent the last two weeks travelling through Italy for my spring break. I travelled entirely alone for the first time in my life and it was quite an experience. Before I get all personal and deep let's start with what my itinerary was, ok?
March 25: 7hr train ride to Barcelona where I met Laura's incredible cousin who (with the help of his boyfriend) took great care of me!

March 26th: After a day of exploring Barcelona by bike with Javi I took a train to Girona where I got hopelessly lost trying to find my hostel for the night.

March 27th: Beginning at 4:30am I began my trip to Italy starting with a bus to the Girona airport for 6am flight to Pisa, Italy. Once in Pisa I took a bus to Florence where I waited for a train to Rome. I got hopelessly lost in Rome (again) trying to find my hostel.
Details about where I went will come during their individual posts.

April 1st: After five days in Rome I took a train back to Florence where I would spend the next four days.

April 5th: Train to Milan. I got lost again because the metros stopped mid travel to my hostel because of an attempted suicide so I had to wing it through the streets of Milan.

April 6th: Bus to Milan's airport for an 8am flight to Madrid where I took a 4.5 hr bus back to Vitoria!

Phew! What a whirlwind of travel, but through it all I stayed safe and healthy and had a great time.

Travelling alone was definitely a challenge as it isn't usually my style to go out and try new things without at least one person by my side. However, I am so glad I decided to do all of this on my own, just as I decided to come to Vitoria on my own because it has given me the ability to discover new strengths (and weaknesses) in myself that maybe I wouldn't have discovered if I could rely on another person. For instance, I now know how to read a map pretty freaking well, and I never got lost once while using one which I was pretty proud of in a monster of a city like Rome.

Being alone for almost 14 days also gave me a lot to think about.  I'll have to admit that sometimes it got the best of me and I had to work very hard to distract myself (seems pretty shallow seeing as I was in some of the world's most incredible places).  None of this thinking lead to any sort of concrete solutions of revelations, but I did have the ability to mull over things that could not have been done had I been with other people.

Starting the trip by myself was not easy as my first night I almost choked on my food with the thought of how ridiculous I looked sitting alone at a bar eating dinner.  However, I learned from my mistake of not having a book with me and that fixed my problem very quickly, not to mention no one really cares that you're eating alone. Once I hit Rome and started to explore I really started to appreciate what was happening.  I was seeing incredible history and beautiful views on every corner.  Not a day went by that I didn't thank the lord for allowing me to have such an incredible opportunity.  Sometimes when I was walking down the street and the sun broke through, I would just stand there with my eyes closed and really take in my life.  It didn't matter if anyone else was around because (as I learned earlier) no one else cared, and no one else mattered.  For those moments it was me, the sun, and an incredible city. I still have a hard time even wrapping my mind around being in Spain, but travelling around Italy really made it all seem like a dream.

I did learn a few things though.
1. Drink well.  Eat better.
2. Ibuprofen is your friend (your feet will thank you).
3. The Romans do not like toilet seats.
4. "Your vacation, your rules."  This was my mantra for two weeks. It means if I want to have gelato one hour after breakfast that I'll do it.  It means that if I want to see this museum and then backtrack to go to that piazza, that I'll do it.  It means that I'll do whatever it is that I want, on my time, to make myself happy.  And that's exactly what I did.

I'll post picture posts soon enough so you can have a taste of what I saw.

Autumn

 

(This is the only picture I have of myself and it's pretty bad/lame. But this was in Rome at the Forum).