Day 1 : Rome part 1
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First meal in Italy! |
My first big trip this semester: Rome and Florence, Italy! We arrived pretty early in Rome after getting up way too early to make a 6:30am flight. When we finally got to Termini train station after taking a shuttle from the airport, we just started walking to get our bearings and stumbled upon Piazza della Republica and Santa Maria delgi Angelli, then passed the Fontana del Tritone on the way to the hotel! Since we only had the rest of Thursday and part of Friday in Rome, we decided to do a speedy tour of as many monuments we could fit in one day on Thursday. We hit about 17, if we counted right – try to tell me that’s not efficient tourism! The first one we visited was the Fontana di Trevi, where we all made wishes as is apparently custom for everyone to do. We had our first meal near there too, which did not disappoint! By far the most amazing pizza I’ve ever had in my life.
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Piazza Navona - Neptune's Statue |
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The better half of the Pantheon |
That afternoon we breezed our way through as many monuments and sights as our exhausted bodies would take us to, trekking all over the ancient city. We visited the Pantheon next, which was much less stunning from the outside than I imagined because half of it was being restored so we couldn’t get the full effect. The inside was beautiful with the rotunda and oculus opening to the sky! On our way to Piazza Navona, home of Bernini’s famous Four Fountains statue we explored a few gourmet shops and tried some real extra virgin olive oil and balsalmic vinegar! Too bad we couldn’t bring any back, because RyanAir only allows one carry on bag each. Not fair.
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Amanda and Me at Bernini's Four Fountains Statue |
Piazza Navona was definitely one of my favorites, where the ancient Romans went to watch the ‘games’ and was thus known as the ‘Circus Agonalis’, competition arena. It was amazingly beautiful with the Fountain of the four Rivers in the middle by Bernini, the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone by Borromini and Rainaldi, and two more fountains: the Fontana del Moro on the southern side with four Tritons, and at the northern side the Fountain of Neptune.
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Victor Emmanuel's Monument |
Next we hit the Monument to Vittorio Emanuelle II, which was built to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of unified Italy. It is MASSIVE, built of pure white marble and has huge stairways, numerous Corinthian columns, fountains, a huge statue of Victor Emmanuelle on horseback in the center, and two statues of the goddess Victoria riding on chariots. The structure itself is 135m wide and 70m high, 81m if you include the statues on top!
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the Colosseum |
We then passed the Roman forum on the way to the Colosseum and Constantin’s Arch! One thing to check off the life to-do list. Extremely beautiful, just as I imagined. After basically being assaulted by these guys dressed up as gladiators who took pictures with us and then demanded we pay them, we decided to trudge back towards the center city – when we got our first gelato of the trip! Amazing. I got tiramisu flavor, how can you possibly beat that? Two amazing desserts in one! We finished our day off with a visit to the Spanish steps, a great dinner, and a little encounter with a little black market which we took advantage of big time!
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Fountain di Trevi |
Day 2: Rome part 2 à Florence
Got up early and started making our way across to the city to visit Vatican City. We passed a bunch more monuments on the way : first was the Palazzo Montecitorio, which is the current seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Then we crossed the Ponte Umberto I for a quick glance at the Palazzo di Giustizia (Palace of Justice) and Castel Sant Angelo – the tomb of the Ancient Emperor Hadrian - and stopped on the Ponte Sant Angelo for a great view of the Fiume River and the Vatican!
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Amanda and I on the way to the Vatican |
The Vatican and Sistine Chapel: two more things to cross off the life to-do list! First we visited St. Peter’s Square and the Basilica, then headed over to get in the 1.5 hour line to get into the Vatican Museum, which leads to the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel itself has with many of Michaelangelo’s most famous paintings, which apparently took him 4 whole years to paint! After that we headed back to the hotel to check out and then to Termini Train Station to buy tickets and catch a train to Florence. We chose to take the fast train, which took 1.5 hrs and cost 44 euro instead of chosing the slower train for 4 hrs and 17 euros. Should’ve known it was too good to be true. Apparently there was a two minute difference in their departure times and we followed the signs to the only train we saw departing for Florence Santa Maria Novella station…which we realized too late after hearing how many stops the conductor was announcing that we were on the slow train. So we had a nice scenic ride to Florence and wasted 2.5 hours and 27 euros. Luckily that was the worst thing that happened the whole trip!
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St. Peter's Square |
After getting into Florence late and finally finding our hotel, we headed to another amazing meal for dinner. Tip for visiting Italy: the house wine is always great! At least from what we experienced. Also, the parmesan cheese that they serve with meals is so good you can practically eat it with a spoon. No joke. Dinner was also hilarious. There were these American southerners with hilarious thick accents, who were obviously a little tipsy because they were making ‘slightly’ ignorant comments and pleading with their waiter to teach them some Italian words, which they of course butchered awfully. One of the funnier things I remember was when one of the men was served his dessert; “There’s chocolate in the middle of my vanilla ice cream! It’s integrated!” Then his wife; “I could never live here because I can’t parallel park for my life!” Gotta love extremely intelligent Americans and how they represent our country soo well abroad.
Day 3 : Florence
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On top of the Duomo |
Ever since I took my first year seminar at Middlebury on Rome, Florence, and Venice, I’ve always wanted to visit the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. First thing in the morning we started heading across town towards the Duomo, but paused for a sec in Piazza della Republica where we got our first taste of Florence’s street vendors – beautiful scarves galore !
We headed to Piazza del Duomo, where the Battistero (where many of the Medicis were baptized) , Giotto’s Campanile (a bell tower measuring almost 280 feet – which you can climb up if you want!) , and the Duomo are clustered together. The Duomo is nothing short of magnificent. The dome was constructed by Brunelleschi, and it’s 463 stairs on winding stone staircases to climb to the top! When you go up, you’re supposed to go directly to the top. But we must’ve read the signs wrong because we took the passage to see the inside of the dome, which is covered in stunning artwork, before going to the top – and unluckily for us the path around the ring of the dome is too small for two people to get through side by side. So we did a lot of awkward squeezing and ‘scusi’s’ and ‘gratzie!’s to ungrateful tourists before finally getting back to where we were supposed to be. When we finally reached the top, the panoramic view of the city was too breathtakingly beautiful to be described adequately.
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Inside the Duomo |
Next was the Piazza della Signoria, which is kind of like an outdoor art gallery. There’s one of Neptune, which is the first nude ever displayed in public, a replica statue of Michaelangelo’s David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, and Cosme Medici perched on a horse. After that, we made our way over to the Mercanto Sant Ambrogio area to try out a pizza place my guide book raved about, called Il Pizzaiuolo. The book did not disappoint. BEST PIZZA EVER, better than the one we had the first day in Rome by far!
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Mmm...gelato! |
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View from San Miniato al Monte |
After lunch we went to Basilica Santa Croce and made our way across the Ponte alle Grazie, which had a great view of the Ponte Vecchio. We hiked up a long, winding hill to the Church of San Miniato al Monte, which had another amazing view of the whole city – but this time you could see just how massive the Duomo is compared to everything else! Up at the church we met a hilarious Iraq vet, who was taking a short vacation from his third and last tour. He made so much fun of Americans, saying things like “Look at all these fit old ladies hiking up these huge hills! These people eat all this pizza, pasta and amazing dessert all the time and they’re still not fat like the fat shits where I’m from in Milwaukee – you know those types, huge beer guts straight off the farm.” The funniest thing is the only reason he started talking to us in the first place was because Amanda was singing a song from the Lion King, he overheard and goes “Your English is pretty good there!” To which responded, “I hope so, since I’m from the states!”
Finally, the Ponte Vecchio – which, who knew, is lined on both sides with extremely expensive jewelry shops! We had two last things to do: After stop for one more gelato, and buy some Kit Kats. Which may sound weird, but according to my first year seminar professor they are un-comparably better in Italy than in the US. Which, as it turns out, is true! Maybe because they were dark chocolate…mmm.
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the Ponte Vecchio |
I’m going back to Italy one day, no question about it. In particular, Florence. I liked it better than Rome – less touristy, and less creepy men trying to hit on you all the time, saying “hey baby, where you from?” That was the most common thing anyone said to us, besides waiters of course. When I go back, I’m buying REAL extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and bringing it back. One thing I regret? Not getting real tiramisu. Gotta go back for that.
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Beautiful Florence |