Italy!

While in Italy for a second time I visited two cities I had previously been to, Rome and Venice, and three places I had not, Naples, Pompei, and Mount Vesuvius.

Day 1
The morning began with the typical announcements from one of our Dean’s saying “Good Morning Voyagers…” Followed by the days instructions for disembarkation. After receiving my passport I was packed and ready to go. I met up with my newly found travel buddies, Athena and Amanda, and we headed for the train from Civitavecchia to Rome. After waiting at the train station for 30 minutes in the hot sun, the train finally arrived. With no seats left on the extremely crowded train, we stood without any air-conditioning for the hour ride into Rome. Once we made it to Rome Termini, we quickly set out to find our hotel, which luckily was not far. Well, that is to say, it wasn’t far before we got horribly lost. Eventually, we found it, hoping to find our friend Whitney who had a SAS trip into Rome earlier that morning. While awaiting her arrival, we decided to eat some lunch outside the hotel. We all got pizza and it was of course incredible! Two hours after our meeting time, Whitney still had not shown up. We decided it was in our best interest to leave a note and head in to Rome as we only had ½ a day to see it. As I had already seen Rome, it wasn’t as big of a deal to me, but I did understand how they would want to make it there. We headed strait to the Metro and got off right in front of the Coliseum. In my previous visit to the Coliseum, I did not go inside, so I was excited on this trip to do that. After being hounded by 30 people inviting us to pub crawls that evening, we made it inside. It was truly incredible. I can’t describe the feeling of being in the middle of so much history in one place. During our visit rain began to pour from the sky for about 1 hour, keeping us in the walls of the Coliseum. Afterwards we explored the forum and the surrounding historical areas. It wasn’t until 10 that night that we returned to find Whitney sitting at a restaurant outside our hotel eating for free because she made friends with the owner. He then proceeded to give us free glasses of the house champagne and then we left for a good nights sleep. Athena and Amanda had a 6 a.m. flight to Venice making them leave at 3:30 from our hotel. We talked about them staying with us in Venice at our hotel as Whitney and I were sharing a room there but never made any definite plans.

Day 2
The day was all about getting to Venice. I, unfortunately, had a different flight from the rest of my travel group including Whitney, Audrey, Sarah, and Tara. I got up around 8:30 to get to the Rome, Fumicino airport for my 12:10 flight to Marco Polo Airport in Venice. I took the train and arrived at the airport in a very timely fashion. I checked in, had a window seat, got to my terminal with some delicious breakfast, and simply waited to board for 2 hours. By 11:45 I was concerned as why we were not boarding yet. I checked the monitor and it still read “Venencia” and was my flight number. 12:10 rolled around and the screen all of the sudden said some other obscure city. I then went to the monitor on departures and found that my flight had just left. After a slight panic attack, I found where I needed to go to try to get a new flight. Luckily, the woman was very understanding since there was no announcement made in English about the gate change and didn’t make me pay for the second flight. I really lucked out and still had a window seat, and furthermore, no one sat in my row! It was beautiful. I then got off the plane, caught the public water boat, got to the island Lido where I was staying, and found my hotel. It was so liberating and exciting to travel by myself and figure it all out so easily. I immediately checked in and took a nice long shower, I dried my hair, got all ready, and hoped that the rest of my group had arrived. After they hadn’t I decided to go get some food. Lido was incredible, it was quiet and quaint, it wasn’t touristy because it was mostly locals who lived there. I found a restaurant on the main strip and had the best gnocchi I have ever eaten with a glass of red wine. I made friends with the waiter and he told me some good places to go while in Venice. When I got back to my hotel, Sarah, Audrey, Tara, and Whitney had arrived! As they had not eaten yet, we walked Lido for a while and then found a great little restaurant in the back of town.  We saw the sunset over Venice and had a wonderful night.

Day 3
 We wandered around Venice all day long. I did, unfortunately, get heat stroke and started violently shaking for a while until I rehydrated. Then I was fine for the rest of the day and got some amazing pictures. That night, we returned to our culturally injected restaurant in Lido where I had the best Lasagna I have ever tasted.

Day 4
4th of July!!! We started the day at the beach in Lido and then had to leave due to flights to Naples. It was weird to be in Italy on the 4th since no one else was celebrating, but I did have a beer in the airport while I waited for my flight. My flight, unfortunately, was an hour later than everyone else, but I made it to the ship safely. Naples was probably the sketchiest place I have ever been, but we still went out to celebrate the 4th. Getting there was interesting as the port is in the sketchiest part of Naples. We walked for a good mile before we found a cab and then piled about 7 people into the 4 person taxi. Needless to say, it was interesting. The night was super fun and I met a ton of people.

Day 5
Started far to early for following the previous night. I purchased a day trip for Pompeii that started at 8 a.m. with my great friends, Sarah and Audrey. Upon arriving in the historically rich Pompeii, we promptly ditched our tour group and explored on our own. If you don’t know much about Pompeii, it is a booming city that was covered by an explosion from Mount Vesuvius in 78 CE. It was incredible to see how the ash had preserved the city. We actually snuck into the restricted areas (sorry mom) and it was incredible! There were all of these underground tunnels that connected the whole city! After walking through the majority of Pompeii and the incredible “Mystery City” we decided to hike Mount Vesuvius. After arguing with the train ticket vendor who was trying to sell us an excursion, waiting 45 minutes for a train, and taking a 30 minute bus ride, we made it to our hiking destination. The smell that the flowers created was absolutely astonishing. I have never been so overwhelmed with such an illustrious scent before in my life. It is indescribable. The whole area was covered in yellow and purple from all of the flowers. We made it to the top after a grueling hour hike and were taken back by the huge crater we stared into. After tons of picture taking, we decided to pull a Garden State and yell off the top. With a 1, 2, 3, the three off us screamed at the top of our lungs off the side of the volcano.

Also, I hiked through Pompeii and Vesuvius not only in one day, but I did it in flip flops. BAMF.

There is so much more that happened in the port, but these experiences are just that, experiences, its not something you can describe or detect, its something that you live through, and it has been the best thing I have ever done.

It is only one day at sea and in classes, until we hit Croatia!