Rome - Amalfi Coast - Florence
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2006
1
12
15
Trip End
Oct 26, 2006
Florence,
Italy
Thursday, September 14, 2006
I met her at the Termini train station, which is HUGE and a extremely busy place, but everything worked out fine as I found her walking down the train gate wearing her ASU sweatshirt. How could I miss that? After dropping her luggage off at the hostel and getting somewhat situated, we decided to make our way to the Vatican for some exploration. The Vatican City is not only the capital of Christianity; it's also considered to be the smallest independent country (108 acres) in the world. I tried applying for a Vatican citizenship; they handed me an employment application. Supposedly, the only way to gain citizenship to the Vatican is by working there and citizenship is usually revoked when a persons employment expires
Blue Grotto
. I'm not sure if I had the right pre-requisites for working under the Pope, so I handed the application back to the clerk and went on my way. We walked around the St Peter's plaza and cathedral, paid our £12 entrance fee to roam around the Vatican museum, and looked up in amazement at the Sistine Chapel. The next day we traveled to the ancient city of Rome and browsed around the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. The Colosseum was amazing!!! It was definitely one of the highlights of Rome for me; I thought it was filled with a lot of fun and interesting history. The third day in Rome was pretty relaxed. We walked all around the city and saw tons of cool stuff; such as the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain (Jacey's favorite), the Pantheon, and a couple of other things.After Rome, we caught a train past Naples and down to the Amalfi coast. We stayed in the city limits of Positano, which is right on the water between the cities of Amalfi and Sorrento. To get to Positano we had to take a two hour bus from Salerno. At first, the bus ride was really fun - it rides right along the cliff line (a bit scary at points) and overlooks the coastline - however, due to the bus being over crowded and hot, the bus driver blowing his horn every 30 seconds, and the the curvy roads the ride was a bit nauseas (motion sickness) and annoying. Positano was well worth the bus ride. Our hostel accommodations were excellent..
Chasing the Pigeons in Siena
. Clean and offered the best views in town. Relaxed and Beautiful are the best words to describe the Amalfi coast. We took a day trip to Capri island and saw the white, green, and (infamous) blue grotto's. Capri was really nice and really expensive! On to Tuscany... We took (another) train up to the Tuscany region of Italy. We stayed in Florence (of course) and had the toughest time finding a hostel, so we bucked up and decided to stay at a two star hotel. Major improvements! Television, telephones, private bathrooms... heaven!!! Florence is great... probably one of my favorite spots in Italy. It's the vibe I get from the city... not sure how to describe it... it's just a feeling. Anyways, the city of Florence is filled with history from the Renaissance times. Lots of art work from guys like Michelangelo, di Vinci, Rafael, Dontella, and several other people I've never heard of before. We also did some day trips to Pisa and Siena to see some other sights.
Jacey is on a train back to Rome to caught a flight back to Phoenix. I'm heading to the Swiss Alps to do some hiking...
Comments
Trevi Fountain
Matt, You know why the Trevi Fountain is so cool right? Because I was named after it. Duh!