Italy

Ever since my junior year of college, visiting Florence, Italy has been on my Bucket List.  After spending three days in Greece, it was time to travel to Italy.  We were traveling by ferry...super cool by the way, but bad news...the ferry was running five hours late.  So we had to wait around in this little tiny terminal at the dock for FOR-EV-ER.  Finally the boat arrives, but then they have to unload everyone and all the trucks, eventually we get on the boat.  The trip itself from Greece to Italy, at least the path we were taking was about 26 hours of travel.  It was cool to walk up to the top deck after the sun had gone down and just think that you were cruising along the Ionian Sea, in the middle of the ocean, without a thing in sight.  We arrive in Italy at 11:00 at night, no big deal right...WRONG!!! We still had a four hour drive ahead of us to our hotel.  I didn't get much sleep on the bus, and the last hour or so was rough as my motion sickness medication wore off.  We arrived in the town of our hotel only to drive around the town at 3:30 in the morning for another twenty minutes because the bus couldn't find the hotel.  Eventually we got out and walked to the hotel, I was just thankful to get off the bus.

I didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 am, thankfully we got to sleep in until 8:30 the next morning, but then it was off to Florence.  We first had a walking tour of Florence with our local guide, we saw things like the Gates of Paradise, the Duomo Church (above) which is the fourth largest church in the world, and a demonstration on how the make leather. Then we got some free time, first things first...Gelato at the most famous gelato place in Florence...Vivoli.

To be honest, it was AMAZING.

After gelato, some of us wanted to go see The David, I mean it is only the most famous statue in the world.  I teach about The David every year, so of course I wanted to see it in person.  They do have a replica outside, but I HAD to see the real thing.  Standing in front of this wonderful piece of artwork was a dream come true and something that has completely changed my life, that is a story for another day.

 Then it was time to climb the 500 steps to the top of the Duomo.  At the top of the large church is a dome, that was the largest dome in the world from 1436-1881.  You can walk up about 500 steps to the highest point in Florence to get a view of a lifetime.  I'm not going to lie, the last hundred steps or so was rough, but I made it to the top and I'm thankful I did.

The next day we had about half a day to get to see Rome.  We weren't even suppose to go to Rome, but our Tour Director was able to fit it in for us.

Trevi Fountains: Legend says if you throw in one coin- you will return to Rome, two coins- you will return to Rome in love, three coins (depends on who you ask)- return to Rome married or divorced.  Any guesses on how many coins I threw in???

Italian Pizza...enough said

We literally got 15 minutes at the Vatican.  Basically we only had time to walk around St. Peter's Square, but it was still pretty cool.  I will want to go back and actually get to experience more of the Vatican.

After our fast visit to Rome, it was off to the port to board the next ferry, this time headed to Barcelona.