I am so glad that my family was able to come visit me in Europe for two whole weeks! Since we had traveled to London before as a family when Kyle studied abroad here, we decided to go somewhere new this time and explore Italy! I met my family in Rome after flying from Athens, but we didn’t stay around to visit. I had been to Rome earlier in the semester, and my parents and brother had all been there before. We wanted to make the most of our time exploring new places so we took a train the next morning to Naples where we rented a car to drive to Sorrento. On our way to Sorrento, we stopped in Pompeii to visit the ruins. Pompeii has always been really interesting to me, and I’ve done a few projects on it so it was cool to see it in real life! After that we finally ended up in Sorrento where we checked into our hotel and spent the rest of the day exploring the town.
We were up bright and early the next day for a trip to the island of Capri. We started off the day exploring one of the island’s main towns (also named Capri) by hiking to the Arco Naturale and wandering the streets of the town. We took a bus to Anacapri, the other main town on the island, where we took a chair lift to the top of Mount Solaro. The views from up there were stunning. You could see all of Capri and even the mainland. Capri was one of the prettiest and bluest places I’ve ever been. I loved it!
The next day was spent driving our rental car around the Amalfi Coast and stopping to visit some towns along the way. The Amalfi Coast is one of the most scenic drives I’ve ever been on, and it was certainly lots of fun with all of the twists and turns. Although everything you’ve heard about Italians being crazy drivers is 100% true. We had planned to stop at Positano, Amalfi town, and Ravello in that order, but it turns out that finding parking was an absolute nightmare. We ended up driving all the way through the three towns because we couldn’t find anywhere to park! We were able to find parking in Ravello, so we stopped there first and just reversed our itinerary.
In Ravello, we visited Villa Rufolo which was really beautiful and gave absolutely stunning views of the gardens and the water. We also walked through town a bit and went into some churches. Then we made our way to Amalfi town where we visited the beautiful duomo, ate lunch, and enjoyed the view from the coast. Our last stop of the day was Positano. Positano is so cute and quaint! I loved walking through all of the town’s streets as we made our way down to the beach. We ended our day in Positano with some gelato and then headed back to Sorrento to spend the rest of the night in town.
Ravello
Amalfi
Positano
The next day we went on one more quick visit to a nearby town before having to return the rental car and head to our next major destination. We drove to Salerno to explore some churches, grab a burger for lunch (as much as I love pizza it was nice to eat something else for a change since it was basically all I ate the entire trip), and then head back to Naples to return our rental car. From Naples, we took a high-speed train up north to Florence where we spent the next two days!
Our first day in Florence was pretty jam packed. Our first major stop of the day was the Accademia Gallery where we went to see Michelangelo’s David. The David is a sculpture that I’ve grown up seeing pictures of, but getting to see it in real life was so cool. It’s really unbelievable how such a detailed and realistic sculpture was created by hand. Then we headed to the duomo. My family loves going into different churches when we’re in Europe because the architecture is absolutely incredible and unlike anything you’d find in America. Out of all of the churches that we’ve been to, I think Florence’s duomo is one of my favorites. It’s really incredible. We climbed to the top of Giotto’s Campanile and got a beautiful 360 degree view of the city. We also visited the baptistery which was just as breathtaking. Our second day in Florence was pretty rainy so we spent most of the day inside visiting different churches and museums like the Uffizi Gallery. All in all, I really loved Florence, and I can see why so many people choose to study abroad there!
The next day we picked up another rental car and drove to our next hotel in Siena. We spent the next few days exploring a bunch of towns in Tuscany. The drive was beautiful but very different from the views we had gotten driving along the Amalfi Coast. On our way to Siena we stopped in Greve and Castellina. When we got to Siena we took a nice long walk into the center of town to enjoy the Piazzo del Campo. Of course, literally right when we got there it started pouring rain so we ended up finding shelter (and gelato) while waiting for the rain to calm down. It never did, so we just ended up taking a taxi back to our hotel and calling it a night.
We spent the next day driving around Tuscany visiting San Gimignano, Volterra, and Monterrigioni. I loved being able to visit all of these small towns, walk through their streets, and visit their churches. Driving through Tuscany was so fun and beautiful too. The next day we spent in Siena visiting the cathedral, climbing to the top of the Facciatone for a panorama view of the city, and relaxing in the Piazza del Campo. That evening we drove to visit Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, which is a Benedictine monastery. It was really interesting to visit the monastery and see and hear about the lives of the monks that live there. We stopped in a cute village called Buonconvento for dinner that night before heading back to Siena.
San Gimignano
Volterra
Monterrigioni
Siena
We took a little detour the next day and made a quick trip to Pisa before heading to our next destination. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was really cool to see in person. When you look at it from far away it doesn’t seem to be leaning that much, but when you are there in person and standing at the base of the tower, it is soo obvious. Even the cathedral and the baptistery are slightly tilted. We got tickets to go inside the cathedral, baptistery, and the cemetery, and of course we had to take the stereotypical tourist picture in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After grabbing some lunch, we drove back to Florence to return our rental car and take the train to Ravenna.
We spent just a day in Ravenna, but we were able to see quite a lot. Ravenna is known for the detailed mosaics that are found throughout the city. We saw mosaics all over the town in cathedrals, on the floors, on the street signs, and of course as artwork. It’s amazing to see the giant mosaics that are in the churches there and imagine the artistry, attention to detail, and patience that it must have taken to create them. After a quick stop in Ravenna, we took another train to our last stop of the trip: Venice!
My parents have been telling my brother and I that we need to visit Venice our entire lives, so finally getting to go (and as a family!) was a highly anticipated part of our trip. It also meant that I had pretty high expectations for the city, but I was not disappointed. I loved Venice! Venice is known for its murano glass, and our hotel offered a free excursion to the Venetian island of Murano where we were able to watch the workers in their element and see tons of their completed works. Their glass creations are stunning, and even after watching the workers I can’t comprehend how people are able to create such intricate and detailed glass sculptures. We spent the rest of our first day in Venice at San Marco and wandering through the city’s streets. We stopped at looked in what seemed like nearly every murano glass store. They’re all just so incredible! We even took a gondola ride, which was nice and relaxing. We also stumbled upon a few art exhibits that were really cool. I’m glad we found those hidden gems.
Our last day together started off at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The museum is right on the Grand Canal, and it was a beautiful day out. We had spent most of our time in Venice on one side of the city (near our hotel and San Marco) so we spent the day walking around the other side of the city and enjoying our last day together (so sad). We had bought tickets the day before to see a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that night, which we were all super excited for. We had eaten such a big lunch that we honestly weren’t hungry enough for dinner even at 8:30pm before our show. We ended up getting gelato for dinner, which was basically the best last meal in Italy. The Vivaldi concert was amazing. One of my favorite dances that I’ve ever performed was to part of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and it’s one of my mom’s favorite pieces of music. It was a great way to end the perfect trip.
We had to get up super early the next morning to get to the airport. My family was flying back home at 9:30am, and my flight back to London was supposed to be at 11:30am. We left the hotel around 6am, but when I woke up at 5:30am, I had gotten a text from my airline saying that my flight had been canceled… perfect. I headed with my family to the airport and was able to get on a flight back to London at 5:30pm. So I got to sit by myself at the airport for nearly nine and a half hours. As fun as that was, I was SO happy to finally get back to London and into bed.
My time with my family in Italy was seriously the best. I missed them so much, and it was amazing to have them here with me. After a perfect two weeks together, it was really hard to say goodbye to them knowing I wouldn’t be home for another five weeks (I bawled in the airport when they left… no shame). I have a ton of fun stuff to keep me busy these last few weeks though, so I know it will fly by and I’ll be home with them in no time. 🙂
Eva Around the World 