Italy
Ah, Italia. We booked flights in May 2018 for an October getaway, and dreams of sipping wine and fresh pasta danced around our heads for the next six months. I went in to my typical research frenzy, knowing the only constraints were starting in Milan and ending in Rome ten days later. The internet had plenty of advice, with Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast topping most of the must-see lists.
I really wanted to fit Venice in, since The Thief Lord was one of my favorite books as a kid (I had a thing for stories where kids lived in atypical places like abandoned theaters or boxcars) but at the same time, we wanted to spend less time on the road than we had in Ireland and try to spend two nights in every place. We also decided early on that we wouldn't rent a car this time, opting instead to take trains or buses anywhere we wanted to go.
By the time of our trip, we had settled on four places to stay in: Cinque Terre, Florence, Naples, and Rome. I booked most of our tickets on the fast Frecciarossa trains and bought hiking passes for Cinque Terre, which included hop-on hop-off privileges for the local trains between the five towns.
primo giorno
Our trip didn't start well when our first JetBlue flight from RDU to BOS was delayed due to storms in Boston. After three hours of waiting around in Terminal 2, we finally boarded, the flight attendant saying he wouldn't rebook us because we'd still have time to make our connecting AerLinugus flight to Dublin. And we would have, if we hadn't been trapped on the plane as it sat at the gate in Boston for an extra 20 minutes.
Finally, we were allowed off the plane and we sprinted through the terminal to get to our gate. We definitely cursed (louder than we should have) when we saw the gate was closed. Which is probably why the AerLingus flight attendants refused to help us, telling us to go deal with JetBlue. We made it to the JetBlue help desk with everyone else from our previous flight that missed the next one, and waited until the attendants could help.
We were eventually rebooked on British Airways redeye to Heathrow, with just under an hour of layover to get to Milan. I had no faith by this time, so we asked the attendants at the BA gate whether that would be enough time. Just then, a delay of an hour was announced for the redeye, and we were redirected to British Airway's check-in booth (outside of security) to rebook our flight to Milan. We made it back through security with enough time to grab dinner before boarding.
I don't think I relaxed until we were on our seats on the plane, nearing midnight. My first seat was between two friendly older gentlemen who quickly struck up a conversation with me, while Brendan's was two rows back between another couple. Luckily, when the flight attendant came around to check overhead bins she asked Brendan if he'd like to switch to an aisle seat, and I was able to switch to the middle seat next to him so we could sit together for the next seven hours.
I didn't sleep much, but Brendan used his budgeted plane-champange money and ordered a small bottle and fell asleep after the evening meal was served. We made it to London with two hours to spare before our flight (and just in time to catch the Heathrow-Milan that JetBlue had rebooked us on first if we hadn't switched). We checked out the Harry Potter store and grabbed a small breakfast before finding seats at an empty gate and watching planes until ours came in.
secondo giorno
We landed in Milan around 2pm, and were bused from the tarmac to the terminal for customs. Almost an hour later, we were able to hop on a shuttle to Milan's train station 30 minutes away, enjoying a mini-tour as the bus whirled around the roundabouts. We arrived at the train station with ten minutes to spare before the next train to LevantoS, and we quickly bought tickets online, just accepting the lost $45 from the earlier train tickets that we missed due to flights. I realized in June 2019 that we probably could've filed a travel insurance claim for greater than 3 hours of delay, but oh well.
From Levanto we hopped on a local train to Riomaggiore (one of the five villages that make up Cinque Terre), where our B&B was located. We watched the sun set from our seats on the train, and rolled into the station around 7:30pm, starving and exhausted but excited to finally arrive! Our first lodging was a small boutique hotel with three rooms, called Ciao Bella Guesthouse. The owner, Stefano, also owns a restaurant on the main street in Riomaggiore and he met us there to give us our keys, insistent on welcoming us with a sample of wine and olive-studded foccacia.
The guesthouse was a few blocks away on Google maps, but neither Stefano nor maps warned us that our lodgings were straight up about a hundred stairs. We made it with little energy to spare, and dropped off our luggage, debating whether our hunger outweighed our loathing of the stairs.
terzo giorno
Our second day in Cinque Terre was one of my favorites of the whole trip. We started the day off early by hopping on the train to Vernazza, two towns up the coast. There, we ordered breakfast in broken Italian, starting what would become our daily ritual of the trip: a croissant with green tea for Brendan, and a cappuchino with a pain au chocolat for me! I learned quickly that any time I ordered 'chocolate' in Europe, it would almost always be nutella. Delicious!
We ate at a tiny table outside the Ananasso Bar, savoring a calm view of the Mediterranean with a gentle ocean breeze. The weather was perfect, low 70s (F) and sunny. After a while, we set off to hike part of the 'Low Trail', one of the two or three trails that connect all five of the Cinque Terre villages. It took us a little bit to find the trailhead, lost in all of the twisty streets and staircases, but we finally made it to a small checkpoint hut where an attendant scanned our hiking/train passes.
The hike to the next town up, Monterosso al Mare, took about an hour and a half over rough terrain but the trail was well-maintained and the views of the Italian coast were spectacular! We arrived in Monterosso, delighted to see that the small part of the town we could see from the trail was only half of the village, and the other half was only accessible through a pedestrian tunnel. We were also excited to see a true beach, and we jumped back on the train to put our swimsuits on back at Ciao Bella.
We were back on the train to Monterosso by lunchtime, skipping the hike this time around for relaxing on the beach. We found a small restaurant near the beach for lunch and ate more pasta before jumping into the Mediterranean sea for a dip. We strolled around the village for a little while longer, stopping for gelato and starting our new 'tradition' of buying gelato whenever we had coins to spare.
Later that night, we stopped by the Vernazza Winexperience for a wine tasting right as the sun went down. The venue was pretty popular, so we started out at a table near the back (that still had a beautiful view of the ocean) but were moved up to a seaside-terrace table as others left. We were presented with a menu of several tasting sets, I chose L'Eleganza - a rose, white, and red - and Brendan picked Clasico II - one sparkling, a dry white, and a red. The wines were delicious, and my favorite was my moscato, surprisingly not as sweet as I expected, finishing with a crisp peach taste. We finished our wines just as the sun disappeared over the horizon, and hopped back on the train to Riomaggiore for dinner.
We picked another restaurant on Riomaggiore's main street, ending up at Il Maggiore. Brendan ordered a five-cheese pizza and I tried authentic carbonara. The servings were huge! And Brendan quickly figured out that gorgonzola is the fancy word for bleu cheese, and that it's ridiculously hard to get a strong gorgonzola taste out of your mouth once it's there.
quarto giorno
We woke up the next morning and checked out of Ciao Bella, sad to see Cinque Terre go but excited for our next destination: Florence. We grabbed croissants from the local bakery, and set up at the Train Station bar to wait for our train to La Spezia. From La Spezia, we switched trains to Pisa, and then finally on to Firenze SNM station. A pickpocket warning flashed across the train arrival screens at each stop we made, and the polizia were eyeing people as we transferred trains in La Spezia so we tried to stay alert for the rest of the trip and make sure our wallets and passports were always stored securely.
Our next B&B was tiny, four rooms on the top floor of a six-story historic building in the Piazza della Republica. The plaza was under repairs, so we had to dodge some construction equipment, but we were only a block away from the Duomo, and less than a kilometer from Ponte Vecchio and the main shopping streets. We stopped for lunch at a fairly touristy looking place on the way to the B&B from the train station, since I was running out of euros and wasn't sure any other places would take my card.
We spent the rest of the day wandering around Firenze without a plan, taking in the sights of the ancient city. Around 3pm, I got an email from our cooking class provider for the next day, asking if we'd like a free upgrade from the 25-person market and pasta class to a 12-person market and pasta class with a visit to a Tuscan farmhouse thrown in. Of course, we accepted!
Dinner was at a small restaurant tent in front of our B&B, with a salesman for a host who noticed us looking at the menu and offered us each a glass of wine on the house if we chose his restaurant over the others in the square. We glanced at the others before accepting his offer, and were ushered in and sat at a table with a view of the piazza. We enjoyed our free wine while people-watching until our pasta came out.
quinto giorno
Breakfast on Friday was laid out for us by our host before we woke up, with coffee, meats, cheese, fruits, breads, juice, and lots more! He could have fed a small army with the amount of food we were served. We met up with the cooking class group run by The Food and Wine Academy of Florence right outside of the building, still feeling lucky that we were upgraded to the smaller class. Our instructor was a small woman named Marisa, and she led us through the winding streets to a small local market where we learned about different fruits and vegetables grown in Italy, as well as meats and cheeses.
We took a small break at a table in the corner of the indoor market and shared a bottle of wine and a plate of cured meats and cheese with the others in our class while Marisa bought the ingredients we'd need for cooking later on. After the market tour, we all piled in a van and drove out of Florence and into the Tuscan countryside. About half an hour later, we arrived at a small farmhouse/vineyard where another tour group was learning how to ride tiny motorcycles.
Quickly, we donned our aprons and began with dessert - tiramisu! Since it would take so long to set, we first hand-whipped the egg whites to make a meringue that we folded into a custard base. Then, we layered espresso-dipped ladyfingers, custard, and cocoa powder in individual dishes before storing them away in the fridge for later.
Next, Marisa began the sauces we'd use. Since there was only one range, we all stood around and watched her expertly create both a bolognese and a cherry-tomato sauce, leaving them to simmer while we got to the main event: pasta! We began with a small pile of 00 flour on the granite countertops in front of us, and cracked an egg into the center before using a fork to slowly incorporate the flour with the egg. After a dough began to form, we started kneading, clumsily trying to copy Marisa's movements.
While we waited for the dough to rise, Marisa set out a cheeseboard with a few slices of bread and a sharp cheese drizzled with different types of balsamic vinegar so we could taste the difference in ages of each. Of course, we enjoyed a glass of Tuscan white wine with our hors d'ouevres, taking a few minutes to wander around the small vineyard.
We continued to drink our wine while rolling out the pasta dough, forming half into ricotta-filled ravioli and the other into large tagliatelle. Marisa disappeared for a few minutes to boil our fresh pasta before coming back and stirring the ravioli into the cherry tomato sauce and the tagliatelle into the bolognese. For lunch, she poured all of us generous glasses of chianti and we dug in! My favorite was definitely the ravioli, but I'll be dreaming of the balsamic vinegar and cheese for years too.
When all the pasta was gone, we savored our tiramisu, and drove back to Florence stuffed and happy. Brendan and I fell into a food coma back at the B&B, but made sure we set an alarm to go up to the Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset.
We climbed what felt like a thousand stairs, but managed to make it to the top of the plaza! Along with the hundreds of other tourists, we enjoyed the sunset over Florence's ancient skyline. For dinner, we tried to find the main market (Mercato di San Lorenzo, but we didn't know that at the time) since one of our cooking classmates had gushed over the food court at the top but without any luck or help from Google, we ended up at a tiny restaurant off a side street from some kind of market area.
Brendan ordered a Steak Florentine, a humongous bone-in cut, and I got pasta with a spicy tomato sauce with a main course of pea soup. I started to feel sick (I probably ate way too much at the cooking class) before the soup came out even though the food was delicious, and I tried really hard to apologize and explain in broken Italian why I would pay for the second course but please don't bring it out. I still remember how devasted the woman looked, but all I could think about was getting back to the B&B and lying down.
sesto giorno
The next morning, we were up before breakfast at the B&B to check out and head to Naples. We had a few minutes before our train, so we grabbed our usual croissants and hot drinks at the station and waited on the platform for the Frecciarossa train to arrive. Italy's version of high-speed trains are able to travel at 400 km/h (250 m/h) and easy to spot with bright red, white, and green stripes.
We had two seats in the middle of one of the train cars, and a ten year-old and his father sat across from us at the same table. We watched the Italian countryside whiz past and before we knew it, we were in Rome! Luckily, we were able to stay on the same train as it headed south to Naples, the car considerably emptier, and we had the whole table to ourselves now. We arrived in Naples about four hours after we left Florence and instead of taking the metro to the historic district where our next hotel was, we made the totally-smart decision to walk through Naples with our giant backpacks.
Modern Naples is very grey, concrete and stone against a cloudy sky. Google Maps took us down twisted streets until we hit the ocean where we got a brief glimpse of Mt Vesuvius before continuing to walk along the coast as the building slowly got older and morphed into architecture more like Florence's old, beautiful buildings. Our B&B, PC Boutique Hotel, was on the fifth floor in a triangular building with a courtyard for cars and an elevator that could barely fit both Brendan and I with our bags.
We dropped our bags off and checked-in to a large room and a skinny bathroom before grabbing lunch at a small restaurant across the street, enjoying the sounds of rain as the skies finally opened. We stopped by a small grocery store on the way back to the hotel to grab a bottle of wine and some snacks for the night before heading back out to tour historical Naples.
Starting with Castel Nuovo, a medieval castle right on the water, we wandered around the Porto di Napoli. We saw the Royal Palace of Naples, the Basilica, and the Piazza del Plebiscito before the rain started back up and we ducked inside Galleria Umberto, a mall with beautiful windows covering the roof of the walkways. We got a quick bite to eat and managed to dodge the rain on the way back to the hotel, excited for tomorrow's visit (or re-visit in my case) to the ruins of Pompeii.
settimo giorno
To beat the crowds to Pompeii, we were on the earliest train from Naples in a carriage with only two or three other people. Luckily, there was a small cafe attached to Pompeii's station where we could get pastries and coffee for breakfast before walking about a mile to the entrance of the archaeological site. The scenery and shops became more and more familiar as we approached, until we finally saw the small Limoncello shop my family had stopped by two years before, meaning the park was just around the corner. We arrived just as the gates opened, and walked faster than most other tourists so we enjoyed a few glimpses of the ancient city still nearly alone.
We wandered around the old streets, stepping into the few houses that were open for touring to marvel at the beautifully painted murals and mosaics. After walking through all three stories of one house and not realizing we were following a real tour group, we couldn't find the exit and logically assumed it was back where we came from -- even though no one else was walking back that way. We made it past the whole scattered group, including one of the tour guides who brought up the rear before finding the entrance already locked. Super confused at this point, we went back for a third pass through the house only to hear a sharp "Ragazzi! (children)" as the same tour guide spotted us heading her way.
She looked angry, and quickly tried to switch to English as she realized we didn't speak Italian. "You unlocked the gate to get in?" She hadn't realized that we'd already passed her twice, and we tried to explain that the door to go out was also locked when we tried it, but she didn't seem satisfied with anything we said. She walked with us for a bit to keep us out of trouble, before another patron stopped her to ask a question. Grateful, we made our way back to the exit and finally got out of the house.
We toured Pompeii for another couple of hours, until about lunchtime when we were hungry enough to abandon the park for a pizza place across the main street. Before heading back to Naples, we stopped at the limoncello shop to pick up souvenir limoncello and wine from grapes grown in the volcanic soil at the park. When we got back to the hotel, we realized it was only around 2pm and we still had half a day of exploring to do! After checking around on the internet, we settled on checking out the Naples Archaeological Museum, a few subway stops away from us.
The museum kept us occupied for a couple of hours, surrounded by stately marble statues and gorgeous paintings, as well as selected artifacts that had been rescued from the remnants of Pompeii. I'm gonna get better at writing down all the places we eat for our next trip (Japan) because I again have no clue what we ate for dinner. Probably pasta.
ottavo giorno
Ready to move on, we had our normal train station breakfast before hopping on the Frecciarossa to Rome. From there, it was about a kilometer to our B&B, Crispi Relax, about two blocks from both the Trevi Fountain and Spanish stairs. After we got our 2-day city passes and dropped our bags off, we wandered around for a bit to get our bearings. Various parts of different streets were familiar to me from my family vacation, but I started to get a more complete map of the area as we walked.
We stopped in for lunch at a small restaurant near the Trevi Fountain, ordered more pasta, and went to check out the Spanish Steps. Our friends, Tomer and Michelle, had suggested that we grab a bottle of wine and just people watch from the stairs for a while, but it must've been much less crowded when they visited since there was barely a place for us to stand, much less sit and enjoy a bottle of wine. We continued on to the Piazza del Popolo down a main shopping street, before crossing the Tiber and grabbing a cone of gelato for extra energy.
We strolled down the Tiber until we could see the Saint Angelo Bridge and the top of Vatican City before I started feeling bad again and we returned to the hotel for a quick nap. Brendan managed to find an escape room with great reviews (Game Over Escape Rooms) in the meantime, and we hastily booked the 'Winter is Coming' Game of Thrones themed room for 7pm that night, even though it was all the way in Trastavere. Fortunately, the tram system in Rome was easy to figure out and we made it there about half an hour early.
We were the only ones booked for the room that night, so the employees let us start early! I've still never seen rooms as beautifully themed or decorated as Game Over. The Game of Thrones room - complete with an Iron Throne - had fake stone walls (made of foam), a giant chandelier, and a war-planning table in the center of the room. We were thankful that we could play the room in English, even if some of the translations weren't spot on, and we made it out with only five minutes to spare!
Feeling accomplished, we took the tram back over the bridge and looked around for a place to eat. We ended up grabbing a takeaway pizza from The Fontanella Sistina and enjoying the cheesy deliciousness with one of our souvenir bottles of wine from Pompeii, which was stunningly delicious!
nono giorno
Our 2-day city pass came with free entrance into one museum or archaeological site, and we chose to use ours for the Colosseum. We were almost the first people in line as it opened, and had great morning light for pictures as we strolled through the ruins. After we'd had our fill of columns, we hopped on the bus back to Via del Tritone and stopped at a small shop just called 'Bar' for breakfast. After we figured out how to order, with locals continuously coming in and grabbing the owner's attention, we walked out with pastries, a cappucino, and tea for under 4 euros (our best find yet). And I swear, that was the best cappucino I've had in my life.
While traversing the streets of Rome, we passed a few restaurants on the lookout for lunch tourists, and ended up at a place that we could watch make pasta from the window outside. The homemade pasta was definitely better than the average of the pasta we had had so far and we left full and happy to get some shopping done before the trip ended. Brendan managed to find a new leather belt at a small shop, and I picked up two pairs of murano glass earrings, a nice change from the heavy sweaters I bought in both Iceland and Ireland.
Coming up short with any other ideas of what we wanted to see before we went back to the states, we ended up booking another escape room at the same business as the night before -- this time with a Jack the Ripper theme.
We walked down the same street as the night before where we had gotten the great pizza, but opted to try the restaurant next to it instead of going to the same place twice. Bit of a mistake, as we ended up at Ristorante Pizzeria, with unimpressive food and a pushy waiter who made sure to point out to me that "tip wasn't included" in the final bill as he watched me fill the receipt out (according to google reviews, we got lucky we weren't scammed worse). Not the greatest experience for our last night in Rome. Next time we're in Italy, I'm definitely making it a priority to avoid any place that has staff trying to entice you in, we ate at way too many of those places and luckily only walked away with one bad memory.
decimo giorno
We slept in a little for our last day before heading to the airport for our 11:15 flight to Dublin. We actually made it to Dublin this time, and quickly made it through US customs to eat at the same airport cafe we had nearly a year ago. The menu options hadn't changed a bit. We managed to stay awake for the whole flight back to Boston to prevent jet lag, and were happy to see that our final flight from Boston wasn't delayed either.
Brendan's mom, Sheila, picked us up from the airport and we began reminiscing about our second trip together before promptly passing out at my apartment, already planning for our next one!