I should be studying, but instead I’m going to share some Italy with you!
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would get to visit Italy…especially in college! It is just one of those places, ya know? The cities you dream about vacationing to one day when you are rich and have tons of time on your hands, ha. Well, I didn’t exactly cruise through Italy in style…but I experienced two fantastic Italian cities and will never forget the few days that I spent there!
So, Milan just kind of happened. Neither of us came to Ireland with Milan on our travel agenda, but when you are booking flights with Ryan Air, things just sort of evolve. “Right, Liverpool to London and then Berlin. Where can we go from Berlin? Ah, Milan sounds fun!” And so, we flew from Berlin to Milan with plans to buy train tickets to Rome and then return to Milan for a flight back to Dublin. And that is what we did. I’m still amazed at how smooth all of our traveling turned out to be, what a blessing! We had a few sites on our “to see” list for Milan, but mostly we planned to take it slow and just enjoy being in Italy! After getting our bearings and finding our hostel, which by this point we were pretty darn good at, we had to rush a bit to get back into the city for our reservations to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper…wow, what an experience to stand at the foot of a wall that so many hands have worked to restore, that students worldwide learn about in art class, that may not be around for travellers generations from now to see! It is still so vivid. Their faces just glow and the colors jump off the wall of that bare, dimly lit room in that quaint, unassuming little church. We sat outside on a bench in the courtyard in our shirtsleeves, enjoying the sun and not having to wear a jacket, watching little boys playing traffic cop on their bikes and moms walking wobbly toddlers around the square. When the breeze got chilly, we wandered through the surrounding shops and had a lovely chat with a store owner who has been making stationary in his store for decades…what a treat.
We spent most of our next day hanging around the plaza outside the Duomo, a magnificently huge, ornate Gothic cathedral. The streets around the plaza were mostly covered shopping streets, with beautiful mosaic floors and fancy boutiques. I enjoyed my first real Italian cappuccino in a little cafe overlooking the plaza where Beth and I could watch all of the beautiful Italian people window shopping and chatting away in their lovely language! We tried our first gelato cones ….mmm banana and hazlenut…and explored a castle that was open to the public, like a park where you could just wander around inside between the courtyards. We each had a glass of Italian wine later that night in a little bar we found with live music…so fun!
The next morning we caught a train to Rome…I think I could travel by train any day. I loved being able to just sit and watch the scenery pass by knowing that I was going so much faster than I would be if I were driving, but that I was safely on the ground, ha. And comfortable, so comfortable and room to walk around if you get wiggly…genius! I just know that a smile was glued on my face from the second I stepped off the train. The air just felt different…Rome is further south than Milan so it was warmer and sunnier, oh the breeze was heavenly, a nice respite from the chilly nuisance of a wind that always seems to be about in Dublin. Our directions took us through Piazzas, past fountains, under archways, and through a big wooden door into a courtyard where we went through a little iron gate and up the stairs to an adorable flat like apartment that was our hostel, where we were given the big skeleton key to the door of the other building in the same courtyard. I just love the way Italians build cities. Every door leads to a courtyard or some other sort of adorable place where people can gather and chat or smoke or just stand with the sun on their faces watching the water fall continuously from the ever familiar fountains.
I feel like Beth and I really made the most of our time in Rome. We walked and walked, taking in all the time the atmosphere of the city, the streets, the people. We walked all the way to the Vatican twice. The first time we saw St. Peter’s Basilica and all of the magnificent marble statues and monuments inside. The Vatican museum was closed that day so we went back later to see the museum and the Sistine Chapel…again, wow! There are just no words to describe the feeling I had standing under that ceiling…we toured the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, looked out over the Roman Forum, walked among the ruins of Emperor’s palaces and once grand stadiums. I had not anticipated how intertwined the Roman ruins are with the the bustling city. Main roads circle the Colosseum and it towers above most buildings so that you can see it from almost anywhere. Palatine Hill looms over the city giving a perfect panoramic of the ruins mingling among the modern buildings with the dome of the Vatican lighting up the background. The trevi fountain really is lit up beautifully at night, and minus the lame solicitors selling roses, is incredibly romantic. The Spanish steps at Piazza Spagna or the fountains at Piazza Novona provide a perfect picnic spot to people watch and soak up the sun. Thank goodness we visited Rome in spring…apparently the summer is stifling.
We hopped the train back to Milan the next morning and finished off our adventure with a wonderful, and surprisingly cheap, feast of delicious pasta, homemade Tiramisu, lemon Italian ice, and one more real cup of coffee for the road…
I’ll leave you with a list of my favorite Italian things, because I think that is the best way to share my experience with you:
standing inside the walls of the Colosseum looking down into the maze of dungeon-like cells that sat below the stadium floor where gladiators actually fought, licking a cone of Pistachio flavored gelato, sitting in the sun amidst the fountains of Piazza Navona, eating deliciously simple pizza under an awning on the sidewalk, scraping clean a bowl of unforgettable tiramisu, taking in the Italian countryside from my seat by the train window, standing at an espresso bar drinking Italian coffee…
I can only imagine how amazing Venice, Florence, and the Tuscany region must be! Maybe someday…
