La Bella Italia

Pasta, lemons, pastries, narrow roads, espresso on the piazza and cigarettes are the words I would use to describe Italy. I could go on for hours about our 2 weeks in Italy, but I would still not do it justice. So I have decided that I will just regale you with the highlights… which to be fair was the entire time… uh oh.

After what felt like a brush with death, but most would just consider ample turbulence, we landed in Milan. Much to our disappointment we didn’t get much time to explore it. A fantastic Ravioli will forever be my Milan reminder. In the morning we headed down to La Spezia where we overnighted before our Cinque Terre walk. Cinque Terre has some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen, and walking inches away from sheer cliffs provides a nice adrenalin rush as well. We hiked for two days and ate pasta and drank wine in the evenings. Pretty much a perfect life.

We headed to Pisa (which was a total let down) and on to Florence. Spending two nights in a Tuscan Villa cleverly disguised as a hostel, we drank chianti, climbed to the top of the colourful Duomo and sat under the replica David statue with gelatos.

Rome itself was a pleasant surprise, with lovely weather and a simple transit system, we had a great time checking out all of the must-sees, like the coliseum, Roman Forum, Vatican, Tiber River and general atmosphere of Rome. One afternoon we climbed up Giancolo to get a view of Rome. At the top we grabbed some cold coolers from a vendor and soaked up the view. Later that evening we gorged ourselves at a little pasta restaurant while watching the ancient owner greet his friends as they walked down the narrow alleyway.

The Amalfi coast was our last stop. Pompeii was interesting and a lot larger than I had originally thought. It is scary to see how an entire town can be buried under ash. In Sorrento we booked a boat trip to Capri, complete with stops to swim in a waterfall, and two grottos and a swim through! Amazing!!!! In the little town of Amalfi, getting sick of the tourist track, we walked up through the narrow streets and found ourselves on an Indiana Jones style trek through a thick forest with ruins of old aquaducts and a million mosquitos and not a tourist in site! We also hiked up 1000 stairs to…. Nowhere! That was a little bit of a disappointment, but the workout probably wore off a few pounds!

I could have spent another week in Italy, but in 12 days we did see an amazing amount. If any of you have been thinking about doing a trip down the boot- DO IT.