Italy was what I expected and more. I expected the food to be amazing, the sites and art breathtaking, the wine incredible, and the drives to be horrendous. I was surprise to find that Italy has amazing country side, thousands of kilometers of underground city, shanti towns, and the nicest people on the planet (minus Will Griffin). Like Spain I will have to go back to Italy one day. I saw a lot in my 7day stay in the historic country, but there is still so much for me to see and do. 6 days will never be enough to fully take in Rome much less Rome and Napoli, but I made the most of what I had.
Day 1: We docked in Civitavecchia at 8:00 and I was on a bus with Tyler, Keenan, Chelsea, and Liz heading to Orvieto. It was about an hour drive NE to this ancient town, and along the way we saw some amazing country side, farms, vineyards, and Ferraris (seeing a classic red Ferrari in Italy is something else). We arrived in the parking lot for the funicular, an uphill train similar to the one I took up ton Montjuic in Barcelona, and we packed in to reach the town. The town sits on volcanic rock several hundred meters about sea level. It was settled in the late B.C. as the land around it was very fertile, and the hard yet easy to manipulate volcanic rock allowed for the people to dig tunnels to store food during and for protection against invaders. In the modern era the tunnels were used for shelter against the bombings of WW2 and as a kind of “underground railroad” for rebels fighting the then fascist Italian government. Once you enter the tunnels the temperature drops 5 degree Celsius not to mention when you start climbing 30 or so meters down to the caves (great for when its frickin 25 to 30 degree Celsius outside). We walked through about 2 kilometers on the tunnel/cave system, only a fraction of the 100 kilometers known to exist today. It was really cool, both as in cool temperature and amazingness.
After the tour was completed we had a couple hours to explore the town. Kennan, Chelsea and I went into the church of Orvieto (very old and very beautiful) and got to witness an old school Latin catholic mass. We looked around the shops buying olive oil and a few gifts (you can literally drink olive oil like water in Italy; it’s that frickin good and that much of it…cheap too). Finally we sat down at a nice restaurant and had a beer and our first taste of Italian cuisine. Kennan and I each got a pizza (about the size of a dinner plate) and Chelsea got some ravioli. It was incredible, very simple but incredible. The crust of the pizza was okay, but the cheese and sauce (especially the tomato sauce on Chelsea’s ravioli) was to die for. It just melted in your mouth. My meal was definitely the best (a sausage and mushroom pizza with an Italian beer) but all of our food was good. Afterwards we continued to roam around town, picked up gelato (very very good, would end up having about 5 gelatos during my time in Italy…far too little haha) and then headed back to the funicular to meet up with the group. It was a well done trip.
Once we got back to the ship I went for a run on the treadmill (GAMECHANGER!!! Fitness center is open in port!). I would have loved to run off the ship, but Civitavecchia didn’t seem like a running city (Rome and Napoli would turn out to be the same way). After my run Tyler, Liz, Rio, and I had dinner on the ship and then set out to find a cemetery in Civitavecchia. Tyler is an avoid photographer and want to take some shots of this supposable very old but beautiful cemetery in the heart of the city. We spent about 2 hours roaming around the city looking for this cemetery, on the way encountering the poverty that we would see through Italy during our stay, at least 50 stray dogs, and cars/mopeds that don’t see the difference between a street and a walkway. We never found the cemetery, but it turned out to be an interesting and somewhat fun night.
Day 2: The second day I had my Rome orientation trip with S@S. This trip would turn out to be a major disappointment. I started the day with a short run on the Ship and then caught the bus for the trip at 9:00. It was about an hour drive into the city and then another 15min to the museum that we were going to explore. On the way we saw the reunions of the Roman baths, but weren’t allowed off the bus to look. We also passed Circus Maximus which was used for chariot racing, again we didn’t get to stop and look around. Next we reached the Capitoline Museums and went on a 2 hour long tour. The structures, writings (one letter was written by the Pope asking the Swiss for army personal, basically the letter that started the Swiss Guard…pretty cool), and art work inside the museum were very interesting, but our tour guide was incredibly boring, spoke in very broken English, and took forever at single things. He was very smart and knew a lot about the pieces of work in the museum, but he just wasn’t a good tour guide. Anyways it was a long 2 hours and at the end I was happy to get out of the museum and begin to explore Rome on my own. I first visited the Piazza Venezia which houses a giant monument dedicated to the first king of Rome (before the Republic and the Empire). It was beautiful and blindingly white. At the top of the steps that led up to the monument stood two Italian Military men guarding the tomb of “the unknown solider” from WW2, pretty cool. Next I hit up the Coliseum, the place I was most excited about seeing in Rome. Once I entered the old stadium I was lucky enough to run into Keenan and Chelsea. We were planning to meet up an in 5 hours at the hotel where we were sharing a room, but now we could explore Rome together for the rest of the day. The coliseum was breath taking. I felt like I had just stepped through a worm hole into the times of the Roman Republic. We must have spent an hour and half circling the stadium taking in its beauty and taking a lot of Panorama photos (we started this thing that every site we go to we do a panorama of one of us posing for the three photos that are needed to make the panorama. I’ll try to post a photo).
After the Coliseum we made our way to the Forum which is about a half to one square mile of reunions. Very cool stuff, we spent a long time there and still didn’t see everything. After the forum we were famished so we decided to head over to the Trevi Fountain, where we were supposed to meet Nick and Kindle (my other roommate and his girlfriend), and on the way grab some good Italian food. After taking the Metro (there were lots of Nuns on the metro…that really made me feel like I was in Rome) to a station close to the fountain we must have spent an hour looking for a good restaurant. We settled on a little place called “Civa Pizza”. We ordered an appetizer that had a variety of treats, a bottle of white wine (Keenan isn’t a fan of red) and a main dish. I got some classic spaghetti in meat sauce, delicious but not the highlight of my meal. The highlight was the bread with olive oil. It was THE BEST olive oil I’ve ever had. Keenan had some pasta and Chelsea had a white pizza, both very good and probably beat my spaghetti, but it was still a wonderful meal, the second best one that we ate in Italy.
After dinner we made our way to the Triva fountain on the way running into a fabulous cellist, an accordion player, the Pantheon, and the Colum Trajan. Once at the fountain we hung out for about an hour taking in the beautiful the fountain (basically it’s a fountain depicting Zeus just being the man, very cool to see at night). The girls through in their coins and we were off to the hotel. Took a long metro ride and a good 3 miles of walking but we eventually made it to the hotel just before midnight.
Day 3: In the morning we had a very nice complimentary breakfast at the hotel (a pastry and espresso) and then we were off to Vatican City. Amazing, simply amazing. We spent 4 hours going through the Vatican museum…they just have some much stuff!!! Art work, sculptures, scrolls, Egyptian artifacts, maps, chariots, cars…just a stuff after stuff after stuff! I was incredible, amazing, beautiful, breath taking, etc. At the end of the museum (we had to skip a few sections or else we’d probably be there all day) we went into the Sistine Chapel, again amazing. We then walked down to St. Peter’s Basilica, took a panorama of Keenan, and then headed to the Pantheon/grab lunch before we took a train to go back to the ship. Rome was awesome and a lot of fun. It did not disappoint.
Day 4: We arrived in Napoli at 8/9:00. I went for a run and then was off to Pompeii. It’s about was about a 30minute drive from the port to the reunions and on the way I saw the saddest and most surprising thing I’ve ever seen…a shanti town. I never expected to see one in the EU Mediterranean and definitely no in Italy. Maybe that ignorant of me, but I was surprised and a little sad. How could such a great country, a highly developed first world country have shanti towns? I mean the closest thing I know of in the US close to a shanti town is a trailer park…but those are never in major cities. Napoli is the 3rd largest city in the country and has a shanti town; I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
Anyways we got to Pompeii. Again I was surprised. What I thought was just a small village turns out to a city covering over 40 acres (20 or so more still being dug up). Pompeii it turns out was a great city: had plumping (lead pipes mind you but still pumping), a democratic government, power, etc. It also had a lot of brothels, 25 or so in the city. We toured through one that still had a picture menu on the wall depicting what the house could offer their customers…pretty damn funny ha-ha. I got back from Pompeii at around 17:30 and then went into Napoli at 19:00 to grab dinner with Keenan, Chelsea, and Jesse (a friend who’s from Manhattan and goes to UVa). We explored the streets of Napoli looking for and “official Napoli pizzeria” (Napoli is trying to bring the pizza back to its origins so they have created a certification that is supposed distinguish authentic pizzerias from non-authentic ones). After an hour of exploring we settled on a “non-authentic” pizzeria that was near the water and had outdoor seating. We each got a pizza and shared a bottle of wine. This was my favorite meal in Italy. I can’t remember the name of my pizza, but it had prosciutto, black olives, mushrooms, and artichoke. It was delicious and went well with the Greco (Napoli white wine). After good food and good conversation we walked along the shore looking for a nice place to sit down and have some more wine. We ended up sitting down right next to the water over looking one of the few castles (like fairy tale castles) in Napoli. Right after we bought the bottles of red and white and sat down fireworks started going off from the castles. It was a great night with good wine, great conversation, and beautiful sights.
Day 5: On the fifth day Keenan, Chelsea and I went on the S@S trip to hike Mt. Vesuvius. It turned out not to be a hike-hike. More like a scary bus ride up the mountain, then a mini hike (1mile) to the top of Vesuvius. I was looking forward to doing an actual hike, but it was still a great time and was amazing to see the crater close up (fucking huge). The view was amazing too! After the hike we went back to the ship. I went for a run and then went to the National Archeological Museum. Got lost along the way and really got to see the ghetto and how bad (dirty and sad) the city of Napoli is. Great history, amazing views, and a few nice streets, but in all it is a run down and poor city from…at least from what I’ve experienced. Anyways the museum was pretty cool. Lots of old sculptors a bunch of paintings from Pompeii, it was a worthwhile visit.
Day 6: Keenan, Chelsea, and I again went off to explore. We first hit up the Napoli aquarium, small but had a lot of cool aquatic life and since Keenan and Chelsea are Marine Science majors I learned a few things about fish. Also the aquarium is apparently the, or one of the, oldest aquariums in the world. Next we grab lunch, Keenan and I ordered some decent pizzas, and Chelsea had some spaghetti. We all thought it was good, but not great. We walked out about to head to Napoli Saterenia, the underground tunnels of Napoli, when we spotted the “authentic Napoli pizza” sign outside the restaurant! The sign we were trying to find all night before we found completely by accident and had no idea we were eating there! We were disappointed though with the food, but the amazing dinner the previous night made up for the mediocre “authentic Napoli pizza”. So we headed to the underground tunnels and once there were amazed. We took a two hour tour 42meters below the city through a fraction of miles of tunnels below Napoli. These tunnels were once aqueducts built by the Greeks (the founders of Napoli – new town in Greek – back in the 8th century BC) and were used for up to the mid – 1800, they were shut down due to a E – coli outbreak. During WW2 though the Napoli government cemented the water of the tunnels and used them as a shelter against the bombing Napoli faced during the war. The tour was fabulous, the tunnels really cool, and the tour guide was hilarious. In one part of the tour we had to walk through a narrow tunnel (about 50 cm at the widest) while carrying candles to see!!! It was awesome. After that we walked around for a bit, looking for street art, having gelato, seeing a Justin Bieber flash mod (hilarious), and then headed back to the ship. Italy was amazing. Next up Croatia.
