Best. Weekend. Ever.

This past weekend we went to ROME! Unfortunately, we only had two days there, but we tried to see as much as we could.

We left bright and early on Friday to catch the bus to Rome. We saw the Vatican Museum including the Sistene Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. This is the outside of the Vatican Museum. The second picture is of the black and goldaltar in St. Peter's Basilica.

They were all as incredible as I expected them to be. Then we met for dinner with Tina, who words for Accademia Italiana and took us out during orientation. Sweetest lady, and so knowledgeable about all of Italy. She always has an answer to any question you ask her. We ate at this amazing restaurant and had a mixture of antipasti (appetizers) and each got our own pizza. I got pizza verdure, which is vegetable pizza. For dessert, I got this baked cream thing with chocolate sauce which tasted like chocolate mousse. I shared with other people who got crème brulee, limoncello crème & fruit tortes.

Yum.

After dinner, Tina took us on an impromptu tour of Rome that most people don’t see when they come to Rome. She took us up some hills, taught us about Roman culture & history, showed us some parks and took us to Trevi fountain.

The next day, we went to the Colosseum, which was my favorite part of the entire trip. It was so cool to actually touch and be in something that has so much history behind it. We also went to the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Spanish steps, Villa Medici (which had an incredible view of Rome) and to some parks in the city. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was totally worth it. I can’t wait to get back to Rome and see all that I couldn’t during this trip!

On Sunday, a bunch of friends and I signed up for a day trip to the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is made up of five small towns along the southern part of the Lingurian Coast. The first of the towns is about a 2.5 hour train ride away from Florence. This area is knkown for their pesto, olive oil, local wine, seafood and much more. Between each of these five towns are four different hikes that go through the mountains of the coast and vary in difficulty. The first hike, from Riomaggiore to Manarola, is easy and only takes about 25 minutes to complete. The second, from Manarola to Corniglia, is moderate in difficulty and takes about 45 minutes. The Corniglia-Vernazza hike is also moderate, while the Vernazza-Monterosso al Mare hike is challenging.

The first hike was very easy, but took a while since older people usually can only do that hike, so it was packed with people. Part of this hike is known as the Lover’s Walk because two people that were in love wrote on one of the rocks of the hike a long time ago, so the name just sort of stuck. Now the entire hike is covered with people’s names in hearts and locks hooked onto everything, which I assume symbolizes locking your hearts together, or a love lock or something.

The second was a little bit harder, but quick nonetheless. The hardest part was the 384 steps you had to go up to get to Corniglia, the third town. For the fourth hike, we left our tour group because they were finished with their hiking and took a train to the fourth town. Feeling ambitious, my friends and I wanted to do the third and possibly the fourth hikes (the challenging one). Thinking that the second “moderate” hike would be comparable to the first moderate hike (AKA pretty easy) that we’d do this hike with ease and then maybe have enough energy to do the final challenging hike. Little did we know, we had actually set off on one of the two trails that took you from the 3^rd to 4^th town that was challenging instead of moderate. I have never done such an intense hike in my life. It took us about 1.5 hours, but there would be parts when we would be going uphill for 10 minutes straight, on stairs that were 1.5 feet high. Once we finally got to the 4^th town, we were EXHAUSTED. We were also extremely satisfied and proud of ourselves for doing something that difficult. This is me right when we arrived at Vernazza.

In Vernazza, we had a delicious lunch at this little restaurant. We had their house wine, sangria (best I’ve ever had), pesto pizza and pesto pasta. It was so good I never wanted it to end. Then we got gelato and enjoyed the sun on the beach until our ferry arrived to take us to the final town. We were wayyy too tired to do yet another challenging hike.

At the last town, we swam in the bright blue water and laid on the beach. The physical exercise, feeling of satisfaction from our hikes and relaxation made this the best day I have had in Italy so far. It was absolutely perfect.

In all, this weekend was incredible. Although I wish I had more time in both Rome and the Cinque Terre, I know these are two places that I will definitely visit again. Maybe even during this trip!

XOXO

Hilly