Wednesday, April 30 (Day 1): Overnight travel begins
Thursday, May 1 (Day 2): Milan
Friday, May 2 (Day 3): St. Moritz and the Swiss Alps (Bernina Railway)
Saturday, May 3 (Day 4): Venice
Sunday, May 4 (Day 5): Florence
Monday, May 5 (Day 6): Cinque Terre and Pisa
Tuesday-Wednesday, May 6-7 (Days 7-8): Florence
Thursday-Saturday, May 8-10 (Days 9-11): Rome
Sunday, May 11 (Day 12): Naples and Pompeii
Monday, May 12 (Day 13): Naples
Tuesday, May 13 (Day 14): 36-hour journey home
Travel Day 1: 6,300 steps
Day 2: 18,420 steps
After flying to Atlanta and Paris with little trouble other than an inability to sleep on the overnight plane, we landed in Milan the next afternoon. We boarded our first train, one of many, to travel from the airport to the center of Milan and our hotel. Unfortunately, the hour-long train ride was standing room only. After checking into the iQ Hotel, changing clothes, and figuring out that the keycard had to be inserted into the socket on the wall before the electricity in the room would work, we immediately set out on a mission to see Milan and stay awake for a few more hours until evening.
We took the metro to Milan’s Duomo Cathedral, where we toured the rooftop terrace and looked down on the city. This was our first of many audio tours with Rick Steves and his friend Lyssa (pronounced Lisa), who immediately annoyed Alex with her odd sense of humor. When we unexpectedly walked into the cathedral interior from the exit stairwell from the top, my obsession with the floors all over Italy began immediately. We walked through the glass-domed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade before walking to Ristorante Risoelatte for our dinner reservation.
One thing we learned quickly about Italy is that dinner does not start before 7 p.m. Many restaurants are not even open until 7 p.m. or even 7:30 p.m. We arrived early for our 7 p.m. reservation at Ristorante Risoelatte only to realize, after ringing the doorbell, that it was not open yet.
Once we did get to our table, we ordered meatballs, two different forms of saffron risotto (traditional and pan-fried), veal (which was bigger than our heads), and four liter-sized bottles of water. Yes, four. It was all delicious. The single order of veal was so much food that we warmed up the leftovers and ate it for breakfast on the train the next morning. We left dinner intending to return to our hotel rather quickly via the metro, but our adventure for the evening was not over. While it was only just after 8 p.m., the metro station closest to the restaurant was closed. Maybe it was the sheer joy of finding ourselves on this trip we have dreamed about for so long, or maybe it was the jet lag clouding our logical decision-making, but we just started walking, optimistically intending to go to the next metro stop and get on there. Over the next hour or so we ended up walking all the way back to our hotel, stumbling upon the Sforza Castle, eating our first gelato of the trip, and finding ourselves immersed in the city. We are still not sure if the metro closed because May 1 is Italy’s version of Labor Day or if they always close in the evenings, but it was only fitting to begin our trip with a good, long walk.
Day 3: 9,390 steps
When we decided to fly into Milan, the very first thing Alex brought up as a potential excursion was a train ride in the Swiss Alps. After a little research, we found the Bernina Express panoramic train and decided to go for it. We actually discovered a YouTube couple, Jessi and Alessio Pasini, through their video about taking the Bernina Express to St. Moritz, and we watched a lot of their videos about traveling in Italy and taking several of their restaurant recommendations.
While this was a long day-trip for our first full day, it was mostly riding and not very physically exhausting, which we decided might be good for adjusting to the time change and jet lag recovery. Upon booking, we discovered an important distinction between the Bernina Express, a first-class panoramic train that would take us from Tirano to St. Moritz and back, and the Bernina Railway, a hop-on-hop-off, more regional train through the same path.
We did, in fact, book the Bernina Railway unintentionally. The trains were more crowded with no reserved seating, but we were able to get on and off the train along the way and have the flexibility of a daily time table rather than a single ticket time. Once we realized we had not booked exactly what we meant to, we decided we at least had to take advantage of it and planned a stop on the way to St. Moritz at Diavolezza, where there was a ski lift enclosed cable car that took us up 900 meters to a total of nearly 2,978 meters above sea level. We went over the mountains we could see from the train tracks and experienced a completely different expansive view of the Alps. It was hands down the most beautiful view we saw the entire day. We were only there for about an hour in total so that we could catch the next Bernina Railway train that came to that stop, but we agreed in hindsight, this was the highlight of the entire day. In retrospect, I would have spent two hours here and taken the next train that came through. There is a small restaurant at the top as well that we did not give ourselves time to try. We rode the lift with people who were skiing and could see the entire slope from the cable car, though you could not see the bottom from the top and vice versa. It was expansive, huge, and beautiful. After descending 900 meters back down into the Bernina Valley to get back on the train, and no vantage point from the train was nearly as enthralling for the rest of the day.
Arriving in St. Moritz was like pulling up to a movie set. Getting off the train, there was a lake to our left and the city to our right, seemingly straight up the side of the mountain. We immediately went to find the restaurant that we had picked ahead of time, thanks to Alessio and Jessi Pasini. All you need to know is that there was going to be fondue involved. Unfortunately, because we were there in between winter and summer, it was closed for the entire month of May. We decided to walk to the lake and make a new plan as we looked back on the main part of the city we were about to explore. It looked like a postcard came to life, but it was straight up the side of the mountain. Next to the lake, we found a map that depicted the location of all the Olympic winter sports for which St. Moritz is renowned. We sat down in a little cafe next to the train station, and Alex ordered an espresso so we could find some wifi and find another restaurant that wasn’t a tourist trap. This was a mantra of our entire trip — eat like locals. We quickly discovered that we had to confirm a security code through a text message to access the wifi. But I needed wifi to receive the text message. But I needed to receive the text to access the wifi. You see my problem? We set out to blindly explore St. Moritz. Luckily, Alex found some escalators from the parking deck that significantly decreased the incline we had to summit to make it from the lake to the main part of the town.
Upon the recommendation of the nice man at the tourist information center, we ate at the Hauser Hotel restaurant and got some Swiss chocolate from Laderach before getting back on the Bernina Railway to head back to Tirano. Our research suggested we sit on the left-hand side of the train going north and the right-hand side of the train going south, but, due to the lack of available seats, we sat on the right side of the train going both ways. It was beautiful to descend from the snowy mountains back down into the green valley full of small towns and villages along the way. After arriving in Tirano and getting off the Bernina Railway, we got back on the regional train to ride along Lake Como all the way back to Milan, which was a rather quiet, but delayed train ride until half of the country of Italy filled the train like a mob about halfway back to Milan. People were shouting and recording other people as if to document a fight, but since they all spoke Italian, we will never know what exactly was going down all around us.
One of my favorite observations during our hours of riding trains through Lombardy was the bell towers. Despite the apparent wealth or poverty, every small town and community had one. They stood up above all the houses like a beacon of hope, like a lighthouse would for any coastal city.
Day 4: 15,030 steps
The next morning, we woke up, gathered all our belongings from our hotel in Milan, and walked back to the train station with what we thought was plenty of time to order coffee in another country and in another language for the first time. We were wrong. After sprinting from the train station coffee shop up the escalating ramps through the ticket checkpoint and to our train platform, we stood and watched as our train left for Venice without us. After gathering our breath and our thoughts, I went to the customer service desk and bought new tickets that left in almost exactly an hour. We sat down on the side of the platform that we treated like a bench, ate our mediocre train station breakfast, and decompressed while we waited for the next train to Venice.
Since we were only staying in Venice one night, we booked a hotel we knew we could walk to from the train station. When we left the train station, we walked out into a busy piazza with multiple vaporetto stations for the public water buses. We navigated through the overwhelming crowd to a small alleyway and to our hotel. Our room was not ready, so we left our luggage with the hotel and headed out to explore a destination we were both a little taken by.
When people talk about Venice, it seems like one of those places that could only exist in your imagination or in Disney World. But it does exist. It’s vibrant and busy and full of life and personality. While the initial piazza outside the train station overwhelmed me to say the least, once we were out in the city exploring, I found myself taken by the charm of the residential streets, while Alex was taken by the inability to navigate using common sense. Some sidewalks would curve and go a different way than we anticipated, some would dead-end at the next canal, and others would turn into charming bridges. If it had not been what we later realized was the peak day of jet lag recovery, I could have walked those residential streets of Venice for hours.
In an attempt to find the Rialto Bridge, we ended up in this open piazza with a vegetable market, fish market, and restaurants. We knew it was not a completely local spot because of the presence of multiple bachelorette party groups, but we felt confident we could find something good to eat here. We sat down at the outdoor patio of one of the restaurants (Trattoria Pizzeria Antico Capon) and enjoyed watching the people that came through the piazza as we ate bread, prosciutto, burrata, pesto pasta, and gnocchi ragu.
From there, we took the vaporetto to the main square, St. Mark’s Square, where we rode an elevator to the top of the campanile (bell towers) where Galileo first used his telescope, explored St. Mark’s Basilica, walked around the Doge’s Palace, and found the Bridge of Sighs. It was extremely hot, and we quickly discovered that sitting is strictly prohibited in St. Mark’s Square unless you want to pay the hefty cover charges at one of the cafes. Nonetheless, the atmosphere was unique to any other square we experienced. It didn’t just feel like a big public, crowded square. It felt prestigious and high-end. The shops and cafes that line the square were likely the main contributors. The square also felt fully enclosed, more like a courtyard, by what were and still are local government offices for the Venetian Republic.
The basilica itself had several domes and ornate artwork on the exterior. The interior was dark and moody but also gold plated on almost every inch of the ceiling. The basilica gets its name from the belief that the tomb of St. Mark the gospel writer sits below the main altar of the church. Nextdoor, the Doge’s Palace, which has a large courtyard in the middle, is vastly different from the basilica in shape as more of a sharp square box with what appears to be pink tile from afar.
After we had seen what we wanted, we took the vaporetto back to our hotel. We later decided this was the day the jet lag exhaustion really peaked; I guess it gets worse before it gets better. We went back to the hotel, rested, and changed for dinner before embarking on the most magical evening in Venice.
We rode the vaporetto from Ferrovia (near the train station and our hotel) directly to the Rialto Bridge. From the vaporetto we spotted a gondola station, and, after only a 10-15 minute wait, we boarded the gondola and embarked on the most magical ride. It has a reputation for being the cheesy, stereotypical tourist activity, and I’m sure for locals it is, but it was the most magical experience. Seeing the city from the vantage point of the water was so different than exploring it on foot. Our ride started by going underneath the Rialto Bridge and then exploring smaller side canals. We saw a couple (likely tourists) enjoying their balcony, locals’ laundry hung from clotheslines outside windows, locals taking a smoke break, and other tourists exploring the city. As we were approaching a small bridge, Alex asked me how I felt about being in other people's travel photos, and we laughed, realizing that, as the couple in the gondola, a lot of people were taking pictures as we came down the canal. We laughed and tried to look pleasant for their photos before we made them the subject of our own travel photos. We ended the ride with a stunning view as we went back under the Rialto Bridge. While the gondolas cost more after 7 p.m., I was overwhelmed with gratitude for our timing. The hot afternoon weather had subsided in the shade of evening, but the sun had not set yet, giving us the most spectacular lighting, ambiance, and atmosphere. After we got off the boat, I asked Alex, only half-way joking, if we could do it again.
We walked up the Rialto Bridge and took in the city from the top as we came down from the magical high of our gondola experience before continuing to explore the area and find something to eat for dinner. We ended up sitting at a restaurant in a small square just a few blocks from the Rialto Bridge as the dark of evening slowly came down over the city. After eating more prosciutto and some gnocchi with scallops, we went back to the Rialto Bridge to see it at night before reluctantly letting the vaporetto take us back to our hotel for some much-needed sleep.
We got up the next morning and had some breakfast at our hotel before checking out to catch our next train. The same piazza outside the Venezia Santa Lucia train station that had been so crowded the day before that I had temporarily been unable to think straight was empty. Venice is a completely different city early in the morning and in the evening when the cruise ship and “day-trippers” head back to the mainland. After experiencing a quiet morning in Venice, I wish we could have stayed a little bit longer, but we got on our train and headed off to our next adventure.
Day 5: 16,610 steps
We had been on our train for about an hour. We were sitting in a four-person collection of seats facing each other with a small table in the middle. We were both reading and rather enjoying a quiet train. I looked up when Alex tapped my arm across the table and realized he was rather intently zoned in on something behind me. I turned around and saw three Italian policemen (polizia) walking through the train car. For reasons we still don’t know, they stopped in front of us. I quickly pulled out our electronic tickets when I was corrected and asked for our passports. I offered them to the first police officer, who passed them to both of the other officers. After all three of them looked at both of our passports and took pictures of them, they gave them back and walked back off the train car through the same door they had entered. They didn’t speak to or stop in front of anyone else on our train car. Alex and I looked up and watched them walk away before looking back at each other and across the other passengers. We spoke only with our eyes. What just happened?
Luckily, the rest of the ride was uneventful, and when we got off the train in Florence, we started walking toward our Airbnb. From the train station, we walked up behind the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella and into its piazza, which we would end up walking through each day as we returned from exploring the city. Our Airbnb host, Reni, had sent detailed instructions on how to get into the apartment. It was close to Santa Maria Novella, but it was off a side street that had several restaurants tucked away and was undergoing some construction. We entered through a narrow set of double doors that had a high step up off the sidewalk level. After squeezing through the narrow opening, we went up a steep single flight of stairs to a landing with an apartment entrance on either side. Ours was to the left. As soon as we went in, I was charmed. The apartment had terracotta tile flooring, a small kitchenette with a fridge, a living room with two couches and windows that opened onto the street below, two bathrooms, and a bedroom in the back. Compared to the hotels we had been staying in, it was so nice to have so much space to rest and relax. By this time, we also realized that it was not just stingy hotels, but a normal practice for keycards to be required inside the room for the electricity to work. When we removed the keycard from its slot to leave, the lights, air conditioning, and washing machine all ceased working; when we returned and reinserted the keycard in its slot on the wall, we had to turn the air conditioning back on and restart the washing machine.
After our host came and checked our passports, we headed out to start exploring what I predicted to be my favorite city of the trip. I wasn’t wrong. Our first stop was food, of course. All’Antico Vinaio was on my must-try list for focaccia sandwiches, so we walked to the smaller location near the Accademia Gallery. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it. We sat in a nearby park to eat our huge sandwiches and then walked to the Duomo as I finished mine with Alex’s help. Being a Sunday, the cathedral and the baptistry were closed, but the crypt was open. We elected not to climb the dome or the campanile (bell tower) next to it, so we got the Ghiberti Pass, which gave us access to the Crypt at a specific timed entry as well as the cathedral, baptistry, and museum at our leisure within 3 days of the time-entry Crypt ticket.
We got in line to enter the Crypt at the base of Brusenelli’s dome and craned our necks in awe as I was still working on my focaccia sandwich. When we entered, the stairway to the Crypt was in the cathedral, so, even though it was closed, we had the pleasure of getting to look across the cathedral while it was completely empty. Compared to a lot of the other cathedrals we saw in Italy, this one was actually rather understated and small on the inside. Alex’s favorite part was the 24-hour clock hanging on the back wall. I wouldn’t say I was underwhelmed exactly, but we didn’t feel it warranted waiting in line again another day to be able to walk around. Going down into the Crypt, we saw the different centuries that archeologists had uncovered in layers. This included intricate tile floors and stone inlay sarcophagus lids. As we walked around, Alex said, “Some people call it defacing a graveyard, some people call it archeology.” I made him repeat himself because I thought surely I didn’t hear him right, but I heard him exactly right.
After exiting the Crypt, we began Rick Steves’s Renaissance Walk around the Duomo down Via del Calzaiuoli, a pedestrian-only street with high-end shopping that has been a main thoroughfare in Florence for thousands of years. We may not have taken part in the high-end stores, but we did take part in gelato. We tried Venchi and ate it in Piazza della Repubblica. On our way to the next stop, Orsan-Michele church, we got a little lost and ended up in Mercato del Porcellino (Mercato Nuovo), the leather market. Oops. I wandered through all the crowded booths packed under the structure of the open-air market to select my purchases carefully. I bought a few small souvenirs for family members, Alex picked a wallet, and I chose a backpack and an oversized purse. I was pretty excited about my purchases, but we did have to strategically pack them for the rest of our journey. Worth it.
We continued our audio tour walk with Rick to the Piazza della Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio, which we would explore more in the coming days. We walked down to the Arno River and crossed the Ponte Vecchio and passed the Pitti Palace to end our walk in the Oltrarno District with a cold Coca-Cola and bruschetta right next to the Santo Spirito Basilica. We were tired but also in awe of how much we had seen. I honestly expected to start the walking tour and finish it another day. After a much needed rest with the previously mentioned refreshing Coca Cola, we crossed the river again on a different bridge for an evening view of the Ponte Vecchio on our way back to the Airbnb where we turned in early for a quiet evening listening to the local sounds of the street below and rest for the next day’s big adventure.
Day 6: 22,120 steps
Cinque Terre and Pisa were both places we wanted to see on our tour of Italy, but we knew it would take careful planning to see both in a single day. We decided to take the stress off ourselves for this travel coordination and book a day-trip from Florence. We joined Elisabetta and her driver Dragos on a large double-decker charter bus on a two-hour drive from Florence, past the Carrara marble quarries, to La Spezia, where we caught the train to Manarola for our first stop. Our group of nearly 60 people of multiple nationalities and languages followed behind thanks to Elisabetta’s whiteboard that told us where to be and when throughout the day. I only have a picture of her because she instructed us to take a photo of her whiteboard each time, so as not to confuse the departure time or platform number. This was also the first day I chose to activate my $12 international data plan for 24 hours of use so that we could communicate with our tour group via WhatsApp.
When we arrived in Manarola, we got off the train and proceeded to enter an underground tunnel before we came out in the middle of the mountainside village. Looking up the mountain above the rest of the village was so green. Upon closer examination and explanation from Elisabetta, the green broke itself into layers. The bottom layer consisted of lemon trees, the middle layer olive trees, and, at the top, vineyards. There were stone walls creating terrace pathways that winded through all the different local orchards, groves, and vineyards. Our guide told us that if all these terraces were stretched into a straight line, they would be longer than the Great Wall of China. Elisabetta told us we were free to explore as we pleased during our allotted time in Manarola, but she highly suggested we follow her, so we did. We turned to go down the hill, through the village to the ocean, where we got on a sidewalk path that went alongside the edge of the ocean, away from the village, and up another hill. Every step we took away from the village, we turned around to look at the view of the village became more and more beautiful. It was maybe the most scenic and gorgeous single view we saw the entire two weeks in Italy. After exploring the path to the top and taking in the view for not nearly long enough, we ventured back into the city where we only had about half an hour to sample some focaccia, buy some pesto to take home and get Alex a little caffeine boost before we met the group back on the train to our next village in Cinque Terre — Monterosso.
When we arrived in Monterosso, we elected to join the tour guide for a predetermined, three-course lunch menu at a restaurant on the new side of town. As we exited the train station through a tunnel, Elisabetta explained that turning right and walking along the coast led you to the newer side of town that expanded after the train was built; turning left and walking along the coast and through another tunnel in the distance led to the original Monterosso village. After eating our lunch basically in silence at a community table with an Asian family on our tour that spoke very little English, we ventured out to explore. Lunch consisted of a seafood salad, pesto trofie, and panna cotta. Trofie is the local type of pasta made in that region, and pesto, while made all over Italy, originated from this region in particular. After lunch, we walked down the small beach on the new side of town with the statue of Neptune carved into the cliffs before turning around and walking past the train station to the older village of Monterosso. The narrow pedestrian-only streets were filled with local shops for souvenirs, olive oil, pesto, and all things lemon. It was a rainy, misty day, but the beauty of the Italian coast was not dulled in the slightest. We wore our raincoats and still enjoyed the day to its fullest.
After getting back on the train to La Spezia and reuniting with our bus, we drove to our next destination – Pisa. We parked near a gas station and got off the bus in what looked like an average town. After walking for about 10 minutes, we came to the old walls that surrounded the city of Pisa. Upon entering, we first passed the baptistery and cathedral before coming to the leaning tower, which is actually the campanile (free-standing bell tower) built to accompany the cathedral in Pisa. As we listened to the Rick Steves audio tour, he explained that the only reason the tower is able to stand firm while leaning is that it was built in stages. When they started building the base, it began to lean, and construction was halted. Once they resumed building it, the base was able to settle and became more stable. What fascinated us most was that there were so many different people from different countries, speaking different languages, but we all came to this place and did the same thing – pose for a photo pretending to hold up “the leaning tower of Pisa.” It was pretty comedic. We took the stereotypical photos, walked around the base of the tower, and then ordered Alex an espresso at the cafe right next the tower so we could sit, gaze at the tour, and people watch for a few minutes before going to meet back up with our tour group to drive back to Florence.
We got back to Florence around 7 p.m. and went straight to a restaurant I had on my list – Osteria Pastella. We found a line formed outside, and I stood in line to gauge the wait time while Alex walked a couple of minutes away to take out stuff back to the Airbnb. When he got back, I had not moved much, but we decided to continue waiting in line, mostly because I was tired and didn’t want to come up with another plan. Sometimes it's worth the wait. This ended up being our favorite meal of the entire trip. After about an hour and fifteen minutes waiting in line, we walked past the display window where they were making ravioli and sat down toward the back of the restaurant. The main reason I wanted to come to this restaurant was to order the “Tagliatelle flambé al tartufo fresco in crosta di Grana Padano,” which basically translates to pasta with fresh truffle in a Grana Padano cheese wheel. Since this was “the thing” to order, we watched them make it table-side about every five minutes somewhere in the restaurant. In fact, they made it for the couple sitting closest to us right when we sat down, which confirmed my order. We also ordered an assortment of local meats and cheeses, lasagna, and deconstructed tiramisu. The meat and cheese plate had the widest variety of any we ordered during our trip and everything on it was delicious except for one thing – the chicken liver puree, which Alex luckily tried before I did. Alex’s lasagna was equally as good as my truffle cheese pasta (if not better), and the tiramisu was hard to beat for the rest of the trip. It was an absolutely incredible meal.
Day 7: 14,560 steps
The next morning, we embarked on another adventure outside the main city center of Florence. We booked a cooking class at Opera in the Kitchen, a villa in the Chianti region about 30 minutes south of Florence with an olive grove and vineyard that produces their fresh, house-made olive oil and wine. Since it was not a walkable destination, we took advantage of the private driver arranged by the cooking class host. I communicated with Alessandro over WhatsApp, and he was flexible and understanding despite the changes in the start time of the cooking class. He picked us up outside the restaurant underneath our Airbnb apartment and told us he only spoke a little English, but he proceeded to give us information about the region as we left the city of Florence and drove into the countryside. At one point, he told us that driving was his second job; his first job was being a bodyguard for none other than Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire. With a little bit of stun in our eyes, we immediately felt safer and more trusting of Alessandro. Once we got to the villa, Lucrezia (Lu Lu) taught us (and the Canadian couple with us) her grandmother’s recipe for cavatelli pasta (rolled on a gnocchi board) with tomato sauce, two types of bruschetta, and panna cotta with strawberry puree. After cooking, we were able to enjoy the views from the upper floor of the villa and share a delicious meal. It was a beautiful (and yummy) experience to learn to cook something authentic and get out into the hills of Tuscany. The jury is still out on whether we will be successful at recreating these dishes back in our own kitchen.
Alessandro was there waiting when we finished the cooking class and told us he could drop us off anywhere in Florence. Since we finished the cooking class a little early, after some deliberation in the backseat, we decided to ask him to drop us off at Piazza Michelangelo, known for sweeping views of the city. In order to get these views, it is quite a hike up the hill across the Arno River to reach this overlook area. Since I wasn’t sure we were going to have a better opportunity and it would save us the effort of hiking up to the top, we had Alessandro drop us off here. The views were stunning and absolutely worth the trip (especially since we skipped the uphill part). After taking in the views and buying a few postcards here, we started the 40-minute walk back to the city center, exploring charming streets all along the way, arriving in plenty of time for our time-entry tickets to the Accademia Gallery, home of Michelangelo’s David.
Following the Rick Steves audio tour once again, we entered the museum and immediately turned to the left and walked straight to the David. This gallery was built specifically to hold this statue after it was removed from Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio and replaced with a replica. Did you know that the David was originally commissioned to sit on top of Florence’s famous dome? Rick taught us that tidbit, too. Even knowing it was originally carved to sit so high in the air, the detail was astounding. Having only seen photos straight on, my favorite vantage point as we walked around this larger-than-life statue was to his left, standing in his line of sight. After taking it in, we follow Rick’s prompts back to the beginning of the museum, where we backtracked toward David through the unfinished prisoner sculptures that shed light on Michelangelo’s carving process.
On our way back to the Airbnb, we went into the Duomo’s baptistry, which was under a lot of construction. We learned pretty quickly to expect construction and restoration to be going on somewhere constantly in cities with so much history still standing.
Day 8: 24,530 steps
The next morning we were in the first group of people to enter the Uffizi Gallery, the most well-known and renowned museum in Florence, filled with art and sculptures, mostly from the Renaissance, that is now housed in what was once the Medici family offices (uffizi is Italian for offices). We saw artwork from Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo along the way as Rick Steves led us through the gallery. We quickly concluded the renaissance artists all painted similar scenes with their own interpretation and artistic style – Madonna (Mary) and child (Jesus), the annunciation (when Mary is told she will be the mother of Jesus), the adoration of the magi (nativity scene with the wisemen), and crucifixion. The big, multi-level, U-shaped building was beautiful, ornate, and magnificent. Outside the courtyard created by the U-shape, there were statues of dozens of famous Italians, including Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Galileo.
After spending a couple of hours in the Uffizi Gallery, we walked to the very next building and climbed the 20+ floors to the top of the Palazzo Vecchio bell tower. My research had suggested that this was a slightly easier, less crowded, and less claustrophobic scenic climb than doing the Duomo’s bell tower or the Dome itself. Knowing I wanted to see the Duomo’s dome from whatever scenic overlook we decided to climb to and that I would want to be able to take my time climbing all those stairs, I decided we would climb the Palazzo Vecchio bell tower. It was most definitely less crowded; I think we only saw one other couple the whole time we were in the bell tower. It provided a beautiful view of Florence, but I had hoped it would be a little closer to the Duomo’s captivating dome.
After descending the many stairs back to ground level, we sat in the covered portico directly outside, which is technically an extension of the Uffizi Gallery. We caught our breath and rehydrated before walking to the Santa Croce Church, where we ate lunch at Finisterrae, where we shared a meat and cheese platter and a carbonara. After exploring around Santa Croce, we explored a local spot by recommendation of one of our friends living in Italy, a coffee shop inside the Oblate Library with views of the Duomo. After a little souvenir shopping, another look at the Duomo up close, and some live music in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, we took a short break in the Airbnb before going to the Bargello Museum.
Pretty much solely based on the fact that Rick Steves said this was the most underrated museum in Florence, we visited the Bargello museum on our final night in this beautiful city. The sculpture museum resides in the building that was once the original city hall and contains works of Michelangelo, Donatello, and others. Alex was mostly excited because this meant we had now seen works of art by all the ninja turtles – Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo. For all you Brooklyn Nine-Nine fans out there, he could, in fact, be heard in the museum saying, “I’m gunsta talk about the turtles, Terry!” From here we went for our final dinner in Florence. The mission? A Florentine steak. Hopefully, when we find ourselves in Florence again one day, I will plan better restaurant reservations. While I had lists of restaurants that I had researched, I had not made any reservations. Once we arrived, we realized that many of the best dinner restaurants were reservation only, and they took reservations by phone, so I could not make any reservations once we were there because I did not have an international phone plan. I would have loved to have eaten at places like Trattoria Mario, Trattoria Sostanza, or Trattoria 13 Gobbi. Instead, we ate at the restaurant directly below our Airbnb, but we did get a Florentine steak, so mission accomplished.
Day 9: 17,900 steps
As soon as we arrived in Rome, we caught a bus, for which I’m 85% sure we correctly paid, to get to our Airbnb, which was on a small street that looked like it would be pedestrian only but was not. After finding our host, he led us up the three or four flights of winding stairs to the apartment that was still being cleaned from the last tenant. They kindly let us drop our luggage there and told us we could come back in an hour or so. We went back downstairs and had some pasta at the restaurant below the apartment building before walking to the nearest local grocery store for some water bottles and breakfast food for the apartment. While the breakfast food we got was not as good as I had hoped, we bought a six-pack of liter-sized water bottles, and it was one of the smartest things we did the whole trip. After returning to the apartment and catching our breath, we headed out to begin our exploration of Rome. We walked to Campo de Fiori to begin Rick Steves’s Heart of Rome Walk, which led us through the market which included the theatre where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death, which now has apartment buildings built atop the original building and columns as well as a statue of a man named Bruno, but we don’t have to talk about that. We left the market and walked through Palazzo Farnese and its fountains, down the main street named for Italy’s first ruler after reunification Victor Emanuel II; through Piazza Pasquino (where our Airbnb was) and Piazza Navona to the Pantheon; and to the Parliament building and Egyptian obelisk, Galleria Alberto Sordi, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish steps.
The pantheon, as an engineering feat of history, is something I knew would peak Alex’s interest. Thanks to another Rick Steves audio tour, we learned that people used to walk up into the Pantheon, as it sat as the highest point in the piazza, but over time it has sunk and the rest of the city has been built up around it, so now you walk down a hill into the Pantheon. In contrast to some of the other old historical buildings we saw on this trip, this one felt especially trapped in the past. The concrete was darker and aged, and a lot of the gold adornment and detail had been stripped away through the years. The dome was truly amazing when considering how long ago it was built and how long it has withheld its structure over time. The hole in the middle provided all the light needed for the entire space. We did not experience it in the rain, but I did wonder what it was like to be in the Pantheon while it was raining. One thing I did not know before experience it for myself was how many people are buried in the Pantheon, including Victor Emanuel II, who has a massive monument in Rome all to himself, Victor’s son and his son’s wife (for whom margherita pizza is named) as well as the artist Raphael.
While walking past the parliament building and the prime minister’s cabinet building, which is also next to one of the main news buildings for Rome, we saw a commotion that made my journalism instincts come alive. We stood outside in the piazza created by the perpendicular placement of the prime minister’s cabinet building and Il Tempo, the news building. People with news cameras and microphones were gathered a specific distance outside the entrance to the cabinet building, waiting for someone to come out. After some Google searching, we determined that the prime minister had canceled her agenda for that day to meet with her cabinet about Trump’s tariff announcements, which made Alex want to get away from there as fast as possible, but made me intrigued with the timeliness and news value of it all. After Alex lost his patience with me standing around watching the news unfold, we crossed a busy street and went into Galleria Alberto Sordi, where we had the best cannoli of our entire trip. My research had taught me to look for empty cannoli shells that would be filled fresh upon ordering so when we saw a mobile cart full of empty cannoli shells outside a little shop in the mall, I knew we needed to stop for a little sweet snack to propel us through the rest of our audio walk with Rick. I’m so glad we did. We had several more cannolis throughout the trip and, while they were good, none of them were as good as this one. Maybe it was truly the best, and maybe it was just the realization of their incredible perfection as we ate our first one. Either way, it was a good cannoli (according to this American).
Rome, known for its fountains, did not disappoint. There was beautiful architecture and history everywhere we looked. No fountain compared to the renowned Trevi Fountain, which may have been one of the things I was most excited to see when we were planning our Roman itinerary. I knew I wanted to see it in the daylight and the dark. Our first encounter in the busy afternoon was still everything I wanted it to be, minus the obnoxious whistles of the security guards that were making sure no one sat on the edge of the fountain itself. There was a “line” to get through the barricade and down to the bottom. They let a crowd of people through every few minutes, but it did help keep the bottom sidewalks right next to the fountain at least passable and somewhere clear for photo ops. It really was more of a mob than a line, so, much to Alex’s chagrin, we pushed our way in pretty quickly thanks to my decisive assertiveness and excitement for the fountain all together.
After leaving the Trevi Fountain and continuing to follow Rick’s guidance we eventually arrived at the base of the Spanish Steps. There is a boat-shaped fountain at the bottom of the steps that serves as a drinking fountain as well. We found a place to sit near it and sat there for longer than I think I realized. We cooled off and rested from the long walk in the buzz of the people, the rush of the water fountain, and the beauty of the city. Once we regained a little energy, we climbed the Spanish Steps to the top (because, as Alex pointed out, how could we not). After taking in the view, we climbed back down and began to think about dinner. I was feeling a little decision fatigue and sticker shock at the restaurants near the steps, so we ended up walking to a restaurant recommended by our friend Jane, Ristorante Pizzeria Al Picchio. I remember thinking the restaurant was good (minus the annoying street salesmen walking by our table), but honestly, the thing I will forever remember is that this is where we were sitting when we found out the white smoke had been released from the Vatican.
For context, Pope Francis died the Monday after Easter, April 21. His funeral took place on April 26, and the conclave to select the next pope began on May 7. After Pope Francis died, I became a little obsessed with following the events that unfolded. Like everyone in the world, we watched the movie Conclave to better understand what that process looked like, but, unlike everyone else in the world, we were going to be in Rome while it was happening. Once they announced the start date of the conclave as May 7, I hoped we would be in Rome for the selection of the new pope. We arrived in Rome on May 8, and, while we were eating our first dinner in this historic city, the next pope was selected. We didn’t try to rush to the Vatican to see him come out on the balcony, but we heard the church bells ringing through the city and visited the Vatican on our scheduled day a couple of days later. Maybe it’s because we didn’t understand the language, but I also felt like the rest of the city was moving on with life as usual, with less buzz around the news than I anticipated. After we finished dinner, we backtracked our walk in the cooler evening city shade, ate gelato and another cannoli while we watched the news with the rest of the world to learn more about this new Pope Leo.
We did not find Rome’s metro system helpful as it only served specific areas of town, not including the area near our Airbnb. While we did not ride it to give a full review, the limited reach made it more beneficial for us to use the bus system, which was crowded and hectic, to say the least. After our first bus ride and not being 100% sure we paid for the ride with the credit card tap machine on board, we bought a day pass to use the rest of the trip, which was more reassuring in case we happened to have our tickets checked, which we never did.
Day 10: 32,860 steps
On our first full day in Rome, we got up and caught an overpriced cab to save ourselves the 30-minute walk to the Colosseum, arguably the most iconic sight in Rome. I had been up in the middle of the night exactly 30 days prior (to the minute) to get attic entry tickets. When we got inside, we went up the attic first and saw the colosseum and the city of Rome from the very top level of the Colosseum, with only about six other people on the entire level with us. It was truly magical. After our half hour was up, we went down to the street level and walked around the entire perimeter, passing the seat of the emperor, where a cross in honor of all the martyrs killed here now stands. As a history buff, I’m still not sure I totally wrapped my mind around the history that we were standing on. It was busy and hot, but absolutely worth every second. After leaving the Colosseum, we walked by the Arch and Constantine and into the Roman Forum (where we actually waited in a longer line than at the Colosseum). Perhaps it was due to the heat as the sun came out from behind the clouds, but I personally found the Roman Forum a bit underwhelming. Maybe I didn’t explore the right pathways, but Rick rarely led us astray throughout our trip through Italy’s attractions with him. The main basilica, from before the word “basilica” meant church, was blocked off, and other construction blocked the way to several other ruins as well. We completed Rick Steves’s tour and decided to exit, even though I’m sure there were other things we could have seen and explored. At that point, I needed shade, food, and water.
Walking back up to the modern-day street level, we found a collection of restaurants and began walking toward them. Seeing the Forum from above gave us a little more reference to where we had been standing, and it was easier to appreciate from the shaded pathways looking down into the Forum. We sat down for lunch and, ironically, I ordered based on the Google reviews for the restaurant next door (facepalm), but we had the most delicious pizza as well as a refreshing Coca-Cola and cacio e pepe. We had been planning to hold out on ordering pizza until we got to Naples, but we were so glad we decided to order it here. It was fresh, fluffy, and absolutely delicious. We would order another pizza later in the day and realize that we had found a rare Neapolitan-style pizza in Rome. Roman pizza is a thin, cracker crust, while the Neapolitan style is the fluffy, bread-like crust we had at this restaurant, Dulcis in Fundo.
After lunch, we explored more of Palatine Hill, walking past the massive Victor Emmanuel II Monument and visiting Mamertine Prison, where Peter and Paul were held in Rome. The prison is now on the bottom level of a church right next to the Roman Forum. What was once the prison where prisoners sentenced to death were held now houses two churches, one on a lower level dating back to early Christian medieval times and one on the modern Roman street level named for Jesus’s father, Joseph. As we descended from the street level floor, where a Catholic service was being held and tickets were being sold to the museum and lower levels, to the lower level church with Paul and Peter prominently displayed on the doors, it was easy to see the building’s history as a prison. It was dark and wet. We descended one more time down a very narrow stairway that would not have been there originally, into the pit with no real exit that would have held the prisoners. It was hard to grasp what events in history and what kind of people would have spent hours, days, and weeks in this dark stone hole.
Our next adventure was in the hands of Rick Steves once again. We followed his guided audio tour walks through the Jewish Ghetto and the Trastevere neighborhood, which were pretty much right across the Tiber River from one another. In the Jewish Ghetto we walked past their synagogue, down the main street of the neighborhood lined with Kosher restaurants and learned about the terrible history that unfolded on the very streets we walked. On some of the side streets, gold name plates could be found in the cobblestone streets outside of homes to honor and remember those who never got to come back home.
After crossing the Tiber River with a stop on Isoline Tiberina (island in the Tiber River), we were in Trastevere, what used to be a purely local area of Rome but has become a little more touristy as people like us look for authentic food, people and architecture to experience. After seeing gorgeous local streets and experiencing a local piazza with dogs and children playing and walking into the Church of St. Cecilia and the Church of Santa Maria, we proceeded to a street food spot recommended by the Pasini’s called Trapizzino where we tried, you guessed it, trapizzino and suppli. After enjoying this aperitivo and a rest off our feet, we continued on to another Pasisi recommendation for dinner. After a 45 minute stroll along the Tiber River and past the Colosseum to a totally different area of Rome. When Jessi and Alessio Pasini say they have a favorite restaurant in Rome, we obviously had to go there when we were nowhere close to it on the longest walking day of the entire trip. I’m sure Alex thought I was crazy, but this odd plan paid off in a way not even I had expected.
As we walked the last few blocks on a much larger, heavily trafficked street in Rome where locals were carrying grocery bags back to their respective homes, I realized something major was only a few blocks past the restaurant in the very direction we were walking. A weary and hungry Alex happily went along with my excitement and agreed to pass the restaurant and walk another couple of blocks to Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major where Pope Francis had been buried just two weeks prior. Being almost 7:30 p.m., I only had expectations of seeing the outside and trying to imagine where we were standing amongst the funeral procession I had watched on the livestream before we left home. When we walked up to this magnificent building that sat at the end of a long straight street, we saw lots of people gathered around the front, but I assumed it was just people gathering outside to see the basilica that was surely closed at this time of day. When we got closer we realized there was a live band playing on the steps of the basilica, which was enclosed in a gate surrounding the building. There were people listening from the piazza outside the gate, but I also realized there were people standing around listening inside the gate. After looking around, I realized quickly there was a security checkpoint off to the side to get inside the gate, and the doors of the basilica were still open! I quickly started moving in that direction without stopping to convince Alex that we were going inside. There was basically no line at all to get through the security checkpoint, and we walked right through. Once we got inside the gate, we stopped to listen to the band next to a local man with a newspaper, or what I thought was a stack of newspapers. I had decided earlier that afternoon to look for a local newspaper announcing the new pope that I could take home as a souvenir to commemorate being in Rome during this historic occasion. Thinking the man had a stack of newspapers to sell, I attempted to talk to him and ask him how much he was selling the newspaper for. He quickly corrected me, to my embarrassment, and told me that it was his newspaper but that I could find one at some theatre nearby and pointed me in the direction. I apologized and thanked him. As we proceeded up the stairs to the doors of the basilica, I realized we were about to walk through one of four sets of holy doors in the city of Rome. I got pretty excited and recorded Alex walking through them into the basilica, which was gorgeous and ornate and expansive. As soon as we came through the doors, they shut them behind us. We had just barely made it in time. Because we had gone through the holy door, we were directed straight to Pope Francis’s burial site in the church, which I never in a million years thought we would be able to just walk up to only two weeks after his funeral when we had really no intentionality or plan in place to do so. I was in awe of the reverence in the room, the simplicity of his burial site in comparison to everything else around us and the fact that I was really standing there experiencing this. We continued through the basilica to see the front of the church and the ornate details of the stained glass and inset gold squares that covered the ceiling. When we walked back out the front doors, the band was playing How Great Thou Art. I was a little in shock of what we just got to experience, especially as we prepared to go to the Vatican the following morning, a little unsure of what we would actually be able to do with the current events unfolding.
After our unexpected adventure and experience, I finally was ready (reluctantly) to walk back to the restaurant and eat dinner at Jessi and Alessio Pasini’s favorite restaurant in Rome – L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele. There were definitely other tourists there, but there were also clearly locals who were interacting with the group of Italian men waiting on the tables as friends and regular customers. We ordered cacio e pepe, carbonara, pizza, and a tiaramisu. It was all delicious, but this is when we realized Roman style pizza was not what we had gotten for lunch early that day. We sat and rested and enjoyed the atmosphere for a while before beginning our trek back through Rome to our Airbnb. At a news stand near our Airbnb, I found what I thought were the last few newspapers left for the day and bought an Italian sports newspaper that had a small section about the new pope. It had been a long day of exploring this city and we ended the day happy, content, thankful, and very tired.
Day 11: 16,815 steps
We got up the next morning with plans of arriving at the Vatican and to St. Peter’s basilica around 7 a.m. to minimize the amount of time we would have to wait in line. The exhaustion of the day before kept us dragging a little bit, but we got on the bus and got to St. Peter’s square around 8 a.m. and, to our surprise, found the square rather empty. The barricades were still in place to organize the masses of people who I’m sure had been there just days before and would be there again in the near future, but they made it rather difficult for us to maneuver the empty square and find the line to get inside the papal basilica. As we walked around the square to find the security entrance to the line to get inside, the red velvet curtain from the balcony above the main entrance stood out. The new pope had come out onto this balcony just two days prior. And we were here. I kept staring at it as if somehow he would reappear there for us to see. Along the way to the entrance we passed a vendor set up just inside the entrance to the Vatican that still had L'Osservatore Romano, the daily newspaper of Vatican City, dated May 9. I excitedly bought one and carried it around with us the rest of the day. I went back later to try and buy some additional copies, but the crowds had arrived in full-force, making it impossible to get to that vendor again.
As we walked up the side of the main steps to the entrance, the clearly defined markings in front of the basilica came flooding back to me from watching the funeral livestream. I started pointing out to Alex where the casket had sat and where the stage had been set up during the funeral. As we entered St. Peter’s Basilica, even the portico before we went all the way inside was grand and beautiful. Being the main destination for pilgrimage to the holy doors, the entrance through the holy doors was accessible through a different line for those who had registered as pilgrims for Jubilee Year. We walked through the main center door of the basilica and were greeted with the most grand building I think I have ever stepped into. We had seen so many churches up to this point on this trip alone, but none compared to this one. Everywhere we looked, there was something different to see. As we walked down the relatively uncrowded center aisle toward the front, there are markers on the floor comparing the size of other basilicas around Italy to the size of St. Peter’s. As we walked down, I couldn’t help but continue to imagine the crowds of people filling this walkway that I had watched on livestreams and news stations while Pope Francis was lying in state. I was shocked at how few people were here now. By the time we left the basilica nearly an hour and a half later the lines and center aisle would be full of people, making me even more grateful for the experience we were able to have earlier in the morning. The grandeur of the basilica was overwhelming. While it was one big room, it was segmented into different areas in the center and on each side, with an even smaller area in the back for regular mass services not held by the pope, which was happening while we were there. Luckily Rick Steves helped lead us around the basilica and guide us to some of the can’t-miss sculptures, pieces of art and burial sites of other popes. One of the most notable being Michelangelo's Pietà depicting Mary holding the dead body of Jesus after crucifixion, which is behind a large glass enclosure. As we exited the basilica, we were able to join the line of pilgrimages and walk through the holy doors, accessing a closer view of Michelangelo's Pietà as well as the reverent room, Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, in which there is a miniature tabernacle by Bernini. Overall, the experience of seeing St. Peter’s Basilica and exploring freely inside was an incredible highlight of our entire experience in Rome.
When we came back out of the basilica into St. Peter’s Square, Rick continued pointing out some of the things of which we needed to take notice including where the pope’s personal apartment was located and the pipe from which the white and black smoke had risen just days before from the Sistine Chapel, which is actually pretty nondescript from the outside. One of the things that neither Alex nor I knew before listening to his audio tour was that this square was a central place for Christian martyrdom as it was once the site of Nero’s chariot racecourse. In fact, the obelisk standing in the center of the square was the centerpiece of this racecourse, and during big events, killing Christians would be considered the half-time entertainment, as Rick described it. Many believe this was where Peter, who is considered the first pope, was crucified before his remains were buried where the basilica now sits. In fact, the first church built on this site was erected by Constantine because of the site’s significance with St. Peter.
After a brief break in the shade along the columns lining the square, we briefly left the Vatican city for some lunch – more pizza. The most memorable part of this lunch experience was the entire basil plant that served as the centerpiece for each table. Our margherita pizza came with no basil on it, and we proceeded to pick the fresh basil off the plant on our table and add as much as we wanted.
After lunch we began the longer-than expected walk from St. Peter’s square to the Vatican museums for our timed-entry tickets. Even with the ticket, it was a long, hot line in the middle of the day with crowds bunched up in disorganized fashion, only increasing the general vibe of frustration across the crowd. Once we finally got into this giant museum that used to be the entertaining halls of previous popes, we walked a predetermined one-way guided path through the very large, multi-level square building surrounding an interior courtyard. We saw countless pieces of history from sculptures and paintings to pottery and tapestries. Some of the most impressive things to me were the personal entertaining and living quarters of previous popes in which every square inch of floor and ceiling were painted in ornate intentional storytelling by some of the greatest painters of history. As we went, our energy depleted to an extreme low. While Rick Steves guided us through in an attempt to see the most important things, the one-way path led us a specific way, which was through all the rooms there were to see. As we neared the end, we both were hitting a wall, wondering how much longer we could put one foot in front of another. That sounds so dramatic as I write it, but the exhaustion was really catching up to us, and we didn’t really get past this wall until we had been back home in Arkansas more than a week, to be honest. The final blow was that once we arrived at the end of the Vatican Museum, where we should have then proceeded into the Sistine Chapel at some point, we were being led to the exit. We verified with a kind security man, who I’m sure could see the desperation in my eyes, that the Sistine Chapel was still closed and being used by the new Pope Leo and the bishops still in town from the conclave. Disappointed, we made our way back to our Airbnb for an afternoon nap, the first of our entire trip, believe it or not.
After feeling a little bit rejuvenated, but mostly ready for dinner, we ventured back out for our last night in Rome. We ate dinner at Osteria da Fortunata, where we sat at a table right next to the woman making pasta from scratch in the display window. We ordered cacio e pepe and a pesto pasta, both of which were delicious, but we were a little partial to the pesto. I asked Alex if there was anything his heart desired to do in Rome on our last night, and he did not have anything in particular he wanted to do, so I decided we would go see the Trevi Fountain one last time. We caught another bus and passed a lot of gelato places as we walked from the bus station to the fountain, which significantly influenced my plan for what we might do after seeing the fountain. We arrived at the Trevi fountain at dusk, when the last bit of daylight was still lighting the fountain itself. We made our way through the mob of people to the bottom again. It was even busier this time than when we had been there a few days earlier. We took a few more pictures, sat and took in the beauty of the fountain at this time of day with no harsh light or heat and, just as we were about ready to leave, a big countdown came up projected onto the fountain. Normally, I read that the fountain was illuminated at night to enhance the detailed features, but this light show was more colorful rather than focusing solely on the fountain itself. Later research suggests that we saw a special light show that shows in the month of May to promote the International Tennis Tournament, which makes sense since specific athletic players were included in the light show presentation. After watching the show, we headed back toward the bus stop, stopping for some gelato on the way. After getting off the bus, we also stopped at Two Sizes to try their tiramisu. It was one of the top rated places to get tiramisu in Rome and it was right next to our Airbnb, so how could we not?
All things considered, Rome had more big-city vibes than Florence and was definitely less walkable, but it also held some of the most special moments because of when we were there. Being in Rome when Pope Leo was introduced to the world is something I will never forget. It gave more color and appreciation to some of the things we saw in Rome, especially at the Vatican. We didn’t purposefully plan to be in Rome while a new pope was being selected or even during the Jubilee Year, but we were; I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was inspiring to be in a city that held so much history while one more small chapter of it was being written. But I do plan to go back so we can visit the Sistine Chapel someday.
Day 12: 18,210 steps
The next morning we packed up all our luggage yet again and made our way to the bus and back to the train station to travel to our last destination – Naples. Naples is the most densely populated city in Italy but it didn't feel like a “big city” like Milan, at least the parts we explored in just a day. It felt densely populated but still authentic and local. We really only added Naples to our itinerary for one reason: pizza. I would, however, come back to Naples for two reasons: pizza and Pompeii.
After getting off the train, we bought our 24-hour metro pass and then headed to our hotel, Hotel Il Convento, in the Spanish Quarter. We loved our Airbnbs, but of all our hotels that we stayed in through the course of the entire trip, this was our favorite. It was immersive with the culture and the staff was overly accommodating to hold our luggage before check in and after checkout, even take it up to our room for us once the room was ready. The room was comfortable, the bathroom had an original door with the coolest key and the balcony gave us a glimpse into the Spanish Quarter streets from above. After checking in, we headed back out to begin our next set of adventures. We stopped along the way for a pre-lunch snack and thank goodness we did because we discovered what ended up being our favorite thing we ate in Naples – Montanara pizza. This little fluffy, doughy pizza base was topped with marinara, mozzarella and basil leaf. It was so simple but oh, so good. This one specifically was from Passione di Sofi, but I’m sure there are other places to get them as well. After our snack break we headed to the metro station.
Our plan was to head directly back the way we came on the metro back to the train station and get on the Circumvesuviana commuter train to Pompeii, but, after wandering around in a circle following different signs, we asked someone and were informed it was closed due to a strike. We stood in line in the hot lower level of the train station for a while only to find the machine failing every time we got to the point of charging our card. In desperation and exhaustion, we went back upstairs to a customer service desk only to be pointed back to the kiosks. We went to a different set of self-service ticket kiosks upstairs in the air conditioning with no line and immediately were able to purchase tickets. We got a snack in the train station while we were waiting for our train to the Pompeii Garibaldi station to see the ancient city of Pompeii (versus the new modern city of Pompei). Due to the delays in making a new travel plan and the availability of the train and bus to get to the ancient city, we only had about two hours in Pompeii itself. Another note to self would be to make sure you have all your tickets screenshotted on your phone. I had done this with every single ticket I pre-booked, but since I booked our day-pass tickets to Pompeii the day before once we solidified our plan, I had forgotten to take a screenshot of the email. The Pompeii ticket booth and entrance building itself does not have wifi and will not be willing to assist you in getting access to your ticket; just trust us from experience. Once we were in Pompeii, we relied on Rick Steves once again to show us around through my airpods.
Our friend, McLane, who lives in Italy, had told us that “Pompeii was sick,” so that became our reaction to everything we saw in Pompeii. She was not wrong. Pompeii and its ruins, I decided after-the-fact, were what I expected the Roman Forum to be like. There were actual buildings, streets, and tile mosaics still intact. It felt like the entire city had been frozen in time, which it was, by layers of ash and volcanic debris. We saw ancient street food stands, bathhouses and even flour mills and ovens, which looked exactly like what we would call a pizza oven today. The coolest thing to me was the streets that ran through town. They were sunk below the sidewalk level for water drainage and had large stepping stones for people to cross intersections. The best part was the chariot tracks. In the same way our roads have tire marks worn due to repetitive traffic, their stone roads had small grooves left in them by repetitive chariot traffic. It was rainy and gloomy the day we were there, which added to the atmosphere and eerie vibe of a city left completely abandoned to a volcano with very little advanced notice. It also made it cooler and cloudy which was much appreciated since there would have been no escape from the sun if it had been beating down on us. The red poppies growing the midst of all the ruins helped to brighten the overall mood. We had to rush ourselves out to catch the bus and get back to the last train back to Naples, but I wish we could have spent another hour or even two exploring this ancient city of ruins. Luckily Alex had better directional sense than me and got us back to the entrance. I would likely have gotten us lost.
When we got off the train and back in Naples, we had one wish to fulfill. Alex had very few non-negotiable requests when we were planning our trip, but one of his wishes was to eat pizza in Naples at the original pizzeria. While there is some debate over which one is the original, we placed our bets on L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele. We walked up to find a long line outside where people were waiting either to get a table or order to go. After our long day traveling to Pompeii and back we decided to order to go. I’m honestly not sure it was any faster than waiting on a table, just for future reference, but it was absolutely delicious and the two of us ate the entire margherita pizza. Walking back to our hotel, we stopped at this cute little bakery with a case outside, including sfogliatella, which is a local, shell-shaped pastry with filling that I had read about in my research. We stopped to get one, and, to be honest, it was not my favorite. I’m sure it could be someone else’s favorite but I was more drawn to the cannolis, gelato and tiramisu in the world of Italian dessert. But, hey, we tried it!
Day 13: 20,185 steps
The next morning, knowing it would be our last real bed until we arrived home two days later, we slept in a little bit before checking out, asking the hotel to hold our luggage for a few hours, and making our way to the Naples Archeology Museum. I don’t remember if it was Rick Steves or one of the countless YouTube videos I watched in preparation for our trip, but someone said that visiting Pompeii and visiting the Naples Archeology Museum should be done either together or not at all, that both are more impactful when paired with the other, and I can attest that was absolutely true. We explored the museum, accompanied by Rick of course, and had a greater appreciation for the artefacts that had been recovered after walking on those exact cobblestone streets the day before. I would venture to say doing the museum first before visiting the actual city would be even better because of the scale model of the entire city we could see from above, like the key to the maze we had just been walking through.
From the steps outside the museum began Rick Steves’s audio tour walk through the city of Naples itself, which we paused along the way to eat more pizza. We walked through countless piazzas, explored street food and markets and walked through Spaccanapoli. Since the overcast sky had blocked Mount Vesuvius from our view the day before, we began our own exploration of Naples after the audio tour ended, heading toward Castel dell’Ovo, Galleria Umberto and Piazza Plebiscito, passing the cruise ship ports along the way. Our exhaustion and lack of internet walking directions were a bad combination, and the previous 12 days of travel were definitely catching up to us. We were almost deliriously exhausted as we trapsed through the city, checking off the final things on our list of sites to see. We stopped at Cafe Gambrinus for a break and sweet treat (cannoli and maritozzi) and at one last street food vendor for a “wallet pizza” before beginning the walk back to the hotel to claim our luggage and begin a very long journey home.
The divide between days at this point gets a little fuzzy, but we left our hotel in Naples with our luggage around 6 p.m., got on the metro to the train station and boarded a train to Rome. In Rome, we boarded a sleeper car that would give us five hours to rest before arriving in Bologna. The sleeper car was so small that once we rolled our luggage into the tiny room with bunk beds, we could hardly take a step, much less turn to change clothes or get situated. We finally got settled and tried to sleep for a few hours. Every time the train stopped, we would startle, thinking that we had arrived at our stop.
Travel Day 14: 9,580 steps
We had alarms set on both of our phones for 30 minutes before our scheduled arrival in Bologna, but about 45 minutes before, the attendant started knocking on our door. He did not go away, and we made the mistake of putting Alex on the top bunk. He finally was able to get down and open the door to find the attendant handing us a breakfast tray. Not sure how long we had to get off the train, we started a hurried attempt to resituate our bags for the flight and eat some of the breakfast provided. I will note it was about 4 a.m. local time. We rushed off the train to an empty, dark outdoor train station where we were scheduled to have about an hour layover before catching the next train on to Milan. We had been off the sleeper car for about 45 minutes when we realized the train had not left yet. I asked Alex, jokingly, if he thought they would let us back on to lay down again. We made our way to the central hub of the train station to find our new platform when we discovered the train had been delayed by 10 minutes, then it was 15, then 20, then eventually 45 minutes. We started doing the math in our head. Our hopes of actually getting to our train on time were diminishing by the minute. Our ticket was for a regional train that took fewer stops and made the trip in about 2 hours, but due to the delays, we were looking at what local trains might be coming through. We found a local train going to Milan that would arrive in about 10 minutes, so I went to get tickets from the self-serve kiosks, leaving Alex with the luggage. When I came back around the corner with new tickets and a glimmer of hope, that glimmer was soon dampened when Alex told me our original regional train had come and gone while I had been at the kiosks. I could only picture Alex standing there with our two rolling suitcases, looking at the train and watching it roll away without us. He said he had even left our luggage unattended momentarily to try and find me when he realized what was happening, but he didn’t know where I had gone.
There was nothing we could do about it now. We got on the local train and rode the three-hour, longer trip to Milan with anxiety filling each stop and delay. We just wanted to make our international flight without having to draw out our already long travel journey anymore. We were supposed to have a nice, first class train ride from the Milano Centrale train station to the Milan airport, but we had missed that a long time ago. When we got to the Milano Centrale train station, we started running through the crowds of people. We ran out of the train station and tried to find a taxi, thinking that may be our only hope of getting to the airport in time. Unlike New York or other cities in America, you don’t just step out onto the curb and hail a taxi. You have to go to the taxi stand and get in line to be paired with the next taxi in their line. The line looked long and, at that moment, I lost hope of catching our flight on time. Right then, another taxi driver stepped out of his car in the drop off lane right in front of us and asked if we needed a ride. I said yes without even hesitating. He told us he could not pick us up right there (rules I suppose), but he could pick us up on the corner up ahead. He instructed us to follow and, in desperation, I started following. Alex was not as interested in this God-sent taxi driver, but I implored him to give it a try. We caught up with the taxi driver, told him where we were going and what time our flight was and he seemed to take it as a personal mission to get us there on time. He implored us to trust him as a local, telling us “I control the road,” as he referred to pedestrians as well as other drivers. I mapped us to the airport using my own Google maps in order to check the arrival time but also track our route as a matter of safety. The taxi driver, who could have been brothers with Joe from the Princess Diaries, got us to the airport 15 minutes faster than Google maps had predicted. We paid him well for his service and started running again. We flew Delta, which is not a primary airline over there believe it or not. We had to run to the far back corner of the airport to check our bags and then run all the way back to the main security checkpoint. We actually made it through security rather quickly with no additional screenings or bag checks luckily. We had to run through what felt like an entire mall before arriving at a passport checkpoint, which took longer than the security checkpoint. Once we made it through that, we continued running until we found our gate. We arrived at our gate 9 minutes before boarding, and I took a photo of my heart on my apple watch to commemorate the moment. Only by an answered prayer, we were able to both go to the bathroom and drink cold water from the vending machine before boarding the international flight directly from Milan to Atlanta.
It was a long flight during which we both watched multiple movies in order to try to stay awake before arriving home. We landed in Atlanta, got a Bobby Flay burger and waited a couple more hours before boarding our final plane home to Little Rock, where we landed around 8 p.m., which was 3 a.m. in Italy. In Little Rock, my parents and Milo were waiting for us, and we could not have been happier to see familiar faces and not have to drive ourselves home. By the time we got our luggage and got home, we had been traveling about 36 hours. We didn’t even unzip our suitcases; we took showers and got straight into bed.
This was the trip of a lifetime, one that both of us will remember forever. Even now, several weeks after we came home, we still talk in terms of “before Italy” and “after Italy.” I think we will go back someday, but there will never be a comparison to this one. Our first international trip together, our first time in Italy, was the trip of a lifetime. We came home exhausted and weary, but after a couple of weeks of recovery, we were ready to hop on a plane and do it again.
What would we do differently?
After returning home, a few different people asked us if we would do this again. Absolutely, without a doubt, we would do it again, but there are a few things we might do differently.
Cut Milan out of the itinerary. Two weeks is a long time but there is so much to do and see. Not that we did not like it, but this was probably our least favorite of the stops. I’m glad we went, but if we went back I might prioritize other things. It was, however, the cheapest airport to fly in and out of the country, which is why we did it. And I’m sure there were many things to do in this city that we never experienced. We also LOVED our day in the Swiss Alps, but it felt like it belonged to a completely different vacation itinerary.
Spend two nights and one full day in Venice. We loved Venice and generally did what we wanted to, but it really is a different city in the mornings and evenings when the “day-trippers” leave. If we did it again, I would spend two nights here so we got a full day here with more time to explore this charming city.
Don’t take a round trip flight. We fly in and out of Milan because it was the most cost-effective, but, in order to make that work, we took a series of 4 overnight trains to get from Naples back to Milan for our flight home. There were train delays, and it was altogether just a very long 34-hour travel journey when we were already tired from the trip itself. In hindsight, I would have paid a little more for a flight home out of an airport closer to Naples.
We really wanted to see the Amalfi Coast, but we didn’t think we had time in our itinerary to do it justice. Ciao for now, Italy. But I think we might be back.