I have been having major technical difficulties with the Italy pictures, so I won't be able to post them here like I usually do. Dry those eyes!!! I have a Plan B. If you like just click on this photo of me and Terry and you can see some pictures from the trip:
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| Italia |
Click on slideshow in the top left corner. Hope you enjoy them!
Our first stop was Venice – an unbelievable city. It's like stepping back in time since there are no cars or bikes. The houses really are lined up along the canals and the city is connected by hundreds of walking bridges. We had to walk or take boats everywhere. We did take a gondola ride, which was hysterical. Of course we had many amazing meals and wine in Venice as well. We finally lucked out with the weather; it was in the high 80s the whole time.
After Venice we flew to Naples in the very early morning and took a private car south of Naples, down the Amalfi Coast. The driver wound up and over and through mountains and Terry and I both got really car sick, when we finally got to our hotel we were so wobbly. I guess we were just not used to either the altitude or the sharp turns. The Amalfi Coast is breathtaking. It's all little towns with bright, colorful houses clinging to sharp cliffs. The beaches are at the bottom of the cliffs and they are very rocky but the water is crystal clear. No sand, no seaweed. We swam and sunned a lot. Like in Venice, everyone has a little boat to get around. We did a day trip to Capri, which is a very posh and tropical island off the Amalfi Coast.
The food everywhere was outstanding. We didn't have one bad meal; even if we picked up a slice of pizza from a street vendor it was perfect. Meals are meant to be eaten in three courses with limoncello and dessert following, so we were insanely full by the end of the trip. The portions were so large it was hard for me to finish anything. They use meats but we mostly had pasta and seafood combinations (plus cheese and veggies). I tried mussels, clams, scallops, everything. Terry ate so much crazy stuff. My new love is eggplant and cheese. I never knew the wonders of eggplant!
We managed to learn a bit of Italian but like most places almost everyone speaks English and many of the menus have translations. Prego was by far the word we heard most in Italy. We think it means a lot of things, such as: ready; attention; your welcome; I'm pleased to do that; and do you want to buy any of my goods, miss? All-purpose words are a good idea, no wonder the Italians have lasted so long.
All the people we met were so nice and welcoming, and I would say 70% of the tourists were American, everywhere we went. The weather was perfect beach weather in Venice and Amalfi (high 80s), but after the long weekend we left the Amalfi Coast and made our way to Rome, where it was torrentially raining. We had left our luggage in Rome's train station, so we had no rain gear whatsoever. We just bought umbrellas and laughed at our bad luck. We didn't have much time in Rome anyways so we hopped on a bus tour and managed to make it to the Vatican and a few other sites. The amount of historical sites in Rome are overwhelming, we hope to make it back someday to see more.
Hope you enjoyed this (short) post - check out the pictures if you have time! ciao xx
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