Alexandria Travels: Ciao means Hello and Goodbye!

Hey Everyone!

Time’s a funny thing in Europe. One day you can be somewhere, and the next day, you can be in a completely different country that speaks a completely different language. That’s been the amazing thing about living in England. It’s a home base to all the different countries that can be traveled to within a few hours.

I haven’t updated my blog in a while because I’ve been busy traveling with my family, who met me a Heathrow last Sunday. I also have had a series of unreliable internet connections which forced me to stop doing vlogmas. I’m very sorry about that. I did vlog up until day 19. I am planning on putting the rest of the days to together in a couple videos because those highlight my family coming over and our vacation.

Now for the recap of Italy!

It's a time of hellos and goodbyes and reunions! The semester at Harlaxton has come to an end, and I can honestly say that that was the best semester of my life so far. It will be hard to top. Sure, there were some rough patches, but I think that the good times and experiences outweighed those.

Thursday, the 11th of December, at 2 am, it was time to say goodbye to the manor (don't worry, I'm went back one last time!) and head off to Italy. Italy is a place that I would have never imagined going just a few years ago. It was so surreal. It really was like a dream or something out of a movie.

We had a two hour flight that morning from London. When we landed in Rome, we collected our bags, and we walked to the tram to take us to the main terminal to be picked up by a coach. That afternoon was a time of exploring the city. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that day. Rome wasn't turning out the way I hoped (like the Lizzie McGuire movie of course!). We walked to the Trevi Fountain, which I was really excited to see, and it had scaffolding all across the front of it, so you couldn't really see it. Then, we headed over to the Spanish Steps, and while they were pretty, they weren't as magnificent as I was expecting.

Friday reassured me that the Italy trip was going to turn out incredible after all. It didn't start that way, though. We walked to the metro station, and it was closed due to a national public transportation strike. Instead of going to the Vatican like we had originally planned, we went to the Colosseum. The Colosseum was so amazing. It was bigger than you think it is. It was definitely something to see.

The Forum and Paletine Gardens were closed due to the strike, but you could still see them from the street.

We found a restaurant on the road that leads to the Colosseum. It was so sunny in Rome, so we ate outside with a view of the Colosseum and Forum, and I had the best lasagna of life.

After that, we walked to the Emanuel the 2nd monument, which we thought was the Pantheon at first (we weren't the only ones).

We weren't sure what to do after that, so we looked at the map and saw that there was a tiny island in the middle of Tiber River. We walked to it and crossed a bridge that was full of artists and musicians. The island was tiny and had two big buildings on it with multiple coffee shops. We found some stairs to go down by the river. The leaves in Italy are still changing colors and still on the trees, so we found a place to sit by the river to take it all in. That part of Rome was beautiful and what I originally expected from Italy.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw the actual Pantheon.

Our time in Rome was great because we planned it to where we did a bunch of sightseeing and walking in the morning, and then we would go back to the hotel and rest for a couple hours before going to get dinner. It kept us from getting too exhausted.

Saturday, we finally got to go to the Vatican. Beware of ticket scammers in the line to the Vatican museum. They are offering a chance for you to skip the line; there’s no skipping the line. Luckily, because of the time of year, there wasn’t much of a line at all.

The Vatican museum was probably the best museum I’ve been to all semester. It was organized and very impressive. They even had a real, partially unwrapped mummy! That was one of the highlights. Of course, the Sistine Chapel was amazing! I definitely recommend going to the Vatican in your life.

We found a restaurant and a gelato place afterward. I ate so much gelato in Italy, and I’m not sorry about it!

We ate our gelato in St. Peter’s Square on some steps. It was sunny and in the 60s outside. It was really surreal to look at St. Peter’s Basilica while eating gelato in the sun.

That wraps our time in Rome. Now, it’s off to Florence.

The drive to Florence was beautiful, and I can’t imagine how beautiful it would be in the summer, when all the vineyards and flowers were alive and blooming. However, despite it being winter, it was still so pretty. All the Italian houses were pained different pastel colors, and they all had their own personal vineyard. I even saw two men driving a horse-drawn carriage full of supplies through their tiny village.

When we arrived in Florence, we had a ten minute walk to our hotel. It was called Hotel California (cue the Eagles song), and its four star rating was a nice change from the two star rating in Rome.

Luckily, the other Italy trip from Harlaxton that went to Venice first was there on Sunday and Monday. It was a huge Harlaxton reunion in Florence. We met up with our friends on the other trip and went to the Ufizzi gallery. It was so nice. We went out to the side of the gallery and got some good pictures of the Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge that is in Florence.

Next on the agenda was dinner. We grabbed some takeaway food from a place called Mr. Pizza and took it back to the hotel to eat and catchup.

The next day, we explored more of Florence. Heads up, if you ever go to Italy, don’t spend three days in Florence like we did. There’s not a whole lot to see there. In fact, most students went off and did tours to Pisa and around Tuscany. That night, we ventured into an Italian supermarket, which was a little overwhelming. Everything was in Italian, and I may or may not have had turkey for my sandwich. The supermarket was tiny, and there were lots of people. After we got our sandwich supplies, we went back to the hotel to have a picnic and play cards with some other Harlaxton students. It was really fun!

Our last day in Florence was a little slow. We walked around a bit more, but went back to the hotel to have a rest day after we had seen everything. For dinner, I had really good spaghetti, not as good as dad’s, of course!

It was off to Venice the next day. Venice turned out to be one of my favorite places that I have been this semester. It seemed like a movie set. It was so surreal to be there. The first day, we were walking around and getting lost. You will get lost in Venice! There are so many alley ways and turns, but it’s fun to get lost. You get to see more of the city.

Venice was so unique and beautiful. The first night we were there, six of us split the cost of a gondola ride, which was easily one of the best experiences of the semester. It felt like a Disney World ride. It felt like a dream. I still can’t believe that I got to do that.

On Thursday, our last full day in Venice, Sara and I decided to go to three of the other islands in Venice. Before the tour, we walked around and explored more. I wish we had had more time in Venice. It was an amazing city.

We went to the island of Murano first. That’s the glass island. We got to see a glass blowing demonstration which was pretty cool, and I bought some glass that was made on Murano.