My heart breaks to see Italy swamped with dreadful Covid-19 cases all over today (April 2020). We visited this country in October 2019 and since then I have been eager to pen down my travel experience of this beauty!
Usually, we are not the ones to plan a trip casually. But on a late August evening sitting at our local ice cream bar, we started looking for cheap flights to somewhere in Europe and found extremely cheap tickets to Rome (250 Bucks!). Without thinking much we booked tickets for October and started dreaming about our vacation. The next couple of days went in a happy state of mind looking at pictures of Rome, Naples, Amalfi Coast and Tuscany just to realize there were no visa appointments until our day of the flight. Bummer! We started researching if we could go to some different country’s consulate or to Italy’s consulate in New York to get an appointment. We had started thinking of plans to visit some different country other than Italy (Finland / Austria as their consulates had open appointments) but Italy was fixated on my mind. Scanning through the consulate’s website every 2 hours for a few days, I finally secured an appointment for myself and squeezed in Parag too!!
The moment we started planning our trip to this country, we had lots of itineraries and never-ending wish list. The north-south – east-west all of it! But considering the length of our vacation, we had to cut down on a lot of places and we finally ended up having Florence and Rome as our base.
It was 10 at night when we arrived at the renaissance capital of Italy – Florence. The city’s spirit and confidence were glaring through the green, white and pink marble facades of the Duomo (Meaning cathedral in Italian). Duomo’s dome also known as the Brunelleschi’s dome is an inspiration to several architectures including Michelangelo’s St Peters dome in the Vatican. This is the centre city and encompasses the Florence cathedral, Duomo, Belltower, museum and Baptistery. You will get to see amazing views of the Duomo from the Belltower (277 Ft, 414 steps).
When in Florence you cannot miss the Arno river which divides the city north-south and has played a major role in building a historical Florence. We did a walking tour of Florence (thanks to Ricks Steve’s book) and ended up walking 20 km a day. The walk across the Ponte Vecchio bridge built over Arno was teeming with tourists, shopping leather bags and scuffling to get a picture with the river ‘Arno’. Heading towards the south, there is piazza Michelangelo from where you can have a bird’s eye view of the city. If you want to save some energy, consider taking a bus (12 or 13 number) from the centre of the city which will drop you right at the viewing spot. As the sun sets down, you will see this beauty with domes, rivers, bridges and the orange-ish light reflecting over those renaissance architectures. While the street vendors start packing up in the evenings, bars and restaurants get busy setting up tables in the sidewalks keeping the city’s energy intact.
Every morning we grabbed some Sfoglie (puff pastries or croissants filled with ricotta/pastry cream) and cappuccino at a bakery close to the train station before proceeding for our day’s trip.
The small towns of Sienna and San Gimignano in the Tuscany countryside were magical. Medieval walls, tight alleys, orange-ish light, cobbled streets, quaint houses and glaring history. Sienna has a huge square called piazza del campo which was one of the largest squares since medieval times in the 1140s. And off course, there was wine tasting to end the tour.
Cinque Terre, Venice and Pisa were quick trips we did from Florence in a day’s time. I personally felt the leaning tower of Pisa is not worth more than 2 hours of visit. We spent 1 hour or so at the leaning tower, clicked pictures and took a train to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre literally means ‘Five Villages’, comprising Manarola, Riomaggiore, Vernazza, Corniglia and Monterosso. We visited 3 towns Riomaggiore, Vernazza and Manarola. Liguria region of northwestern Italy is home to Trofie Pesto pasta. So make sure you do not miss this 🙂 Vernazza has one of the best Gelatos in Italy with unlimited flavours. There is a castle in Vernazza which will give you beautiful views of the Ligurian sea. Manarola was a little more crowded than others but had beautiful views of the colourful houses. If given more time, I would recommend doing a hike across these smaller towns of Cinque Terre.
Next, we headed to Rome! With every caution to take care of our belongings and pickpockets, we started the long day with Colosseum (most visited site in Rome), Roman forum and the palatine hill. Walking through the steps once Ceaser had walked felt awe-inspiring. For a moment I went into the Gladiator era looking at the colosseum structure dated 2000 years back. We were extremely excited to photograph colosseum at night! So one night we left our BnB at 11 PM to see this (Photo below)!
Our BnB in Rome was next to Campo di Fiori so we got to see this piazza (meaning square) day and night. Late night and evenings, the square was full of bars and restaurants, live music and tourist relishing their wine. Surprisingly, in the morning, this same square was occupied by local shops and market place. This is an old tradition in Italy where piazzas are used for the market place and a convenient area to meet people during the day and restaurants during the night. This tradition is followed even today in some places. We followed Ricks steve guide to wander around in Rome. Ended up walking average 10 km per day!
How can you go to Italy and not have COFFEE! It is said, Howard Schultz – Founder of Starbucks got the idea of starting a coffee chain from whole bean coffee roasters La Casa Del Caffè Tazza D’oro in Rome very close to Pantheon. We had a pit stop here though it was not our coffee time! Coffee lovers neither care to sit leisurely nor care how much change you get back on the payment. All they care is the Coffee here.
We had read that the Vatican city (smallest country) has one of the best pizza. And trust me, that pizza with pesto and cheese drooling over the pizza base was out of the world. Minimalist, fresh and perfectly baked. If I ever go to the Vatican again, I will make sure to have a pizza in Vatican city.
More pictures are here: https://www.instagram.com/hislenshereyes/?hl=en
Tips:
1. To beat the rush, consider visiting the bell tower in Florence or Leaning tower of before 9 AM.
2. Take extra caution of your wallets and personal items at touristy places like Trevi fountain, Pisa
3. Public transport is excellent in Italy! In fact, driving a car in small towns like Cinque might be time-consuming and strenuous
4. Pre-book all train tickets from 1 city to another. Otherwise, you will end up buying tickets twice the original price.
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