Nina and I spent the week of May 18th through May 26th traveling in Spain and Italy. It was a week of adventure, of mishap, of exciting people and places.
Nina and I had always envisioned traveling together at the end of our time abroad. We wanted to go everywhere, but when we began to be practical about how much we could see in a week we decided on Spain and Italy. I wanted to go to Spain to dust off and try out my Spanish and Nina wanted to eat Italian food. There were other reasons, we’re heard rave reviews of both countries, but that was largely what it boiled down to. We solicited the advice of friends about which cities to see in each country. We would have loved to see Madrid and Venice, Rome and the south of Spain. But the number one advice everyone gave us was to not rush through cities, to not try to see too much, so we chose two cities in 8 days, Barcelona and Florence, with a brief stop in Pisa and Milan on the way in and out of Florence because it made the flights cheaper.
After oh so kindly taking our four bags (plus a winter jacket, an umbrella, and a hat that didn’t fit in those suitcases) to her house, Helle drove us to the airport. With one suitcase between us and two backpacks on our backs, we were off. We arrived in Barcelona around 2pm and look the aerobus to Plaza Catalunya, where one can catch the metro. We took the metro to cort, our metro stop, and attempted to find our hostel. We couldn’t find the door through which we were advised to exit and so we had to walk quite a bit to find the correct street. Luckily I had already successfully whipped out my Spanish twice, to much success. When we had gotten to the metro earlier we didn’t know what ticket to buy or how the zone system worked. I approached an employee at the metro and asked, “hablas ingles?” (do you speak English?). He responded in Spanish that he spoke only a little so I continued in Spanish. “Quantas zonas necetimos?” He asked us where we wanted to go, we pointed to our metro stop and he told us that that almost the whole city, including our stop, was in zona uno. “Gracias!” we called and hopped on the metro. I also used my Spanish to ask a nice old woman where calle meridiana, the street that would take us to our hostel, was. I think because she was older this woman spoke slowly, which was perfect for me to be able to understand her. She directed us towards the correct street and after a few short blocks (which always feels 10 times longer with a heavy suitcase) we saw our hostel. Our hostel was impossible to miss - it was a tall, modern-looking grey building that stood out like a sore thumb in the plain neighborhood of Barcelona that it was situated in.
Barcelona Urbany hostel really turned out to be an excellent hostel – free breakfast, free internet, and a pool and fitness center next door that we had access to. Urbany is a huge hostel, it must house almost nearly 1,000 guests, so it doesn’t have the small, charming vibe that many mom and pop hostels do, but the rooms are clean, the lockers have automatic locks, and the resources are pretty excellent. We stayed in an eight person dorm, complete with two rowdy partying Canadian women, a doctor and a family of a father and two sons who were in town to watch a car race. On our last night in Barcelona, two good looking British young men even moved into our room. By the time we settled into our dorm that first night the day was almost over and we were exhausted from travel and the four hours of sleep we had gotten the night before. We opted for a nice Tapas dinner (this was Spain after all and we weren’t going to miss our chance to indulge in Spanish cuisine!) and a relaxed evening. Following the suggestion of a friend for a restaurant called Tapas 24, we took the metro to the Plaza Catalunya stop.
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| Plaza Catalunya |
Plaza Catalunya is a plaza with a large fountain, statues, in the middle of a busy part of town. Someone described it as the center of the city, but not a particularly beautiful one. I agree that it wasn’t stunning, but we were just excited to be in Barcelona so it all seemed beautiful to me. There was also a protest going on in the large open square in Plaza Catalunya. From what we could glean from their signs, the protestors were fighting for greater democracy and transparency in their government, and perhaps greater autonomy for the Catalan regional government.
Catalunya is a region in the north of Spain, with Barcelona as its largest city. Residents of Catalunya mostly speak Catalan as their primary language. Signs at the airport and on the metro, buses, and other public places were in Catalan first, then Spanish and then English. Although everyone in Catalunya understands Spanish certainly, we were surprised at how different the spellings of many words were. Many Catalan words were completely different from the Spanish. Luckily we were able to get around using my high school and college Spanish.
After Plaza Catalunya we made our way down to Passeig de Gràcia, a beautiful main drag in Barcelona. At Tapas 24, we used our Spanish to request a table outside, but, being tapas newbies, we didn’t really know what to order and so we called on my high school Spanish again to ask which dishes were good. We decided on three Tapas dishes: a lamb kebab dish, chicken wings, and fried potatoes in a spicy sauce. I’m not sure what we thought fried potatoes would be, but we were still surprised when we were brought traditional looking French fries draped in a red sauce. I have to say they were the most delicious darn fries I’ve ever had.
After getting back to Urbany Hostel that night, we were too exhausted to do much of anything but we remembered that the hostel had a fitness center and pool we had access to. We changed into our suits and walked to the fitness center next door. Nudity is not a taboo in Spain and so we pretended that we were totally cool and comfortable like the Spanish women and changed into our bathing suits. We did see a sign that said bathing caps were required, as was a pre-swimming shower, but we hoped and figured that these were more optional suggestions like they often are in the United States. We awkwardly worked our way out to the pool area, where there was a lap pool, a smaller pool, and a Jacuzzi. We stood by the edge of the pool for quite some time, not knowing exactly what to do. We were about to hop in when a woman came over to us, pointed to her head and started screaming “gorro!”. We knew enough to know that that meant hat, and she was calling us out for not wearing a bathing cap. Shoulders slumped, shamed as the Americans, we slinked to the front desk and purchased two bathing caps for one euro each. After that embarrassing run-in with the pool authorities, we had a great time swimming laps and sitting in the jacuzzi.
To begin our first full day in Barcelona, we had heard about a free walking tour that showcases the works of Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí is an architect who, from what I can tell, designed almost the entire city of Barcelona. Not only is the famous Sagrada Familia his creation, but there are beautiful houses around the city, designed at the time for private rich patrons, that are now open as museums. The tour started at Placa Reial and took us to Casa Batlló, Casa Milà, and ended at the Sagrada Familia. Casa Batlló and Casa Milà are fantastical, with large skull sculptures separating the layers of the house and huge spiral, cream-colored chimneys on the top of the building. I thought they were really quite stunning. The tour provided a biography of Gaudi’s life, how he designed one publicly commissioned lamp post before switching solely to private commissions. He was a notoriously difficult designer, often going severely over budget because he required expensive materials.
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| Placa Reial |
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| Casa Batlló |
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| Casa Milà |
The Sagrada Familia is impressive simply because of its size and intricate details. This cathedral is a work in progress, construction has been going on since 1882 and is expected to continue until at least 2026. There is an entire façade that has barely begun being constructed. It is unique but also a little frustrating that this sculpture feels like it will never be done.
From the Sagrada Familia we went to Parc Güell, which is a large urban park filled with sculptures by Gaudí. To get to Parc Güell we walked quite a ways from the metro stop (following an English speaking grandmother and granddaughter who looked similarly clueless and touristy) and finally reached a series of escalators embedded right into the ground of a massive hill. It was extremely hot day (looking back at the pictures I don’t know what we were thinking wearing jeans!) and we slothed around Parc Güell. It is a vast park and from the higher points there is a view of the whole city. There is a large open area with beautiful mosaic benches designed by Gaudi. There is a pavilion with columns and arched ceilings with circular mosaic works on the ceiling. There are also two small houses in Parc Güell designed by Gaudí. They look like gingerbread houses with oversized chimneys and white roofs that look like large squirts of vanilla frosting. At the end of our visit we found the most famous part of Parc Güell, the large mosaic Iguana that greets visitors at the entrance of the park. Apparently the route we had taken from the metro has brought us into the back entrance.
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| One of the houses at Parc Guell |
Having only two days in Barcelona, we had to pack each day full to see and do everything that we hoped to. So, after Parc Güell we went to La Boqueria market, an outdoor market with produce, bread, little knick knacks and delicious freshly made fruit juices. We eyed the fruit juices immediately, with their tantalizing bright colors and varied flavors. But, being the thrifty market-goers that we are, we walked around the whole market to find the fruit juice with the best deal. We ended up getting two for two euro – a strawberry pineapple and a mixed fruit. We bought a loaf of bread to eat with our drinks – how idyllic! La Boqueria is located on La Rambla, a famous shopping street in Spain. It has plenty of souvenir stalls and even some stalls selling live domestic pets! After La Rambla we were still full from our bread and fruit juice appetizer so we decided to walk from Plaza Catalunya to Plaza Espanya, another plaza that we had passed on the way from the airport, and find a place to get tapas along the way. When we got to what we presumed was Plaza Espanya there was a large stadium sign denoting that this was Arenes de Barcelona. We weren’t quite sure what it was, whether a sports team played here, so the only thing to do was go and explore. Inside was a multi story mall with a large arena, or perhaps a movie theater, on the top floor. The Rock and Roll Museum was also in this hodge podge of a building. We took the elevator to the roof for a great view of Plaza Espanya. Plaza Espanya itself is a crowded traffic circle, with a large sculpture in the middle and two brown, pointy pillars that stand in front of a large castle. By looking on a map we later figured out that the castle was a national art galley.
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| Plaza Espanya |
Right across from Plaza Espanya was Parc Juan Miró. I remembered being forced to do a presentation on Miró in my honors Spanish 4 class senior year of high school, and I remembered liking his art. The park itself was ok, but there in the grass was a large sculpture of Miró’s that I instantly remembered putting a picture of in my powerpoint for Spanish class. I recalled how I had captioned the image with Barcelona, Spain, noting where this piece of work was housed. Barcelona felt like such a far off, intangible city, and now I was here! I’m not a huge art person, but I now understood why it is so cool for Nina to see pieces of artwork she has studied in art history classes in a museum.
For dinner we chose our second tapas restaurant, called tapas tapas. It looked like it might be a chain, but since every restaurant was new to us it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t an American chain, and we didn’t have very refined pallettes for tasting authentic tapas, so we were happy. We got a potato-egg omelette, a tapas portion of teriyaki chicken (perhaps that wasn’t so authentic) and a mini portion of paella. Delicious!
Having had a full but very successful first day in Barcelona, we set out to accomplish everything else in our remaining 24 hours. We packed a bag for the beach but first, having really enjoyed our free walking tour the day before, we returned to Placa Reial for the other free walking tour, this time of the gothic quarter of Barcelona. We saw several gothic style cathedrals and walked through winding, charming old streets with old fashion lamp posts hanging over head.
We saw the Jewish quarter of Barcelona – there hadn’t been vibrant Jewish life in Barcelona for quite some time, the Spainards kicked their Jews out hundreds of years ago. There was a small synagogue that we peaked our head into. We also went to the buildings that house the Barcelona city government and the Catalan regional government, which are right next to each other. The space in between these buildings is a popular spot for organized protests. There were a group of public employees, I believe they were firefighters or policeman, who were protesting recent funding cuts to public services, and one older woman all on her own using a megaphone to scream incessantly at the building. Too bad we couldn’t understand what she was saying. She looked like a fiery lady, someone I’d like to be friends with.
After our gothic quarter tour, we headed to the beach, the Barcelona attraction that we had all been waiting for! Barcelona is unique in being one of the only large urban cities that has miles of shore along its coast. It is debated which beaches are the best and which are too touristy – the general consensus is that the beaches closer to the center of the city are crowded with tourists and not as scenic compared to beaches that take 45 minutes to an hour to get to by train. Trying to fit Barcelona into 2 ½ days, we were on a tight schedule, so we opted to go to one of the beaches accessible by metro but which friends and the internet said was less touristy than the famous Barceloneta beach. We took the metro to the indicated stop and assumed that Bogatell beach would be right in front of us when we came above ground. Wrong. We found ourselves in a run down and almost thoroughly abandoned residential neighborhood with hardly any humans in sight. Quick! Look for someone, anyone, and use your Spanish. We found a woman mopping the streets and approached her and asked, “donde esta la playa?”, which means where is the beach. “Abajo” she responded, and pointed down one of the streets. We remained skeptical, seeing only a bunch of tall buildings in the directions she had pointed. “Grascias” we replied and, having no other choice, headed to where she had told us. After walking another 10 minutes we came to an area with some greenery. The beach must be here! We exclaimed. Wrong again. We followed the street as it curved around a small park but still, no land, no rolling ocean waves. Instead, there was a highway. We couldn’t turn around, and there was no one else around, so we crossed the highway, hoping the beach would magically appear. Luckily for us, it did. We ran across the highway and there, finally, were the tops of palm trees. Who knew finding a beach would be so difficult? Playa Bogatell was a beautiful, if difficult to locate, beach. There were changing booths and beach chairs (which we quickly figure out cost 6 euro/hour to use), palm trees and a long jetty into the ocean. It was an interesting juxtaposition of the ocean on one side, and tall buildings of the nearby city of the other. Men and women walked by every few minutes try to sell us everything from cold drinks and snacks to a full body massage. We sat on the beach, me reading my book, Nina sketching unsuspecting Spaniards in her sketchbook. We ate the sandwiches we had packed and soaked in the rays for hours. For some reason, which I can’t provide any logical explanation for in hindsight, we thought about putting on sunscreen but decided we didn’t need it. Not like this was the middle of the day in a latitude significantly farther south than we had been this whole semester or anything. When we got back to the hostel we realized we probably had gotten a little burnt but had no idea the extent of the damage until we went to shower. I will just speak for myself, but my rear end was pretty much exactly like the Coppertone girl on the sunscreen bottle, and the entire back of my legs didn’t fare much better. They radiated heat and were the color of that beautiful red-pink part of a sunset. Ouch. We purchased a large bottle of aloe vera on our way out of town. We only needed to say the word sol (meaning sun) and show the woman in the pharmacy our legs for her to instantly understand which product we were desperately seeking.
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| Bogatell Beach |
The next step in our journey was to get from Barcelona to Reus, a small city slightly west of Barcelona, which Ryanair flies out of. Ryanair is known as the cheapest of the budget airlines, so much so that everyone on the plane knows to clap each time the plane successfully lands to congratulate the pilot and crew for not killing everyone. Still, a discount is a discount and so we had booked a $20 flight from Reus to Pisa, having been told that is an easy trip from Barcelona to Reus. The story of us getting to Pisa was marred with obstacle after obstacle. So that it will not take pages to write, I am going to try to tell as abbreviated a version of this story as possible.
Our hostel had instructed us to take the metro to Sants Estacio, a major train and bus station in Barcelona, and take a shuttle bus from there to the Reus airport. The schedule online had indicated that there was a 10:45 bus from Sants Estacio. We arrived around 10:35, not as early as we had hoped, and so we began frantically running in two different directions to try to find where this shuttle bus to the airport. Our first problem was that we were not pronouncing Reus correctly. Apparently it is more of a “ray-ou-s” instead of “ray-ays”. Once the baffled Spanish train officials understood where we were trying to go, they continued to be baffled – nobody really knew where the buses to Reus airport were. Most were skeptical if these buses even existed. One worker pointed us out the front door and so we wound our way around a corner and found a small bus terminal. Finally! Our bus! We exclaimed. Think again. The woman insisted that there was no 10:45 bus to the Reus airport, and that the next one would be at 1:45. Foiled. Defeated ,we headed back to the train station to inquire about a possible train to Reus. The woman at the ticket counter told us that there was a train to Reus center and from there we could catch a bus to the airport. That sounded complicated, but maybe feasible if the bus wasn’t an option. I walked back to the bus terminal while Nina waited with the suitcase to find out how long the bus to Reus airport was and how much it would cost. We were under the impression that the bus ride was 30, maybe 45 minutes max, so a 1:45 bus would be cutting it close but would almost definitely get us there in time. “The bus ride takes an hour and a half” the woman responded, who was already quite annoyed that I had come to her twice, and twice tried to use my terrible Spanish before she switched to speaking English. Road blocked again. Getting to the airport at 3:15, 10 minutes before our flight was scheduled to take off, wasn’t an option. Guess we were taking the train. After walking back to the train station and telling Nina the unfortunate news, we bought two train ticket to Reus central. We went to platform 9, but were still unsure if this was indeed the train to Reus, and we had no room for mistakes. We asked several people on the platform but they kept saying “creo que si…creo!” indicating that they thought this train went to Reus, but they weren’t sure. A few minutes before the train was to arrive the marquee above the platform began scrolling the list of cities that this train went to and Reus was one of them. Phew. We got on the train – I snagged a seat but the others seats quickly filled before Nina could get one. The entire train car filled and people stood packed in the aisles, more like something you would expect on a metro car than a two hour commuter train. Luckily, Nina saw took a cue from some Spanish women who had hopped onto to the empty luggage rack and used it as a seat and did the same. It was a fairly peaceful train ride and in about an hour we were at the stop where we had calculated Reus would be by consulting another women’s map. When they called out another stop as the stop that would be next, we started to panic. What if this train wasn’t going to Reus at all? What if we had missed Reus? We consulted another woman, a mother and daughter who had suitcases and looked like they could be going to the Reus airport, and their map showed that this was just an additional stop – the next stop would be Reus. Success. The next stop was indeed ours and we hopped off the train. We were supposed to catch a public bus from here to the airport. Nina quickly spotted the mother and daughter that we had consulted on the train and suggested we follow them, since they seemed to be going to the airport. They came out of the train station and snaked their way around the left of a parking lot to a bus stop. There waiting was a bus to the Reus airport, a bus we likely would never have found, or found in time, if it weren’t for those women. They actually ended up being on our flight to Pisa (since Reus airport really only has 1-2 flights departing at any given time), so following their every move was a wise decision. The short bus ride that we hopped to the airport only runs once an hour, and just happened to be running late (our train had also run late), so we caught the only one that would have gotten us to the airport in time. I don’t believe in a higher being, but in that moment it sure did feel like someone was smiling down on us, watching out for us to make sure we caught each leg of our connecting transportation, and boy were we were grateful for it.
If you’re still reading this, you may think that all the possible obstacles that could have befallen us have befallen us. You would be incorrect. The Reus airport is really not like any airport I’ve been to. It has two gates, two check in counters, and a total of 20 seats in the waiting area. There was a flight to Malaga and our flight to Pisa departing from the airport, that was it. Nina and I usually love airports and flying, but this small, dinky little airport brought none of the comfort and cheer that we usually get from flying. If something went wrong here we would be in the middle of nowhere Spain with a total of, it seemed, 5 employees total, to save us.
Nina stepped forward to check in at the Ryanair desk – we had paid for one bag, but as soon as the women weighted our bag she announced that it was too heavy. Way too heavy. In fact, our shared suitcase was 6 kilograms over the allotted limit, and they were charging 20 euro per kilogram! For 120 euro we would throw out our left arm to avoid that fee! We quickly opened our suitcase and threw anything heavy into our carry on backpacks. It took quite a few tries before we had knocked off a full 6 kilos. Good to go, we finally headed to wait for our plane to Reus. We had made it, and in plenty of time. We lined up when our flight was called, and a lady worked her way through the line trying to sell us tours of Florence and Venice. Ryanair appeared to only have two attendants working, because the women who had checked us in now came to check our boarding passes and ID as we boarded the plane. On discount airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet the seats aren’t assigned; two staircases are extended from either end of the plane, and it is a race to pick the best staircase and secure a premier seat. We were pretty close to the front of the line for the front staircase, but Nina astutely noticed that there was an old couple in front of us and they would ascend the stairs rather slowly. Nina was right and we impatiently tapped our feet waiting for the old couple to move as people flooded into the back of the plane, taking all the good seats.
The flight to Pisa was smooth and uneventful. The Pisa airport is similarly small like the Reus airport. Our plan was to stay in Pisa one night, see the leaning tower, and then take the train to Florence. I’m sure you’re hoping that our travel woes were behind us, but unfortunately I cannot yet say that. The directions to the hostel we had booked beds at that night said it was within walking distance of the airport. That already seemed peculiar to me, since most airports are far away from almost everything and usually accessible by bus, shuttle or metro. But, the directions said to walk, so we walked. The directions to the hostel were a total of two lines, “Walk out the main road for five minutes. Turn left at a park and walk for three minutes.” Slightly skeptical, we proceeded onward. We found the main road and the park. However, when we turned left at the park there was a dead end after one block. Where to from here? We found a small grocery store and Nina asked the clerk there how to get to the name of street that the hostel was on. He drew us a map, which turned out to be slightly wrong, but was close enough that we just kept walking straight after his map told us we would already be there and we found it. Hostel Station Pisa looks more like a house than anything – it has a small sign that says ‘hostel’ and a faded ‘Hostelbookers.com’ sign out front. Other than that, it is easily mistakable for any other house along this small avenue in Pisa. Upon arriving, we noticed a sign that said “to check in call Carlos at” and provided a phone number. Nina called Carlos, but instead a woman named Bianca answered, and said she would be right over. Bianca was a bit harried when she did arrive – she told us that it was only her second day on the job. The beds were clean, the lockers had locks, it was perfectly adequate, if a little small and dingy. We had chosen this hostel because it was close to the airport and train station, and cheap. Our total only came to 32 euro, but when we handed Bianca a 50 euro bill she didn’t have change, so we vowed to leave 32 euro on the table after having broken our fifty.
Our only real priority in Pisa was to make it to Florence, but as long as we were in Pisa we were itching to see the world famous leaning tower. Since it’s kind of their only point of tourism in Pisa, we figured anyone would know how to get there, but poor clueless Bianca told us that she wasn’t actually from Pisa and had no idea how to get to the tower – she suggested we try the train station. The one upside of Hostel Station Pisa (and the only positive aspect I noted on my eventual review on hostelbookers.com) is that it is located only a few blocks from the train station. We found a customer care desk at the train station. “We’re customers”, Nina muttered, “I wonder if they’ll care.” Before we could even get to the front of the line we saw a sign that said “NO TOURIST INFORMATION. To get to the tower take the bus in the direction of [name of bus direction that I can’t remember].” Simple enough. We bought tickets at the local convenience store and hopped on the bus. “Is this where the tower is?” We asked the bus driver after a bit of a ride. Yes, it was! Good thing we asked. The tower, although it seems like you could see it from everywhere, was not visible from the bus.
The area around the leaning tower of Pisa is a tourist mecca. There are lines of stalls selling cheesy leaning tower souvenirs (some of them are quite vulgar…use your imagination), men walking around selling sunglasses out of suitcases, and a mcdonalds, for all the hungry tourist families. The leaning tower is really quite striking. Although we understood the concept, Nina and I were still mesmerized at the way that it leaned to the side, quite significantly, but of course didn’t topple over. We went up close to check it out, and then moved back to take the obligatory trick photography pictures. We got the distance and the angle just right to have snap shots of us kicking the tower, pushing the tower, pinching the tower, even licking the tower. We later decided this last one was too vulgar even for facebook.
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| Nina and I at the leaning tower |
After the tower we headed back to our hostel with no further ambitions in Pisa except to catch the train to Florence the next day. Unfortunately, that would be harder said than done.
In the morning we unremorsefully kissed Hostel Station Pisa goodbye and headed to the train station. We weren’t sure if we had printed out the correct ticket confirmation so we went to the customer care desk to ask. They informed us that the 11:25am train that we were supposed to take was cancelled, due to a strike of the train workers. The woman at the desk modified our ticket so we could quick hop on the 10:45 train in the hopes that that was still running. We boarded the 10:45 and waited 20 or 30 minutes until Italians started flooding off the train. Being the helpless Americans that we were, we were at the mercy of kind Italians to tell us that the 10:45 train had been cancelled. We scurried over to the customer care line, which we were becoming pretty familiar with at this point, and, along with dozens of other customers who had also been on any of the cancelled trains, demanding to know how we were now going to get to Florence. We ate lunch and killed time, hoping that the 12:30 train wouldn’t get cancelled. We nervously eyed a board where almost every train had been cancelled (a great way to learn the word for cancelled in Italian, checking every 30 seconds to ensure that our train wasn’t cancelled. Luckily the 12:30 train eventually took off and we were on our way to Florence! Phew. I promise you, that was the last of our travel woes, and from now on I will only write of beautiful Italian landscapes and trains and planes that run on time.
We walked from the train station to our hostel – our hostel in Florence was similar to the one in Barcelona. It was a large hostel with branches in several cities; it was meant for young, party types and can accommodate a few hundred people. This hostel also had a pool and we took a dip that first night. We met a girl about our age traveling with her mom who had already been in Florence for several days, and three boys who were on a bus tour that brought them to 50 or so cities across Europe. The pool area also had a sauna, which the girl proceeded to turn into a smoker when she poured nearly a gallon of water onto the coals at once. There was also a Turkish bath – which neither Nina or I had ever been in. I imagine that the Turkish bath is theoretically supposed to be an enjoyable experience but we just felt like we were suffocating with the steam and invisibility. We chickened out after a few minutes and plunged back into the pool. Post-pool we wandered downtown for dinner. Florence is a small and immensely walkable city, one of the things we loved about it. It only takes a max of 20-30 minutes to walk from one side of the downtown to the other. All of the streets are winding and adorable, filled with old-fashioned buildings and lamps. On our way into town we came across San Lorenzo’s leather market, which is a series of 5 or 6 streets packed with stalls selling leather bags, hats, colorful masks, and much, much more. I bought a brown and purple beautiful leather purse and Nina bought a belt.
For diner, we chose a restaurant in a quaint plaza with a carousel. The restaurant turned out to be quite the tourist trap and our expectations for our first taste of real Italian food were severely disappointed. But we did meet an adorable older couple, on a honeymoon both of them on their second marriage, and bonded with them over the bad food and Italian train strikes. Determined to have better desert than dinner, we headed to the Ponte Vechio to try a gelato restaurant that the front desk worker at the hostel had recommended. It was incredible. Really, really exceptional. I got mint and chocolate and Nina got crema and strawberry. Wow. We walked along the water as we ate our gelato. The Ponte Vechio is the largest bridge among a series of bridges along the Arno river. Whether at night or during the day, the view of the consecutive bridges over the water, with little houses that run along the side, is really breathtaking.
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| Ponte Vecchio along the Arno river |
We began our second day in Florence by heading out to see the Duomo. I incorrectly thought that Duomo meant dome but we learned that the word Duomo is just a word that the Catholic Church uses to describe large cathedrals, so several large churches around the world are called duomos. It translates to cathedral in Italian. Thus, there is a duomo in Florence and an even larger Duomo in Milan (for Milan duomo, continue reading this blog post). I’ll have to include a picture here because there is no way no describe the detailed artwork on the outside of the Duomo with words.
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| The Duomo |
You can pay eight euro to take an elevator to the top of the dome, but we were told it was possible to get as good a view of the city from Piazzo Michaelangelo, which we would see later in the day, we opted to skip the line for the top of the dome. We did go inside the main sanctuary and saw the beautiful stain glass and other works of art inside the chapel. After the Duomo, we headed to the synagogue of Florence, which also housed the Jewish Museum of Florence. The sanctuary of the synagogue was really beautiful, with Jewish artwork lining the walls and balcony. The Jewish museum was small but told the interesting story of Jews coming to Italy. Afterwards, we went to a local grocery store chain and bought some snacks to supplement the sandwiches we had packed from the offerings of the hostel breakfast (we had paid 5 euro for breakfast, so we figured we were entitled to take some sandwiches for later!). Boboli gardens was our next stop. Boboli gardens, and the Pizzi Palace, are a joint complex, in which you can buy tickets to see one attraction or both. Boboli gardens are these vast, outdoor gardens with beautiful fountains and manicured bushes. The gardens are on a hill and we quickly became exhausted, hiking through them in the 90 degree weather. Nina and I sat on a bench to enjoy the shade and eat some of the Ritz crackers we had acquired earlier. We met another young women about our age, Erin, who had just graduated college and was traveling around Florence on her own. The three of us had dinner at Quattro Leoni, an upscale restaurant near Boboli Gardens that a friend of a friend had recommended. I got a ravioli with beef in it and Nina got Lasagna. It was definitely better dinner our first night, although I think Nina and I kept expecting Italian food like it tastes at home and we were kept being slightly disillusioned when we saw and tasted our food. We found that while Italian food in the United States often means pasta with tomato sauce, or some variation of that, many more of the dishes in Italy have white sauces, and most of them include some type of meat. The lasagna we had at Quattro Leoni had a sharp cheesy white sauce, baked to a crisp brown on top, with lots of artichoke inside. It was not what we expected when we ordered lasagna, but concluded that it was very good nonetheless.
We had been advised that the sunset at Piazza Michelangelo is breathtaking, so after dinner we walked to the peak of Piazza Michelangelo to enjoy the view. Piazza Michelangelo is a peak at the top of a large hill, which is hidden behind the city and which one gets to by following a series of twisting and turning signs and then climbing a massive flight of stairs. The view proved worth it – you can see the entire city of Florence and watch the sun slowly descend over the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio. Hoards of other tourists (and perhaps some actual Italians) had gathered to sit on the steps and take in the sights while sipping wine or eating snacks sold by vendors. One of the tip-offs that most of us were tourists were the dozens of camera flashes trying to simultaneously capture the magnificent view. After snapping my share of photos, I made myself put down my camera and just enjoy the view without trying to document it with the perfect picture to show to friends and family back home. Looking out at Florence from Piazza Michelangelo was one of those I can’t believe I’m really here traveling in Italy moments that makes you realize how lucky you are.
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| People gathering to watch the sunset at Piazza Michelangelo |
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| View from Piazza Michelangelo |
Our third and final day in Florence, we met up with a tour guide that Gladys and Stan had generously treated us to as a gift during our time abroad. Our cousins, who have family in Italy and visit there frequently, said that hiring a tour guide really allows you to get the inside scoop on monuments and buildings, and also allows you to bypass the outrageous lines that form outside the Academia and the Ufitzi, Florence’s two main art galleries.
We met our tour guide on the Ponte Vecchio, and she took us to the Santa Croce church, which houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and other important men from Florence. Our tour guide was able to explain a lot more about the construction, architecture and artwork of the church and the famous tombs than if we hadn’t been with a guide.
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| Santa Croche Church |
She also took us to Florence’s oldest gelato restaurant – probably the best gelato I’ve ever had. Our guide left us in the Academia, most famous because it houses Michelangelo’s statue David. Although we had seen replicas of the statue in various outdoor locations in Florence the original is quite astounding. I don’t consider myself an art person, but I was taken aback by the sheer size and detail of David. Imagine the work it took for Michelangelo to get that kind of detail with only the technology they had back then. David towers 17 feet in the air, with intricately chiseled veins and muscles. Wow!
Since our first dinner, which we had found on our own, had been so poor, I was committed to going off of friend recommendations for our remaining time in Florence. Sometimes it’s what you have to do as a tourist if you’re not with a local and don’t know the city. We wandered for quite some time, making it to the outskirts of the inner city until we wandered back and found the correct restaurant. Our paper map was well worn at that point and after one gentle pull it ripped completely in two. The fact that Nina was able to skillfully navigate us to the restaurant and home again despite the ripped map is a testament to her excellent sense of direction.
Early the morning of Wednesday May 25th we took a train from Florence to Milan (luckily it was far smoother than our trip from Pisa to Florence), and had about six hours to kill in Milan before heading back to our hotel. By this point in our travels we were thoroughly exhausted and both longing to be in a more permanent home, so we did a fairly cursory viewing of Milan. After storing our luggage in the train station, we took the Milan metro to the Duomo. Although Florence also has a famous Duomo, I think the one in Milan may perhaps be even a little better known. The Milan Duomo looks nothing like the Florence Duomo, but it is also beautiful, large and white like a giant castle.
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| Milan Duomo |
We ate lunch near the Duomo and then wandered around, hoping to find some high-end fashion stores, since Milan is the heart of Italian designers. Either the woman at the train station information booth intentionally led us astray, or we severely misunderstood her directions, but either way we did not end up at fashion boutiques. As far as we could tell, she was directing us to take the metro to the canals, by which there would be some shopping and some restaurants. When we go off the metro there were no bodies of water in sight. We walked down a large main street with commerce on either side but alas, no canals. Although there were clothing stores most of them were American stores such as Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, which we were not particularly thrilled to go into. We got dinner at a buffet restaurant on a side street, which actually had pretty good gnocchi. Ready to go to our hotel and catch our flight the next morning, we took a train from the Milan train station to the Milan Malpensa airport, and had the hotel van service pick us up from the airport. The driver that they sent from the airport hotel was quite a character. He didn’t speak any English, and we didn’t speak any Italian, but we spoke Spanish well enough that he could understand and we could have some semblance of a conversation. At one point he asked us where we were flying to, to which we responded Los Estados Unidos (the United States), and he asked which airline we were flying on we said Easy Jet, which was the airline of our flight from Milan to Copenhagen. He of course was perplexed and tried to explain several times in broken Spanish that Easy Jet does not fly to the United States and perhaps we should check our flight schedule. When we finally understood what he was saying, we reassured him that no, we were flying easy jet to Copenhagen and then connecting to flights home to the U.S. He was relieved.
Although the hotel was very minimalist, it was a huge upgrade from the hostels we had been staying in. A full size towel and a room for just the two of us was a huge luxury. We took showers, re-packed our suitcase, and watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch in Italian. Being wary of Easy Jet’s weight limit on checked baggage, we threw away anything we possibly could in the hotel in Milan. We discarded old jeans and electrical convertors that didn’t work, we purged our still large supply of granola bars and mini boxes of raisins. I am proud to say that our bag weighed in significantly below the weight limit when we got to the airport the next day. Lesson learned.
Our flight from Milan to Copenhagen was smooth as can be. Helle met us in the Copenhagen airport, pushing a luggage cart of all four suitcases plus my winter coat, European Union umbrella from Brussels and my purple hat from Tivoli that couldn’t be crushed. Helle really is the kindest woman, to go out of her way and take time during her work day to make our post-semester travel and return flight home possible. She took us out to lunch in the airport, patiently listened as we told story after story from Spain and Italy, and made sure we were all checked-in for our transatlantic flights. Eventually the two hour prior to the flight deadline approached, so we gave final hugs and Helle headed back to work.
When I got to the front of the line at the Icelandair kiosk, they checked in my two large rolling suitcases and allowed me my backpack and a smaller rolling suitcase as carry-on. But what about my coat, my hat, and most of all, my umbrella? The coat I just carried on my arm, as if I wasn’t aware it was May and that I didn’t need a down winter jacket (I had it with me because I had worn it on the flight to Copenhagen in January and now didn’t have room for it in my luggage). The hat I carried in a small hat bag, which no one said anything about (although I did get a slightly strange look from the Dane sitting next to me on the flight to Iceland when I insisted on keeping the hat out of its bag on my thigh the whole 5 hour plane ride so as not the ruffle the feathers). The umbrella, however, threatened to cause a more serious problem. At the Icelandair desk two attendants argued in Danish for several minutes about whether I would be able to bring the umbrella on the plane or not. It is one of those tall, floor length umbrellas, and it has a rather long metal point on the end. One employee thought I would be fine bringing it on board, but another said it would be considered a weapon but that I would have to pay a significant fee to check it as a third item. I panicked – I was already cutting it close for my flight, and I LOVED my EU umbrella. It was my prize souvenir from my travels and I intended to use it all around the Smith campus when I got back. I speed walked to security; out of breather, I frantically asked the woman if I would be able to bring on my umbrella. Why yes, of course you can, she replied, it’s an umbrella. Huge sign of relief. I was good to go.
The rest of my trip home was nothing to speak about, except a minor incident in which we left Copenhagen 45 minutes late because the only man who possessed the keys to lock the luggage compartment on the plane had gone home for the day before remembering to lock the compartment. They weren’t able to reach him on his cell phone, and the pilot was understandably furious when the guy finally did turn up. I thought the whole thing was rather amusing, and so Copenhagen – never would that happen in the uptight, big city culture of the United States.
My parents were waiting in Boston when I returned home to Logan airport. Nina arrived several hours later because of bad weather that had delayed her in London. Our experiences traveling were eye opening and thought-provoking, challenging and joyous. Nina and I learned so much about how to be a team, even through difficult circumstances, and gained a new independence in our capabilities as young adults. Although for now we are just enjoying being home, I hope we have a chance to take on all the obstacles and successes in another part of the world sometime in the future.
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