Discovering Southern Italy

Naples is obviously famous for their pizza, since the modern pizza was invented there. And it was here where I had the best pizza of my life and one of the best meals of my life. Da Michele pizzeria, world famous and for good reason. Not even gonna bother trying to describe it, but every bite was pure happiness and gave me chills, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

So we had a good introduction to Naples, but aside from navigating the unfortunate, trash ridden streets, there’s not much else I can say about it. We used it as a home base for our following day trips to the ruins of Pompeii and the Amalfi coast and that’s about it. I’m sorry if you are a fan of Naples, but it’s hard for me to recommend much to do there other than going to that pizza place. But for the pizza alone it’s worth a visit.

In the ruins of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background

As mentioned before, the first full day we had in Naples was spent taking a day trip to Pompeii, and it turned out to be a great choice. I knew only the basic information about Pompeii: that it’s a city in ruins as a result of the massive eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (which is massive) in 79 AD, and because of the amount of ash that fell from the explosion most of the ruins (including some people and even a dog) have been preserved in the ash. What I didn’t realize is how big the area of Pompeii really is. It was actually a pretty big city back in the day and the amount of ruins that we saw on our trip there was absolutely enormous. It’s only a 40 minute bus ride from Naples, just on the other side of the mountain, and we made the wonderful choice of buying ourselves an audioguide and spending the next 4+ hours there learning more than we ever knew about this place. As already mentioned, the crazy part about this place is that there were in fact some people, and even a dog, on display. The layer of ash that covered these people during the eruption solidified and preserved their decomposing bodies long after they died. You can still see some of the emotions in their faces during their final moments, which turned out to be a pretty powerful scene. I highly recommend Pompeii if anyone finds themselves down in that area of Southern Italy. I also highly recommend our next stop in that area the following day: the incredible Amalfi coast. (I should also mention that we went back to the exact same pizza place we were at the day before and had another incredible pizza there).

I had heard some pretty amazing things about the Amalfi coast before, like people telling me it was one of the most beautiful places they had ever seen, so I had some pretty high expectations for it. It’s honestly hard to disagree with these people after seeing it for myself. We caught this place on a perfect day too, and it was probably the nicest day in December I’ve ever seen. This place is also a quick train ride from Naples so when we got there we figured we could just rent a car or something and drive along the coast, enjoying the views as much as possible. We had also read about a really nice hike along the cliffs that was supposed to be stunning, so that was also on the itinerary. But when we got there the rental guy was just about to leave for the day and it ended up being perfect timing. He only had one scooter left, and neither of us had driven one of these before (especially on Italian roads) so to say we were a little nervous was definitely an understatement. But we managed, and Alex and I agreed to share this scooter and take turns being responsible for each other’s lives while trying to drive this thing.

This ended up being one of the funnest things I think we’ve done on this whole trip. We were able to just zip around anywhere we wanted on the coast and cruise along some of the most scenic roads I’ve ever been on. We rode from Sorrento, our starting point, over to the other side of the coast where our hike was supposed to start and began an incredible hike with absolutely stunning views. That was definitely a memorable three hour hike, and when we got done with it we were pretty excited to hop back on the scooter and cruise through the rest of the coast. We’d be weaving around cars and taking sharp corners on just amazing roads, overlooking the Mediterranean with the coolest looking little towns lining the cliffs just above the water. Again, this is one of those places where I just have to recommend visiting in order to truly grasp the pure beauty and awe of what this place offers. I’ll agree with everyone else when I say that it was at least one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, so we’ll just leave it at that.

Of course, there was a big public transportation strike that same day (Italy likes to strike) but that wasn’t an issue while we had our own scooter. We were a little hesitant about getting back to Naples in time for our 10 hour ferry to Palermo, but it ended up working out okay and we were able to catch our ferry while attempting to sleep on the floor for the entire time, and by the next morning we had made it to Sicily!

I was really looking forward to seeing Sicily and getting a feel for how just how different this place is from the rest of Italy. We didn’t have much time here unfortunately; due to time/flight restrictions only about 4 days total. But we tried to make the most of these 4 days and our first stop was Palermo. We really enjoyed our time in Palermo, with some of the most notable things being the food (of course) and a pretty cool little half-hostel-half-couchsurfing type accommodation. First off, one of the classic Sicilian foods are Arancini. It’s basically a type of rice ball, fried on the outside and filled with meat sauce and cheese, and it’s incredible. We ended up being in Palermo on “Arancini day” which is apparently the only day that offers chocolate, sugar-coated Arancini, and it was unreal. That was for sure the highlight of the food scene so far here in Sicily, and we were really excited to see what other culinary explorations were to be made here. As mentioned, our accommodation situation was actually pretty cool in Palermo as well. We found the place on a hostel website and booked it just as we would book a hostel, but the way it was set up was that the owner just rented out some apartment space and he lived there and cared for the whole place while providing some rooms for guests while sharing his kitchen and living area for the guests to use for themselves. We all met each other and spent the evening getting to know each other a little more, making a really good potato casserole-type dish for dinner.

A beautiful view of Palermo from Monreale

We spent the next day doing a little trip to Monreale, a suburb just outside of Palermo high up on a hill that provided some great views of the surrounding area. It was really cool to get a better idea of the landscape here, and I think Sicily turned out to be a lot more mountainous than I thought. We got some really good pictures up there and saw some really interesting looking vegetarian around the Cathedral gardens. We killed some time and got lunch up there while watching a couple football matches on the TV in the bar and headed back down into Palermo to catch a bus to our next city in Sicily: Syracuse.

Awesome view off the coast of Ortygia

Syracuse was a really nice little city right on the Eastern coast of Sicily, and because we arrived later in the evening, the first thing to do was to settle in at our next accommodation. B&B's are pretty big there, and because it was the offseason we practically had the entire place to ourselves. The owner was one of the nicest staff we've come across so the hospitality situation was really good there. He gave us a map of the city and proceeded to draw and write all over the thing, giving us about a million different recommendations and places to go, and by the end of it we had a collage of circles and arrows to use to navigate through the city. The following day was when we did most of the sightseeing so we walked around the center of the city, which was located on a connecting island called Ortygia, a super old and picturesque area that is basically on the water. Aside from walking around we had a nice little rock skipping session on the beach and basically took it easy for most of the day, eating arancini and gelato every chance we got. We also spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what we were going to do on the last day, deciding how busy we wanted to be before catching our 6:00pm flight the next day to Budapest. We eventually just decided to stick around in Syracuse, and from there take a bus to Catania, where we would fly out. We spent only about an hour or two in Catania before the flight out but we found a little cafe with a really nice owner and we just hung out there to kill time, so I can't really say much of Catania, but overall we had some great interactions with really nice people just about everywhere in Sicily.

I would obviously highly recommend Sicily to any traveler visiting Italy, and I do wish we could have spent more time here, but as is usually the unfortunate case with traveling...there is never enough time. I was also really looking forward to our next stop on the trip, and crazy enough, Alex's last stop of the trip before he would head back home for the holidays...Budapest!

My Return to Northern Italy

We definitely had a nice little break from Europe during our awesome trip to Morocco, but I was excited to be heading back to Italy, and more importantly, my old stomping grounds in Torino.

This was round three for me being back in Torino and I couldn't have asked for a better time. I always love coming back to this city, and since studying here three and a half years ago it felt like I never left. It was especially cool to show Alex around, and show him some of the main sites of the city and where I used to hang out.

Most of my time spent in Torino was really just spent catching up with old friends that I had made back when I was studying there. I was having so much fun hanging out with old friends and making new ones, and I was so content with just being in Torino again that at this point in my traveling I think it was just so refreshing to be back in such a familiar place and relinquish old memories. I've gotta be honest, I was and still have seriously considered staying in Torino and living there again, probably just teaching English and enjoying my time back in this awesome city. I know it would be a much different experience than it was from when I was studying there, and it would definitely be a lot more challenging, but I really do love this city and I could honestly see myself being happy there. Oftentimes we hear from our tour guides in various cities say that they were just traveling through Europe on a trip and they stopped in one particular city and just stayed there because they loved it so much. I feel like I seriously got a glimpse of this feeling when I was back here.

Feels good to be back at the old apartment!

It's crazy to be at this point in my life, at a crossroads where I can just make a decision and stay and live anywhere I want. It's exciting and scary, but I'm pretty confident that whatever I decide to do I'll be able to fully enjoy myself while doing it and take it in as a really good and valuable experience. With that confidence, it diminishes some of the worries that can arise when I think of making these types of decisions, and it definitely allows me to think more clearly.

After some thought and reflecting on the whole situation while I was in Torino, I'm still planning on traveling but wouldn't be too surprised if things change, so we'll just have to see what happens!

On our third day in Torino Alex and I had decided to split up. Not because we were too sick of each other (although I'll admit that I think we were both happy to have a break from spending every waking moment stuck with each other), but because it was Alex's first time here in Italy and it was in his best interest to see some of the other amazing cities in this country. So he was off to Milan to catch a concert, then he continued on to Venice and Florence while we had both agreed to meet back up in Rome about a week later. I, on the other hand, had decided to stay in Torino for a few more days before heading off on my own for a bit as well. But before leaving Torino, I spent a night out with my old friend Marco, an amazing friend that I had met from my days studying in Torino and who was born and raised there (and thanks to social media I was able to easily keep in touch with him over the years). Marco invited me to spend Christmas and New Year's with him and his family, and after confirming a couple arrangements, it looked like I would be heading back to Torino for the holidays! I was really excited about the news and really happy that I had some great plans to look forward to during my favorite time of the year. It would have been great to spend this time with family, but this was at least the next best thing.

So with plans of returning in a few weeks I was happy to leave Torino and head to a few new places in Italy that I had never been. The first place being in Italy but not necessarily part of Italy: San Marino. San Marino claims to be one of the oldest countries...ever. Well at least one of the first ever republics with the oldest constitution, and to this day it is still considered an independent country and one of the smallest in Europe/the world - so there's a little background information for you. I had first heard about it when I was studying in Torino and always had an interest to check it out and of course cross another lesser known country off the list. So now seemed like a pretty good opportunity to get there, and I wouldn't be heading there alone. My good friend Max, who had studied in Torino on my program as well and who we had recently met up with during our trip to Lisbon in November, was staying in Torino for the time being on his own little adventure. So after meeting up during my visit we decided to both see San Marino for ourselves.

San Marino

The weather wasn't great on the day we decided to go, but I think it honestly added a certain aspect to this place that not many people get when they come to visit here. The central part of the country is located on top of a fairly large mountain, but with the weather we had that day it was difficult to tell. We were essentially covered in clouds the entire time we were up there and this provided for a really neat, misty mythical-like setting. It was really cool and I hadn't really experienced a landscape like this before with this kind of foggy atmosphere. It felt kind of like a fairy tale, and I was expecting the headless horseman to be galloping out at us at any second on the trail. Max and I couldn't get over how cool this place was, and for this reason I think it was definitely one of the more memorable parts of the trip for me just because I hadn't really seen anything like it before.

We spent the rest of the day continuing to walk around the old part of the town which was neatly being decorated in all of the Christmas-like lights and embellishments, and it really felt like one of those little Christmas towns that appear in the stories and books you read as a kid. It was a really cool atmosphere, and I highly recommend giving San Marino a visit for anyone who’s interested in traveling there. Another thing worth mentioning is the odd number of stores selling weapons, leather handbags, watches, and souvenirs. For some reason these were the only types of shops around with little else to find. But it made for a pretty comical sight to see a Christmas shop set up right next to one of the weapons stores.

Because of its size it’s easy to see most of the main sights of San Marino in a day. After that day Max and I parted ways, as he would be heading back to Torino and I would be staying the night in Rimini, just outside San Marino, and preparing to head to Siena the following day. Because it was pretty rainy down in Rimini and we had spent all day hiking around with me carrying my home/backpack everywhere we went, I was having trouble finding an affordable hostel in Rimini that was still open. Rimini is a very seasonal summer beach town with plenty of options to stay and party during the summer, but it was almost winter now, and with the lack of options I had I was forced to splurge on a more expensive hotel room next to the train station. Luckily I had a credit card :) and after a night of living like a king I was off to Siena the next day. My first two trains were delayed, which unfortunately is completely normal for Italy and because of that I couldn’t catch my third train and had to continue to wait and take different trains to finally make it to Siena. A three hour trip turned into a six hour trip but I had finally made it and spent a night there.

Siena is a really nice little town in the heart of Tuscany, which provided for a really nice little feel for the Tuscan lifestyle there. It doesn’t take much time to see the city there but it was really nice to see some of the main sites in the city. One of my favorite piazzas is at the center of this place, and it’s huge and really well designed. Also, I was traveling solo for the first time since London which was quite a while ago. It was good to be alone again though and I’m honestly looking forward to the next time that happens down the road (no offense Al) since it’s a totally different experience. I would recommend Siena for a nice romantic stroll through the town with an Italian model, as I kind of got that romantic vibe from walking through the city, and it’s really beautiful and clean there. After my short night of visiting the city I was set to catch an afternoon train to Rome, where Alex and I would be reunited for our final section of the trip together.

Siena

Alex and I met up in Rome, and with no accommodation booked beforehand we had to begin our last minute search for a place to stay. After an hour or two we finally found a place that wasn’t far from the train station and stayed there for a couple nights to begin our sightseeing in this crazy historical city. I had been to Rome before and had seen most of the main sites myself, so I wasn’t too concerned with trying to see everything. With this being Alex’s first time here he had a lot to see but wanted to stick to a couple of the main sites, so we met up with a couple of our new Canadian friends that Alex had previously met in Florence and saw the Coliseum and the Forum and a lot of the main tourist attractions there. That day was also a national holiday (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and the pope would be making an appearance for a ceremony that was going to take place in one of the smaller and more famous squares of the city. We had the crazy idea of trying to see him and we headed to the square shortly before the ceremony took place. Of course the place was absolutely packed, and we had to continuously try to squeeze ourselves in further and further in order to try and catch a glimpse of the pope. We were there for over an hour, and after most of that hour being spent on our tippy toes, I still don’t think we saw him. He was somewhere beyond the infinite swarm of people that were trying to do the exact same thing we were doing. I thought I saw him multiple times squeezed between people’s silhouettes in the distance but was never sure enough to say that he was there. Regardless, we were in the same square at the same time, so that counts for something, right?

After the “pope sighting” we headed back to our new hostel, which was much more fitting for younger people as there was a bar across the street… This place was definitely one of the cooler hostels we had been to, full of young travelers all on similar adventures, and it was kind of a nice breath of fresh air to be meeting others in a similar situation. Like I’ve mentioned before, Couchsurfing is one of the best experiences we’ve had on this trip, meeting locals and experiencing their way of life. But sometimes it’s nice to also meet other travelers going through some of the same experiences that we’re going through. We end up finding people with a lot of things in common because we’re having similar experiences and constantly traveling, trying to see as much as we can of the world. We share a lot of the same discoveries when we find that we’ve been to similar places, and it’s nice to converse about some of the same things we’ve done and haven’t done, and what others have to say about it.

But later that evening, we all decided to go out and have some fun in Rome and it was a blast. We mostly just stayed at the hostel bar and eventually met an Italian friend who showed us a fun late night bar, which remained open after there were no other options. After that night, an early morning spontaneous solo trip took me to Orvieto, a small town about one hour outside Rome, where I was going to plan on taking a bus to Civita de Bagnoregio (it’s best you Google image this place, since it’s hard to put into words how cool it looks) which was one of the two main things I wanted to see while in Rome (the other was to go inside St. Peter’s Basilica). Unfortunately, when I arrived in Orvieto just before 9:00am I found out that the bus for Civita de Bagnoregio wasn’t leaving until 12:45 that afternoon. This was not feasible for me since I had no sleep the previous night after going out. I was partially devastated by this news but was suddenly somewhat accepting of it after seeing the stunning, sweeping views of the countryside from the main square of Orvieto, which suddenly diminished my disappointment. I didn’t realize before I got there that the center of this town is perched high up on a hill, and is easily accessible by cable car from the train station. I had to hang out there for a couple hours anyways to catch the next train back to Rome, and although I didn’t make it to Civita de Bagnoregio I was happy to at least get something out of the trip with my successful discovery of Orvieto.

The stunning views from Orvieto

I got back to my hostel room at 1:00pm and the rest of the day consisted of sleep.

The day after that was our last day in Rome, and later that evening we had planned to use the last day on our Eurail pass to go to Naples. We spent the last day in Rome (technically the Vatican) doing the one other thing on my checklist that I wanted to do, and we were able to go inside St. Peter’s Basilica. We actually started by going to the top of the Basilica with our Canadian friends and enjoyed the amazing views of surrounding Rome from here. It was a beautiful day and the crowds were low, which made for a great combination for enjoying this attraction. After saying farewell to our friends from the top we began our descent into the Basilica itself. The outside is huge but the inside felt even bigger. It was truly impressive, and I think I now understand why this is the heart of Catholicism. I was blown away and very happy I got to see the inside. Pictures don’t do it justice, but I posted some for visual pleasure anyway. Alex hadn’t been to the Vatican museum/Sistine Chapel yet so I let him do that while I took a nice walk around the area and back. We spent the rest of that day making our way to Naples, and when we got there I had one of the best meals of my entire life. (to be continued!)

The Moroccan Experience

Africa! A new country and a new continent, and I can definitely say that things are different here from just about everywhere else I've been in my travels. It always takes some getting used to when traveling through a new environment, and Morocco was no exception. I have the crazy idea of trying to squeeze my 11 days in Morocco into one blog post, and I'm gonna try to stick to it so here it goes:

The Morocco Boys

Alex and I had most of Morocco planned out after an entire day of planning in Toulouse awhile back, so there wasn't a huge amount of improvising that we had to worry about when we got there. We also found some cheap flights arriving there and leaving, so we already had flights booked for entering and leaving the country, which we basically planned around while we were there. We hopped on our flight from Madrid to our first city in Morocco, Tangier, that would serve as a very impressive and promising introduction to our African experience. Alex had found someone who would host us in Tangier so we were excited to once again meet some locals and learn a thing or two about this new place. We met up with Anas shortly after arriving, who would be our incredible host over the next couple days. This turned out to be a perfect situation for us. Anas and his roommates spoke nearly perfect English, being translation students working on their masters, and they were the exact same age as us. We had an amazing time with these guys learning all about Moroccan culture and how everything works, getting to know each other and our similarities, and walking around Tangier seeing some awesome sites. Including a really cool cafe situated on a cliff overlooking the strait of Gibralter and providing us a view of the European continent that we had temporarily left behind.

We had the perfect introduction to this new country, once again meeting some amazing new friends and learning so much about their culture and way of life, always the most valuable lesson from traveling. We actually stayed a second, unplanned night in Tangier because we were having such a great time with these guys. It was hard to leave and move on but we knew there was still much to see in Morocco.

My memory of Chefchaouen

Next stop: Chefchaouen. A tiny touristic town in the middle of the Rif mountains. This place was really neat and extremely picturesque. Our hostel was one of the cooler places we've stayed in as well, with beds situated on the rooftop terrace overlooking the city, and of course we stayed up there on our second night. It's hard to stop taking pictures of this place, and I went on a pretty awesome hike with a couple new friends we met at our hostel to get an even better view of the city. The following day consisted of another amazing hike around some really cool nature-things that were about 30-45 minutes by taxi outside of the city. One hike was a decently strenuous uphill climb to the top of a natural bridge formation called God's Bridge, which connected two sides of a canyon and was obviously really impressive. The second hike, less strenuous but much longer, was a 4 hour round trip hike to an incredible waterfall. We had such a great time out here since we've mostly been so cooped up in all of these cities and haven't had much time to do a bunch of nature stuff. It was really refreshing and gave us a different perspective on Morocco, which turned out to be so much more scenic and beautiful than anticipated.

Aside from a few "interesting" situations that happened with some hagglers in Chefchaouen (which I would be happy to elaborate on outside of this blog), I really enjoyed the couple days we spent here. But it seems that again, as soon as we arrived, it was time for us to continue our trip across the country and head to the next city: Fes.

Fes is one of the old capitals of Morocco and one of the largest cities in the country. It's most famous for its Medina, or "old city," which consists of an enormous labyrinth of maze-like streets, small enough only for people, push carts, and donkeys to travel through. Fes has one of the largest medinas, consisting of over 1,000 of these little streets, walled on both sides by shops selling everything you can imagine, and even more things that you can't imagine. It's impossible not to get lost here, and we spent some time with the one day that we had getting lost and somehow finding our way back to our hostel before heading out on an overnight bus to the desert. It's hard not to go into detail with the situation that happened to us in Fes when we were trying to organize our trip to the Sahara, but long story short: some guy picked us up from the bus station when we arrived there, convinced us to pay for an all inclusive trip from Fes to the desert to Marrakesh, and made us feel really uncomfortable about it the entire time (probably another story I can elaborate on outside of this blog in order to save time, space, and literary energy). But regardless of how uncomfortable we felt, things ended up working out and we continued with the plan, taking an overnight bus from Fes to the Sahara town of Merzouga, close to the Algerian border.

Camel-cam

I gotta say, being in the desert was easily my favorite part of Morocco. After taking a much needed nap at the hotel when we arrived, we set out on a pair of camels with our guide, Mohammed, off into the Sahara. We stopped in a little Nomad village for some amazing homemade couscous for lunch, and then continued on to another small village where we would spend the night in the middle of the desert, with entertainment provided by our guides in the form of sandboarding, playing music around a fire, and having some amazing food for dinner while making more friends from another group that joined us in staying the night in our little village. It was definitely one of those unforgettable experiences that was easily one of the highlights of the trip. The only unfortunate part about the whole thing was the weather.

Usually weather doesn't bother me at all, which is why I don't really mind traveling during the off season in the Fall/Winter. But this time the weather had a direct impact on the rest of our "all-inclusive" desert trip in a big way. There was a significant amount of rain hitting the southern part of the country, and some of it passed through the desert where we were, with scattered showers here and there but nothing too crazy. However, it must have picked up a lot further West into the mountains, because apparently an entire bridge collapsed, preventing us from getting to Marrakesh from the desert. We were definitely bummed, because our next night was going to be spent near the Todgha Gorge, which is supposed to be a pretty amazing canyon on the way to Marrakesh. So instead of continuing our pre-planned trip, the guys at the hotel organized for a private car to take us back to Fes, and from there we had to take an overnight train to Marrakesh. In the end we made it, but had to cope with a massive detour that costed us a day in Marrakesh and the gorge. It was a bummer but we just had to accept it and move on.

On the bright side, we found an awesome host in Marrakesh, and he was able to have us for our last couple nights in Morocco. For the most part we took it pretty easy in Marrakesh. On the first day we did the sightseeing, checking out the big mosque and the Medina, getting some snakes thrown on us, pictures taken and donations requested, and walking around another massive market, filled with the familiar winding maze-like footpaths that consisted of the busiest part of the city. A more notable moment in Marrakesh was that we spent Thanksgiving there, and our host, Redouan, was kind enough to assist us in our Thanksgiving feast by cooking some turkey and vegetables Moroccan-style, with the finished product resulting in a delectable Thanksgiving turkey tagine. It was really cool to celebrate such an American holiday in such a foreign place, and we all had a really enjoyable meal. The next morning, bright and early at about 4:00 am, Redouan was kind enough to organize a cab to the airport for us and send us on our way.

Al and I being apprentice snake charmers

When I look back and reflect on Morocco I think of many ups and downs that we had, but the experience as a whole was something that I'm so glad we got to have. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the big cities of Fes and Marrakesh, as the Medinas appeared constantly filled with people trying to get as much money from you as possible, and it didn't seem possible for us to peacefully walk through these cities without having to turn down multiple persistent hagglers, trying to get you to buy any unnecessary items that you aren't interested in buying. If things like that don't bother you, it's not such a bad place to spend a day seeing, and in all fairness I wasn't sure how I would react in these situations. It turns out I'm just not a huge fan of things like that, so I much rather prefer the peaceful vastness of the desert. Also, aside from the uncomfortable situations that happened to us in Chefchaouen and Fes, I refuse to let a couple strange people ruin the experience or the rest of the Moroccan people for me. We met some really awesome people during our stay and had some of the best hospitality we've had on this trip. I could also see myself going back to Morocco in several years, as another result of traveling is often the discovery of new places to see that we didn't know about previously, and there's a heck of a lot more to see in Morocco than I thought.

Overall, we had a nice break from Europe but were ready to get back in there and go to our next (and one of my favorite) cities. Back to Torino I go, and can't wait to relive the glory days of studying abroad in my favorite city in Italy.