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!)