Dereck Comes to Italy!

Hello blog followers! (If I even have any). Soo I’ve been extremely busy lately- I know it’s not a good excuse- but I am finally back on my blog grind after a month without internet and me being my lazy self! :) Hey I'm livin life ok?! :)

WELL, Dereck visited good ol’ Santa Felicita and we adventured to Rome, Naples, Capri, and Pompeii. I was so happy he got to come and visit, we didn't think it was going to be possible, but we made it  happen thanks to his wonderful mother, Ellie! It was exhausting traveling to so many places in one week but it was so worth it and so so much fun! I think this week contained the most walking I have ever done in my life (not exaggerating) We planned the trip months in advance, so we didn’t really think about the idea of free time in all of our destinations. Dereck really wanted to visit Rome and Capri, but in order to get there we needed to pass through Napoli, the garbage can of Italy in my personal opinion (no offense, I love pizza just as much as the next person). We also planned to stop by Pompeii, thinking it was just a “stop and see the ruins real quick” kinda thing, but actually turned into being a “let’s explore the ancient city for two plus hours while almost missing our train” sorta thing. The day he got here, Friday, we went to my fav place, Gusta Pizza, for lunch then had a nice dinner at Anita's, another "list" spot of ours. We went to bed early because we had to get up for our long train ride to Roma in the morning!

a little sleepy on our 3 hour journey to Roma

Rome, even the second time, was awesome. Dereck was obviously loving it, running around like a child and taking pictures like it was his job. We woke up early almost every day for touring or for our train (didn’t make time for sleep in our plans either) and were sometimes a liiiittle cranky from all the walking (ok, so I was more cranky). At the Colloseum, we got convinced into taking pictures with a gladiator con artist who tried to get us to pay 20 euro for pics we took of him—no charge to him—so when I only gave him a two euro coin he was noooot happy to say the least…oops! We got a mediocre tour of the Colloseum then got to adventure ourselves for a bit before heading out. 

shoulda done it.

the Colosseum! ..and cool Italian smart cars

We figured out how to get to the Vatican, finally, and there we had to get into a huge line to wait to see the Sistine Chapel. Once there, we pretty much ran through the entire museum to see the huge Michelangelo painting in the chapel—for Gram of course. Dereck snuck a few pics and purchased a lovely set of rosary beads for Gram and we booked it outta there to check off a few more destinations on our list. 

for Gram!

illegal photograph of the Sistine Chapel...don't tell!

at the Trevi Fountain

That night we went to our hostel to check in, so happy to finally put our backpacks down and take off our shoes. We stayed at the Yellow hostel, which was decent and had a bar in the hostel where we got a couple of free drinks. We went out to dinner across the street and got a free shot of limoncello—not the best but needed to be tried—then proceeded, sleepily, to the Trevi Fountain—which was beautiful, etc., etc.—but whatever, we were too tired so went to the Yellow and slept for maybe 4 hours before waking up and heading to the train station.

the middle of the island, so colorful

  The next day was CAPRI! I was the most excited to see Capri because it was a side of Italy I had not seen before. The island of Capri is off of the Almalfi coast and was recommended to us by a lot of people. The weather wasn’t beach weather but the island was so nice! The only tourists were Asians obviously, so it being less touristy made the trip pretty laid back and I loved it. We took a train to Naples, and then a bus to a ferry that took us to Capri (we were doing great with the transportation up to this point). Once we got to Capri we walked off the boat and were completely overwhelmed. We didn’t do much research before the trip, so we really didn’t know what types of things we wanted to do on the island. We picked up a guide book (with oh so many typos) and headed to the Anacapri, the other side of the island. Capri is like two small mountains; one side is the Capri and the other is the town of Anacapri.

We walked through tiny streets that only scooters could probably get through for a while until we found our hotel, Hotel Bussola (Hotel Compass). Coming from Rome, where we stayed in a nice hostel (but it was a hostel), this hotel was great! It was like a normal B&B type hotel, and the people were so cute. The main lady was Rita, who told us all the things we could do before it got too dark out- she even called the boat company to see if they could get us in the Blue Grotto before it was too late- how sweet! She encouraged us to go see as many sights as possibly, and mapped it out over the map she gave us. 

So we put our backpacks in the room- thank god- and headed off to the bus stop where we caught a bus to the Blue Grotto, which wasn’t far at all. We had no idea what to do from there, so we just headed down some steps to what seemed like the cave and watched what seemed like 50 row boats go into the grotto, then out and in a circle to we were on the dock, then back. We tried to get some of the boats’ attention, but none of them spoke English or told us to get on their boat. We were getting really confused until we realized we just had to wait our turn- stupid Americans :) When all of the people from the tour boat in the distance were finished going into the Grotto, one of the guys picked us up on his boat and took us in. The cave entrance was so small we had to lean back in the boat just to fit through- scary! Once inside the cave, the man sang and tried to tell us about the Blue Grotto and himself- there wasn’t much I remember and/or could understand so we’ll skip that. We got a few pictures- mine without flash obviously- and then the guy got a really great picture of Dereck and I! 

picture of us in the Blue Grotto

We tipped him, hopped out, and took a bus to the center of Anacapri. At that point we were pretty hungry (what else is new) and we went to the nearest restaurant we could find. We met some doctors who were traveling around Europe and went to Capri on a little vacation. One of them was very quiet but the other was pretty much the opposite. He was really friendly and told us to put all our pictures on Facebook- will do haha. From there we went to the chairlift, which took us up to the top of the mountain. It was a one-person chair so we had to hop on really fast and got pulled up the steep hill. Along the way we saw a million Asian people going down and realized there was no one else going up- guess we missed the tourist crowd. At the top it was an amazing view! You can see the entire island of Capri from some points. My favorite part was the side of the island that no one visits…there were only birds flying around and it was so peaceful. [video] In the distance, you could even see Sorrento, Italy! We stayed up til we were freezing and then took the chair lift back down. 

Dereck seemed to be enjoying the ride

its a little scary going up that mountain alone!

edgy one of Dereck- Capri :) and Sorrento in the distance

you can see Odysseus' rocks behind us!

 

That night, we wandered to Capri to get dinner where we ran into my roommate, Kelly, and her friends who were also visiting! It was getting late though and apparently the whole island shuts down at 7 (cutie-ville? yup!!) and we were both having a hard time finding a restaurant. We eventually found a small one and ate quickly so we could go to bed- early day the next day as always! The next day we woke up, had a quick breakfast thanks to the nice people at our hotel, then literally ran (yes I did break into a sprint) down the mountain to catch our ferry..luckily we just made it, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to steal a fresh lemon or orange off of one of the trees there! 

Now on to Pompeii! Or so we thought. Before we left, we made sure to do some research so we didn't get lost or anything and found a website by "the Cole Family" (fitting, right) that told us how to get to the metro in Naples, which we needed to find to get to Pompeii. After 2 hours of walking with our heavy backpacks, sweating and attempting to talk to locals in Italian to find this metro, we were about to give up when we realized that we were back at the original train station we had come in on the day before. Hmmm. We went inside and to our surprise, and aggravation, the metro was simply right below the train station (kills me just thinking about it!) Well we were already 2 hours behind schedule, but I was still determined to see Pompeii. We did some quick thinking and decided that we could do this. We went up to the information desk and got our ticket back to Florence moved back so we would have a few hours at least, to see the ancient ruins of Pompeii. We were so close and we had come too far to let it go. Before we knew it we were on the metro to Pompeii, Dereck like a little boy yelling at me to look at things out the window, while I'm trying to guard my bag from some creeper who looks like he's about to pickpocket anybody who comes too close. The metro was an experience, but luckily it wasn't too long! In Pompeii, we started out slow- I mean how many ruins could there possibly be after all? We'd have plenty of time....we thought wrong. A half hour in we realized there was a city the size of Rome (OK exaggeration) here and we were sprinting around trying to see as much as possible, and still have time for pictures. The place was huge- and awesome. I'd recommend it to everyone, but definitely give yourself a day there, or at least more than two hours if you really want to see everything. It was crazy how in tact everything there was, I couldn't believe that this was an ancient civilization- I had never seen anything like it. 

 

Dereck feeling like the King of Pompeii

 Even getting out was long, there was so much to see! When we finally made it back to Naples, we stopped at our fav spot, McDonald's (you know that's not a joke) and got some fries and ice cream MmMmM :) Then, back to Florence- home sweet home! By the time we got back it was already Monday night, and we only had Tuesday and Wednesday left together in my favorite city :(

 On Tuesday and Wednesday, I unfortunately had class during the day, and afterwards me and Dereck caught up on Sons of Anarchy, which he so nicely brought to Italy for me for a late Valentine's Day gift. While I was in class, Dereck explored the city, tasting all the chocolate croissants he could find or making his way to Gelateria dei Neri for some gelato (chocolate of course). We also hit up the San Lorenzo leather market, hung out on the Ponte Vecchio like romantic couples are supposed to, and even put our love lock on the bridge! How cute were we?! :)

corny couple :)

On the first night, we learned the song "Call Me Maybe" and watched the music video maybe twelve hundred times (overdoing it? nahh) I even had to draw mustaches on everyone so we could reenact Justin Bieber's Youtube hit with the song (we're not 12 or anything). It was only necessary.  Then we proceeded out for the birthday celebrations to Uncle Jimmy's then Lion's, well almost (you know how it is)

yes, we went out in public like this

I Love Florence!

The next day we climbed the duomo in the morning. On our last full night, we climbed up to Piazza Michelangelo and got some nice shots of Florence at night (see above photo) To celebrate Kelly's friend Maggie's birthday, we went out to dinner at "Franco's" (can't remember the real name) and got some special treatment because we were with his fav customer, Carolyn. It was delicious, especially the bruschetta, and it was a great way to end an awesome week. It was most certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity and it could not have been any better! :)