SUNDAY // Milan, Italy
On Sunday I flew to Milan with Max and his two friends. We arrived in the late afternoon, and walked along the Navigli canal, where our Airbnb was located. Another LLC friend, Nick, was also in Milan, and he met up with us for dinner. We first went to a gelato place, because 1) gelato and 2) restaurants in Italy don’t even open until 7 at the earliest. The wait was worth it. We went to a small restaurant recommended by our Airbnb host that wasn’t on touristy strip alongside the Navigli. I ended up ordering the pumpkin ravioli and it was so so delicious. The five of us spent a long time talking before going back to the airbnb.
MONDAY // Milan, Italy
The next morning, I walked to Nick’s Airbnb to drop my bag off before exploring the city with him. (Max left for Florence that day). We went to a cafe for breakfast and to plan our day, but halfway through realized that most museums/other points of interest were closed on Mondays. Tragic, but also helpful in drastically narrowing down our decisions. We first walked to the Foundazione Prada, a small art museum founded by the iconic fashion brand. To my surprise, the exhibits had little to do with fashion, and the architecture was incredible. I’m glad I went with Nick, because he geeked out over the materials and details just as much as I did. The main exhibit featured work by William N. Copley, and also included Dadaist literature and works in order to highlight the movement’s influence on the artist. Best of all, the gallery interior was made up of curving, organically placed walls covered floor to ceiling in pink velvet. Gorgeous and completely fitting for the works it housed.
After lunch we waled to the Duomo Plaza. The church was completely breathtaking, with such intricate detail its impossible to imagine how such a building was planned and then carried out.
After examining the Duomo’s extensive facade, we made our way to the archway. Completely entranced, we spent a while marveling at the ceiling while we still had daylight left. Across the Plaza, we entered the 900 Museum, which focused on Modern and Contemporary Italian art, and housed an extensive Futurism collection that Nick and I were both excited to see.
It was a cool museum, though rather difficult to navigate, and by the end Nick and I were moving rather quickly through it, too tired to read another placard but driven onward by the feeling that this opportunity may not come again. We left just in time so we would be able to meet Mara shortly after her arrival at the airbnb she and I had rented for the night, only 3 minutes from where Nick was staying. The three of us spent some time relaxing before trying to figure out where to go for dinner. All three of us were craving gnocchi, so I was happy to find “Potato Palace,” a small restaurant specializing in just that. Once we arrived, it was immediately clear that the people working there spoke no english at all. Absolutely none. They spoke to the other restaurant patrons, asking if anyone else could translate, but no one else spoke English. We assured her through gestures and smiles that we did not mind and still wished to dine there, and the night was a long game of charades and guesswork and a lot of fun. I was able to translate most of the menu, as Italian and Spanish share more vocabulary than I had expected. I was still relieved, though, when the owner brought us an electronic menu on an iPad that had pictures of each dish. I ordered the purple potato gnocchi with walnuts and gorgonzola, and in retrospect it was the best thing I ate in Italy and one of the best of my life. Overall, I had a great time with my friends, and we all felt we were getting closer to experiencing the less touristy side of Italy.
TUESDAY // Naples, Italy
Most of today was spent on a train from Milan to Naples. I had originally heard that Milan was expensive, so not to spend much time there, but in retrospect it was far cheaper than Copenhagen and I wish I had had one more day. An excuse to go back! The train ride was about 5 hours of beautiful Tuscan countryside.
I spoke Spainish to the cab driver in Naples, and he was very friendly, giving us a general layout of the city and tips as to where to go. The hostel staff were also very friendly! I really recommend Hostel of the Sun to anyone who wants to visit Naples. It was clean, accommodating, well-located, and we felt very safe there.
For dinner we went to Gino Sorbino’s, a pizza place near the historic center of the city, apparently serving the best pizza in Naples. Again, yes, I am eating pizza, but how could you go to Italy, especially Naples, and not eat pizza? And I love Mara and she loves pizza, so I’m willing to abandon my principles on the issue. Anyway, we went “early” at 7 but already there was a line. We gave our name, and had to wait about an hour before being allowed inside and seated at a communal table. Hungry and excited, we started translating the menu on our phones. The Italian men next to us laughed a bit, but we ignored them. Our pizzas finally arrived, and they were really good, though that may have been just because I was really hungry. At this point, though, it was clear the men next to us were talking about us again. Mara and I didn’t understand, and were only a bit uncomfortable, until one of the men spoke to me.
“Is this your first time in Naples?”
“Yes”
“And your first time eating pizza in Naples?”
I look to Mara. “Yes.”
“You ordered the wrong pizza. Pesto doesn’t go on pizza, it goes on pasta. You should have ordered something else.”
Here, I held my tongue, not wanting to explain that it was one of the few meatless options, risk ridicule at that. Instead, I answered: “If it’s the wrong pizza, then why is it on the menu?”
He ignored that extremely valid point and proceeded to show me options that I should have ordered instead. At this point I was extremely uncomfortable, and considered excusing myself to the bathroom except that I didn’t want to leave Mara there by herself. Eventually, the guy’s friend told him he was an asshole and to leave us alone (I assume, it was in Italian) and he quit speaking to us for the time being. He interrupted our dinner a couple of other times to bring the issue back up. We were incredibly relieved when they finally left.
WEDESDAY // Naples, Italy + Amalfi, Italy
We got up early to make the 9:00 train to Amalfi. If you’ve been to Italy, you know that their public transportation isn’t the best. If you haven’t, just know that the tickets rarely have any information on them other than how much you paid. This means no destination, no times, nothing. This can make things confusing, especially if there’s a language barrier. Case in point: We explained to the man at the bus stop selling tickets from his pocket (!??!!) that we needed a ticket to Amalfi. We checked with he other tourists to confirm, and they agreed that this was the ticket we needed. Then, around 8:45, all of us were herded onto a bus and we were on our way to the coast. We were confused that the bus was leaving earlier, but figured that this was just typical. From our window we watched the water and the tiny buildings precariously stacked up along the cliff-side, as our bus weaved up and down the sharp curves of the coastline. Buses generally suck but was beautiful, and we saw so much that we wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise. Finally, we arrived in a small town that we determined was Salerno. At this point, we figured that the bus was stopping here before making its way to Amalfi. When the bus driver kicked us off at the last stop, we finally realized we had made a mistake. There were two other tourists that looked equally confused, so together we figured out where we had gone wrong. Luckily, there was a bus going from Salerno to Amalfi in 20 minutes, so we bought tickets from an actual ticket counter and boarded the correct bus and just got to see more of the coast.
We were very relieved when we finally arrived at Amalfi. We spent some time looking around on the beach and taking pictures before heading up into the city. Amalfi was definitely one of the more touristy places we visited, so we escaped the souvenir stalls by heading further inland. We came across a gorgeous church, it’s excessive ornamentation feeling out of place in the simple, cliffside village.
We came across some white arrows on the ground, encouraging us to explore the green expanse stretching up the mountains. And so we did, stopping along the way to take photos and admire the crop of lemon trees cut into terraces on the mountainside. The arrows continued along, and we found a sign telling us that we were on a nature trail leading to a waterfall. We were wildly underprepared in our jeans and leather jackets, but we were too excited to turn back. It was a while before it got warm and we started second guessing our decision, but by that point we ran into some tourists heading back who told us we were only 15 minutes from the end and we should finish the trail. We hiked faster to the end, only to find the waterfall had been reduced to a trickle by the dry winter season. We didn’t mind, though. We played in the water a bit to cool off and took some silly pictures before hiking the way back. Even though the waterfall wasn’t running, it was one of my favorite memories from the trip.
After the hike, we hung out by the coast for a little while longer before our bus back to Naples arrived. The trip back was long and a bit tedious, but the sunset over the water through the cliffs was really stunning. That night, we forwent real dinner and settled for prosecco and pastries from the oldest bakery in Naples instead. We fell asleep in sugar comas, exhausted from the accidental hike.
THURSDAY // Naples, Italy + Pompeii, Italy
Today was pompeii. It was one of the more touristy places I’ve been in my travels, but the history our tour guide shared was interesting, and Mara was really glad we went.
Feeling a bit run down from all the decadent food, we stopped at a street market for vegetables instead to make salads for lunch. We were able to get lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and persimmons for less than $3. Very different from Copenhagen!
While we still had some daylight left, we hiked up to the highest point in Naples in order to see the city. The path took us through the Spanish quarter, but we didn’t linger there, as we had been warned it was the less safe part of town. The hike was steeper and longer than expected (sound familiar?) but he gorgeous view from the top made it worth it.
That night we went to dinner at a small local restaurant a bit farther away from the historic center. I took a chance and ordered polpo, (octopus) and was so so yummy and an instant reminder of home. I even got Mara to try it!
We went to sleep happy and excited for Florence the next day.
FRIDAY // Florence, Italy
We arrived in Florence late in the afternoon after a second gorgeous train ride through the Tuscan countryside. During the off-season, most of the museums close at 4, so we walked through the city and to the Ponte Vecchio instead to watch the sunset.
We went to dinner nearby and planned to go out afterwards. At the restaurant, however, the menu only listed wine prices by the bottle, so we ordered one to share rather than getting glasses. This was our downfall, and despite eating our own weight in carbs, we were too giggly and sleepy to go out and ended up just going back to our room and FaceTiming Helen.
SATURDAY // Florence, Italy
Our last day, we spent at the Uffitzi. Like an entire 3 hours. It was amazing. The museum is incredibly well organized and easy to navigate. Necessary, with such large crowds of course.
After a quick nap, we met a friend of a friend for dinner. It was really nice, and then afterwards she took us too the best gelato place in the world, probably. A great ending to a wonderful week.