ITALY - PART 1

Part 1 of our Italy trip is over!  Civitavecchia, Italy was our port for our first 3 days in Italy!  Civitavecchia, pronounced CHA-Vi-Ta-VeKK-E-aa.. yeah its hard to say.. was really nice and only about an hour away from Rome on the train. 

 

The first day in Civitavecchia I went out and explored for awhile with a group of friends.. we walked around and found a huuuge market and spent some time there shopping and then went to a small cafe.  We walked around until about 12 and went back to the boat because some of the girls I was with had a trip with SAS at 1.. so we ate lunch on the boat (which saves a lot of money!) and then I met my roommate when she got back from a trip and we explored the city a little more.  We actually found a beach really close to the gate of our port so we went back to the boat, put on our suits and headed back to the beach!!

 

The second day in Civitavecchia, I had a trip with SAS to the Santa Severa Castle which was about 30 minutes away from the ship.. unfortunately, nobody informed us that the castle would be closed and we could only go to the museum of the castle.. so it was disappointing.  But the town we were in was all beach, so i spent the day walking around the beach and eating lunch, of course pizza!!  After coming back from the trip, I met up with some other friends and went out for dinner to this amazing Pizzeria where you can get 5 sections of different toppings on your pizza, and it was DELICIOUS!!!! After dinner, which is really late in Italy so we were done around 9, we walked around the town for awhile!  Civitavecchia was a really safe and small town.. and now that I am in Naples, I miss it!!

 

The third day was my favorite because my roommate, friend and I went into ROME!!!  Rome was amazing and hot!! Well, all of Italy has been hot but Rome seemed like it was the hottest!  When we got into Rome, we went straight to the Vatican since that would take up a lot of our time.  Going through the Vatican was awesome.. it is huuge and every single inch of that place is either painted, carved, or decorated! It was really pretty and at the end of our trip through seeing all the different rooms and statues and paintings and everything we went through Sestien Chapel (sp?) which was also really increadible.  You're not supposed to talk or take any pictures, but everybody was until they yelled over the loudspeaker at everyone. But I got some good pictures and a video of it to show everyone!  After we were done at the Vatican, we took the Metro to the Colleseum, which was also extremely hot and huge and amazing!  One of the coolest things about the colleseum was that I ran into about 4 boys from OSU while walking around the second level!  This group walked past me and two of them were wearing O. State gear, so I asked them,  and sure enough they go to OSU and are studying abroad outside of Paris and were in Rome for the weekend! Crazzy!  After the Colleseum, we went to this little restaruant that had delicious pizza, of course and then we got Gelato, which is soo good and regular ice cream will never ever compare!

 

So, so far Italy is great, I'm not sure if I like it as much as I did Spain.. but it is pretty amazing and I love the fact that they, like the Spaniards, close down the city from about noon to 4pm, so everyone can have a big lunch and take their Siesta.. then the shops re-open until about 7!  It's soo weird, but kind of cool when nothing but the places to eat are open for 4 hours because they devote so much time to eating with family/friends and taking your afternoon nap! nothing like america, thats for sure!

 

After the third day, which I spent in Rome, our boat set sail overnight to get to Naples, where we are spending our last 2 days in Italy!  I feel like I am missing things from our first port in Italy, so I will update if I remember, and I will write about Naples later, even though I've already been here for a day!!

 

OOH, happy 4th of July!  It's so weird.. I didnt even realize it was the fourth until someone said something about it!  I never even know what day of the week it is, let alone the date! So, I hope everyone saw fireworks.. I did not :(

 

Check back tomorrow (Sunday).. I will be updating when we leave Italy for Croatia!!

=)