Traveling now from Roma to Firenze. Roma wasn't planned, but Dave and I accidentally hopped on the slow train from Napoli to Firenze and instead of arriving in Firenze late at night, we decided to hop off and spend a night I Rome. It was great. I was able to navigate from the Termini train station to The Yellow-a hostel that I remember was fun when Ange and Claire stayed there back in 2007. There wasn't any availability so we stayed in a hotel across the street.
Rome is so much nicer at night. We took the metro down to the colosseum and took a stroll around without all the tourists and money grabbers. The Forum remains one of my favorite places to sight-see. Doing the touristy things at night is definitely a plus, with beautiful weather, few people, and a relaxing feel, it doesn't feel at all like the hot squalor that sight seeing in Rome is usually like.
The next day, hungover, we decided to do the hop-on-hop-off bus tour. Not sure whether or not that was a good choice. The weather was dreadfully hot and humid and there was no AC in the buses that stayed for 15 or so minutes at each stop. We did, though, get to see many of the cool sites in about 2.5 hours with an occasional breeze and a few stops for gelato.
The couple days leading up to our trip to Rome were amazing. We spent these days in southern Italy at the beach. Andrea first took us on an hour long adventure by car to the Amalfi Coast and Positano. We drove along curvy, narrow streets along the cliffs, stopping every few minutes to take another beautiful picture of the coast and sea. Our first stop was in Positano, probably the most beautiful place on earth. With windy streets, incredible views of the sea from houses and trendy shops built into the cliff, it was a taste of heaven.
After Positano, we went to Amalfi about 20Km south. It's much the same as Positano, just with a bit more people and shops for tourists. We spent some time at the shore there which had beautiful rocky sand and blue salty water. That night, we went to Andrea's friend, Sergio's, house for a home cooked Italian meal. The amount of food that was served was comparable to a Thanksgiving feast. We were served past with swordfish, sweet peppers, sautéed mushrooms with parsley, salad, gelato, and plentiful wine and liquors.
The next day, Sergio took us down to his family's beach house in Maratea. This town was truly amazing with cliffs leading straight down into crystalline water. We had a fun time with the snorkel and jumping off rocks into the mediterranean. After all of this traveling, Dave and I decided to make our last day in Napoli as a much needed day of rest.
We are patiently awaiting Firenze now, sitting in first class on the eurostar fast train. It turns out that we get to ride first class everywhere using the saver pass on eurail, but it doesn't always guarantee that we get the fast trains, unless we make a reservation for a seat for just 10£ a piece. Definitely worth it. They give you complementary drinks and snacks along with towels and huge seats.
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