"fireworks in my mouth": italia

I can’t explain how and why I fell so in love with Barcelona. And why heading into Italy I felt emotionally (and physically) hungover from my weird affair with the city. It could have been because it was my initial sweet taste of Europe. It was also a breeze because my 6-14 (does elementary school Spanish count?) years of Spanish made me more than competent at finding my way around and carrying on polite conversations. Perhaps it was due to the city’s laid-back artsy bohemian atmosphere and style that mirrors my own. Or it might just have been because Barcelona wasn’t too intimidating or too hot or too touristy or too overwhelming.

Italy, in contrast, was all of these things. One week and I can honestly say I might vomit if I have to put another hunk of mozzarella cheese in my mouth (okay fine, that’s a flat out lie). Or if I see another Midwesterner with a fanny pack. I can’t speak a word of Italian beyond grazi/prego and this seemed to offend close to everyone I spoke to despite my best efforts. Not going to lie, the vast majority of Italians I came in contact with were massive assholes. And that whole mental image of Italian dudes as some of the sexiest in the world is a load of bullshit. I saw maybe one attractive guy. The rest of them were short tubby creepers getting in my face and grabbing my ass and honking their little Vespa horns at me. Pipe down, Italian men. And on top of it all, I’m DYING of heat stroke in this country. Coming from Miami, that’s saying a lot.

All of that aside, never in my life have I seen more beautiful things or tasted more delicious food. Italy was one week of intense ups and downs. Hang in there, beloved readers, because I covered six cities and consumed more pasta than I will ever admit, so we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

First up, the MV docked in Civitavecchia which is the tiny worthless port city of Rome. After an hour train ride (11AM and wine already uncorked, clearly) we reached Roma. Oh, forgot to add that we had a week in Italy and a tentative itinerary spanning the entire country in our heads – with absolutely nothing booked. Not one hotel room or train ticket. This was the epitome of winging it. We stepped out of Roma Termini onto the dirty busy street and saw a line of sketchy neon-signed hotels ahead of us on Via Marsala. Here we go. We went from hotel to hotel and finally settled at the majestic Hotel Aphrodite with sweeping views of some grungy apartment building’s air conditioning unit. Ah, Roma. Our feet were blistered, our shoulders sunburned, our stomachs blissfully happy.

I could write an entire novel about the food in Italy. Such phrases as “fireworks in my mouth” were tossed around. I had to physically get up from my chair and do a lap around the restaurant onto the street at one place in Florence because I was so overwhelmed with a) how delectable the food was and b) how quickly the vino had gone to my head.

As for the historic sights of Rome, we had two days to cover an entire empire. Needless to say, we were exhausted and pissy and only really spoke to each other unless food was involved or we took a group picture. We hit the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain (one of my favorites of Rome), Piaza de Popola, posted up at the Coliseum for like two hours, relaxed at the charming Piaza Navona, toured the Pantheon (unimpressive) and of course the Vatican.

I was really astounded by the Vatican. Obviously I knew what it is and how much importance it holds (half my family is Italian Catholic, I was genetically predisposed to make this pilgrimage). But actually being there was unlike anything I could have imagined.

It was Catholic Disney World.

Lines upon lines of thousands of eager tourists sweating it out in the Italian heat, bags full of rosaries and mugs plastered with Pope John Paul’s face, snapping photos and looking downright euphoric. I guess they didn’t notice the massive intimidating security detail, airport-style metal detectors and stern looking guards barking at harlots with their shoulders and ankles uncovered. I also learned that apparently you have to book a visit to the Vatican days/weeks in advance in order to avoid these throngs of unwashed masses. Lines can linger on for hours to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. I’ll never see Michelangelo’s fingers reaching for one another on the ceiling of the Sistine because tours were straight booked for the next few days and none of us were willing to bear the lines. St. Peter’s, however, was absolutely breathtaking. A monstrosity of the Catholic faith, sprawling and almost gaudy, you forget you’re in a church and not an overdone mansion. I’ll spare you my nerdy Religious Studies-major dissertation; the Vatican is just a lot to handle. Holy water fountain? Billboards in the middle of the square in front of the Basilica? Can this be real life?

Rome did have memorable occurrences not involving historic sights, though. One evening after a delicious meal at an authentic Roman restaurant, the waiter returned with my credit card to tell me that the owners shared my last name! Considering my family did the whole Ellis Island schpeel from Rome, these people could potentially have been my distant relatives. We hugged and they rattled on excitedly in Italian and I just nodded along and smiled.

Later that night, we learned the hard way a pesky European hotel rule targeting such broke college students as ourselves looking for a deal. At the aforementioned Aphrodite, we calculated that we could feasibly shove five of us in a room for three. Whatever, we thought, we like each other and it worked out to be like 20 bucks per person, can’t beat that even at a hostel.

Negative.

3AM we stumble back from a hilarious night of bar-hopping (a megaphone was purchased and abused, just to give you an idea of the ridiculousness) and the surly desk employee refuses to let us in without booking another room. Grand schemes of scaling walls and sneaking in through the terrace were thrown around but alas, the long arm of the Roman law caught up with us. The man literally had his hand on the phone receiver to dial the police if we didn’t shut the hell up and shell out the Euro for another room. At that point we backed off.

Anyways, that’s enough for Rome. It’s a big city like any other big city, but lacking the charm and culture of somewhere like New York that has a rich intermingling of cultures. Rome’s culture lies in its ruins and its food, which isn’t bad if you’re seeing it as a tourist, but I wouldn’t want to spend any extended time there.

Up next was Venice, which was a delightful change from Rome’s ugliness the minute we stepped out of the train station and onto one of the city’s famous picturesque bridges. With only two things on our to-do list (ride a gondola and see St. Mark’s Square) we had the full day to wander and take in the beauty of the city. Shops carrying ornate decorated masks reminiscent of the days of Venice’s infamous Carnivale and tiny cafes line the windy cobblestone streets. With not a car in sight it’s a lovely place to get lost on a lazy afternoon but not so fun to get directions back (no real streets = a population of dumbasses who can’t tell left from right). The city is also teeming with adorable dogs, which always brightened my mood since the only animals that can survive in Rome are pigeons. The only low point was seeing a man wearing a UMiami National Championship t-shirt in St. Mark’s Square, excitedly throwing up “the U” and smiling at him, and watching him proceed to glare at us and storm away. What? Isn’t that a shirt from AllCanes? Italians just get meaner and meaner.

From Venice we ventured under the Tuscan sun to the beautiful city of Florence. A word of advice, if you travel to Florence by train, do not be disheartened by the few shitty square miles around the station. Get past the Academica (home of David the original stud) and the city’s magnificence makes itself known. The view of the river and the quaint buildings lining its shores from the Ponte Veccio (meaning Old Bridge) will quite honestly take your breath away. Florence looks like someone plucked the cutest cottages from Tuscany, made them a bit taller and skinnier and shoved them into a city. It’s relaxing and has great food and nightlife (despite the awkward Italian teenagers dancing to Elvis at one bar we wound up in, but that’s another story); definitely somewhere I am itching to spend more than a day in the future.

After a day of torturous travel south from Florence to the Amalfi Coast, we reached our more-or-less final destination: Sorrento.

Sorrento and the other tiny towns encompassing the cliffy Amalfi Coast were, hands down, the most incredibly stunning sights I’ve ever laid eyes on. I need a thesaurus to come up with enough adjectives to describe the beauty there. Sweeping. Spectacular. Breathtaking. The buildings of the Amalfi are teetering off the jagged cliffs, literally built into the rock and surrounded by lush greenery and meandering wildflowers. The water is an impossible navy blue, balmy enough to swim in the summer months. We spent the 4th of July climbing cliffs and exploring grottos and experiencing some of the most awe-inspiring natural beauty known to man. The view of the ocean from atop the cliffs literally shimmers like a Disney movie, and the islands are so perfect and untouched it feels like you’re the first person to have set foot on their rough shores. But once you’re inside the packed town at night, it appears every upper-middle class European family summers there. It’s like the Hamptons of Italy, a quaint summertime playground of the wealthy, but with way more striking beauty. I could have stayed there forever.

Alas, we had to return to the ship sometime. And the MV was docked in Naples – 100%, hands-down ugliest grossest place I’ve been in my life. Murder capital of Italy and mafia capital of the world. Loving it. Instead of clogging our lungs with the smog of the city we spent a few hours exploring Pompeii, the city frozen in time from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. It was historical and interesting, and of course a bit sad to see the ash-encased bodies frozen in aguish from those few moments of the eruption. It was a weird note to end on but I think we all were just happy to get back to normal outlets and non-temperamental air conditioning.

Italy was sensory overload on every level. I sheepishly wish I had spent the entire week in Sorrento and just stolen someone else’s pictures of the Pantheon to show my parents but alas, the sights of Italia are things you have to see before you die. The next time I travel there, however, I will be sipping delicious wine, eating good food and not lugging a week’s worth of clothes with me everywhere I go. Ciao, Italia. On we move to Croatia.