Italy: Headed North

So we have definitely realized that you could spend a very long time exploring all of Italy. We saw Naples with side trips to the ancient cities of Pompeii and Heracleum. Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash and Heracleum is more recently discovered and much less excavated because it was buried in lava and is much better preserved because of it.

The pizza in Naples is unbelievable even though everyone is very skimpy with toppings (3 olives and 5 slices of salami! What?). The pizza elsewhere is over priced and terrible in comparison. Italian food really isn't that great. We sought out a very cute, authentic, local spot and spent a lot of money and the food made us wish we were at Old Spaghetti Factory spending much less money. That's too bad.

We are trying to learn how to not expect anything. It's hard, but it's worse when you don't get what you expect. We should be writing down all the lessons we have learned but it seems daunting.

Rome was insane and packed with tourists. We saw all the major stuff and then ran for our lives to Florence which is mellow in comparison yet still packed to the gills with tourists. Rome was awesome though. We saw the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church (ever I think) and of course the Colosseum and everything around there.

Gelatto in Italy is so amazing. I will never eat ice cream again! We found a place that makes Champagne Gellato-with real Champagne so it melts pretty quickly but is so wonderful.

Today we are in Florence. We are camping and our tent mate is a girl named Megan. We met her IN Patras, Greece almost 2 weeks ago-she was in the ticket line for the ferry in front of us. We said our hellos and re-met once we got off the boat in Bari, Italy. We traveled together to the train station and parted ways. We went to Naples and she went to Rome. On 9/28 we arrived in Rome and saw her sitting at a bus stop in front of our camp site. She had been staying there and was leaving to Florence. On 10/2 we showed up in Florence at our campsite and opened the tent door to see Megan in our room! It was all random but awesome. Yesterday she took us with her all over Florence and gave us an amazing tour of some of the greatest art. She is an art history major and I think we wouldn't have appreciated this place as much without her.

Tomorrow all three of us are going to go on a day trip to Pisa to check out the leaning tower. Then it's off the the Cinque Terra coast where we will probably be visited by Megan again (she is staying in Florence).

That's all for now!