Italy, Part 1 :: Rome, Amalfi Coast, Pompeii

115,634 steps, 57 miles on foot, dozens of selfies, daily gelato and a true trip of a lifetime. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, Mitch and I traveled to Italy with my work.  If you follow me on Instagram, you likely knew this already by my obnoxious posts that week. After arranging a schedule back home for the kiddos (thanks a million to our parents!!) we were able to jetset across the Atlantic and spend a week in Rome and Florence with a few day trips in-between. 

Before I blab about our unforgettable experience I need to give credit where credit is due - to my wonderful employer, REACH. I started at this small digital signage company right out of college, nearly 10 years ago. What I thought would be just a starter job to gain some real-world experience has turned into way more than that. With an extremely fun culture and hard work ethic it's grown and transformed into an award winning place to work and I'm so grateful to be part of the REACH family. The love and support they show their employees is undeniable and I can't thank them enough for the opportunities they given me within my career and personally. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

Alright, back to my blabbing. :) After a very long travel day Saturday and an overnight flight (those are interesting), we touched down in Rome early Sunday morning. It's amazing how adrenaline can take over when you're running on a few hours of restless sleep. Our driver from the airport to the IQ Hotel pointed out several sites along the way so Mitch and I were taking mental notes. As expected our room wasn't available for check in so we quickly ditched our luggage and took off exploring. 

We wandered the streets of Rome, having no idea where we were going but loving every second. We stumbled upon the Fountains of the Naiads, the Altare della Patria (which we found out was known as "wedding cake" to the Americans - thanks to our driver) and the Colosseum. Nearly 3 hours roaming the streets of Rome (pun intended) we decided to head back to our hotel. Remind you we had no map and our phones GPS was not working, so we did this solely off our memory. It was a rocky walk back and I probably accused Mitch of getting us lost multiple times, but after winding through back streets we finally found our way back to a recognizable road - we had made it! 

That night REACH had a happy hour on the rooftop, a little "Welcome to Italy" kickoff. It was fun seeing everyone from out-of-state and catch up. It would have made sense to call it an early night after a long couple days, but we had signed up for "Rome in Lights" tour that evening. 

The tour was AWESOME and totally worth staying up for. They drove us around the city, bringing us to main sites and landmarks - they even made a pitstop for gelato and ended the tour with a prosecco toast! We saw the Imperial Forum, Circus Maximus, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica, the Fountain of the Four Rivers and the Colosseum again - all lit up. It was beautiful, informative and beyond interesting. What a wonderful first day in Rome. 

 

Day two in Rome was an early one. We had to wake up early to grab a 6:30am train to Naples. Our entire group was going on a day trip to the Amalfi Coast and touring Pompeii. It took us awhile to figure out the train situation but we finally followed the crowd and figured it out. We quickly realized our group of 30+ loud Americans didn't quite fit in with the rest of the quiet Italian train-goers - but that didn't stop the fun. The ride to Naples was a little over 2 hours and I did my best to sleep, but it was nearly impossible. We boarded a 40 passenger bus and began our day. We drove though Naples, past Mount Vesuvius on our way to the Amalfi Coast. It was decided to make a pit stop in Sorrento at a Lemoncello factory for a bathroom/drink/food break. We had skipped breakfast that day (not smart on our part) so we grabbed a croissant - which was delicious (we would go on to have these daily!). Our cliffside ride continued though Positano. The views were amazing and the roads were very, very narrow. There were a few times I was convinced our bus was going to fling right over the edge. Even our tour guide yelled a couple times - that's not a good sign, right?? She would say, "You guys look at the beautiful views, don't watch the road!" 

Once we reached Amalfi, the bus parked and we had an hour and half to spend exploring. This town was charming and absolutely stunning. We walked through Piazza del Duomo where many restaurants and shops were located. After Mitch made a pitstop for sunscreen, we made our way back to an outdoor restaurant that had caught our eye during our first pass through. This sweet woman who worked there shouted at us, "We have the best pizza, pasta and gelato - want to know why? We make it with lovvvvvve!" That's all she had to say, I was sold - and starving. The risotto was delicious and the Peroni didn't taste too bad either! We quickly realized dining in Italy takes much longer than we're used to, so by the time we were done paying our bill it was time to get on the bus. We only saw a small portion of Amalfi, and that tiny sliver was adorable. I can only image the rest of that town would have blown me away! I've already decided I NEED to go back to the coast!

After a day away, we resumed our Rome tour on Tuesday. We had guided tours scheduled for the Vatican in the morning and the Colosseum in the afternoon. Breakfast was scarfed rather quickly and I even convinced Mitch to drink a cappuccino. He is not a coffee drinker what-so-ever, but when you're going on day 3 without caffeine, you're willing to try whatever will help with the headaches. After one sip he wasn't sure he could choke it down, but after adding a couple sugar packets he found it way more tolerable. :)

Rather than taking cab to to Vatican, we weaved the morning streets of Rome passing gangs of buzzing work commuters on scooters and kiddos with backpacks walking to school. Our leisurely walk took us about an hour, but we met up with our group with time to spare. Patrick, our sweet tour guide passed out headsets to everyone and we made our way to the front of the line into the Vatican Museum. Immediately he told us that Vatican City is the smallest state in the world, by both population (less than 1,000) and overall size (1km). He shuffled us through crowds sharing amazing history and fun facts into our ear pieces while we looked around in awe. Everything was beautiful and detailed. The walls, the ceilings, the floors - literally everything was spectacular. The Sistine Chapel was completely insane. The ceiling was just as amazing as you'd expect. Knowing Michelangelo spent 4 years with his neck cranked painting incredible, timeless pieces of art is astounding. Then nearly 30 years later his constructed another masterpiece within the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement (which happened to be my favorite). Our guide gave us 20 minutes in the Sistine Chapel on our own and I feel like my eyes only took in a glimpse of what it has to offer. It's overwhelming, impressive, and just absolutely lovely to look at. From the Sistine Chapel we headed to St. Peter's Basilica. It's huge and everything within it is absolutely stunning and to know how much history sits within this space is incredible. Mitch and I chose to walk 500 stairs to the top of the Basilica to see the views of Rome from the top. The staircases were short and narrow and quite toasty. By the time we made it to the top we were glistening with sweat, but the climb was completely worth it. If you have any fear of small, enclosed spaces - this was not for you. The views were insane and we couldn't stop saying, "Wow, this view is incredible!" Pano's on our iPhone quickly became a must-do. This entire tour completely exceeded my expectations and quickly became my favorite event of the trip. 

 

Once we finished our time at the Vatican we started to make our way back towards the Colosseum for our afternoon tour. We had a couple hours to spare in-between, so we stopped for pizza (I had the best zucchini pizza EVER!) and a Coca-Cola Light. Afterwards we felt refueled and ready to continue our stroll back. Our driver from the Rome in Lights tour told Mitch we had to see the Pantheon. We didn't have much time, but we hustled down narrow streets to make our way in. Built in 126 AD with a large opening right in the center of the concrete dome, it was pretty awesome to see. It was raining while we were there, so you could see the raindrops coming down from the center opening. Although we didn't spend too much time there, we still managed to make time to at least snap a selfie. 

We met our guide for the Colosseum tour and were immediately handed similar headsets. As we stood outside the largest amphitheater every built, she explained it took 6 years to build (finished in 80 AD), was three stories high and held nearly 60,000 spectators. Once we got inside she explained the process of the actual games. As you can expect, most of the information provided was aggressive and seemed quite brutal but I did find it quite interesting that only 10% of the gladiators actually died. The engineering was crazy impressive and the place was overall massive. I'm convinced if you gave a group of people the same tools today and asked them to build the same structure they would likely stare at you with a blank face and go back to checking social media on their phones. After exiting the Colosseum, we made our way to the Roman Forum. There were remains and ruins of old palaces, churches and amazing arch ways. We also stopped at the site where Julius Caesar was cremated after being assassinated. The ancient history behind everything we were seeing was mind boggling. 

There is so much to see and a ton of information to take in but our short time in Rome was completely magical.  

 

Until next time...
The Helleen's