Rome--> Florence--> Milan

Sarah and I had a decision to make. Should we go from Rome, stop in Florence to check out the Statue of David, and then either go to Venice for the night or Milan, closer to Barcelona. We decided on the latter because Venice would have added a lot more hours by train and it is an extremely expensive city. For the first time, surprisingly, we rode a high-speed train from Rome to Florence. The train must have been part of a new fleet because every seat had an outlet and each cabin had screens that showed how fast we were going and how much further to Florence. The train lasted only an hour and a half. Of course the nicest train had to be one of our shortest also. We arrived in Florence, also above 90 degrees, and walked through the inner city, making our way toward Accademia, the museum that holds the Statue of David. On our way through side streets, we unexpectedly entered a giant flea market. We wanted to stop at a bunch of stops, but we figured we needed to see the Statue of David first, then we could come back. I was told by my buddy, Will (the one who is now living in Paris), that the Statue of David is so massive and was his favorite piece. I had also heard that the museum wasn't that large and it really only held one very important piece of famous art. The line outside, however, made it seem like it held just as much art as the Vatican Museums. We found out that the line wasn't nearly as long as the other museums, but because the Accademia wasn't that large of a place, they managed the amount of people going in. They let 35 people in on 15 minute increments. We ended up waiting only 30 minutes, bearable. Most of the art inside of the Accademia wasn't as breathtaking as the Louvre or the Vatican Museums, but it's pride and joy is outstanding. All the way in the back of the museum, STANDS the Statue of David.....

Most of the museum's visitors were in this large dome, and I can't blame them. The piece is nothing what I expected. Will even told me that it is much bigger than I would think. He tried to warn me, and the Statue of David still surprised me. I am a pretty big guy and I didn't even reach his feet. The stand that he stands on is taller than me. Then you get to the actual piece. The flawless curves and details of his body is impeccable. Michelangelo is a genius. The Sistine Chapel and Pietà we had already seen inside the Vatican, and then this?!! There was a sentence on the board in front of the statue that had a quote from I can't remember who, but it said along the lines of 'looking at The Statue of David makes you not need to look at any other sculptures again. This is the greatest sculpture ever made.' I could not agree more. It is crazy how well done David is, and it takes you too much time to take it all in. Most pieces we have seen on this trip have taken at most five minutes to see all of it and then move on. Not David. Sarah and I sat there just staring at him for over fifteen minutes. One giant piece of marble, sculpted to that. WOW!

After finishing our time in Florence, we made our way back to the train station and made an evening train to Milan. Milan was also experiencing a heat wave, so we were very happy that our hostel was not that far of a walk from the station. We checked in and were told that we were getting a bigger room than we booked because they had overbooked. We got a six bed room just to ourselves! A kind of cheap moment on the part of the hostel was when I went out and asked the front desk how to work the AC. They told me that it cost extra, but at that time, we had been hot all day and grossly sweaty. Might have been the best 8€ spent the whole trip haha. Sarah and I blasted the AC on full blast our entire stay. By the time it was bedtime, we had to get under blankets, while everywhere else was scorching and stale. It was perfect in our room!

Rome: The Eternal City... And Hot

We landed in Rome after only a flight just under two hours. It had reminded me from our stay with Cat & Martyn in London about the length of flights. To us, flying only to L.A. is three hours. To them, flying three hours is the longest flight! Because we were flying on RyanAir, we had to limit the size of our bag, which meant that I was wearing layers. Even shorts under my jeans so I could pack everything I needed into two pockets of my backpack instead of the typical three. I ended up leaving some things that I didn't need in Santorini with the family that owned the hostel. Hopefully the kids can wear some of the clothes. The weather in Greece wasn't that hot that it made it unbearable to be wearing layers, but once we left the airport to the shuttle that took us into the city, we were hit by 90 degrees!! Immediate sweat haha. We took the shuttle to Termini Train Station, the central station and crossing point of the two underground systems. We were later told, after asking why there were only two main underground lines for such a big city, that the city had tried to make more lines, but every time they would dig, they would run into an archaeological ruin site that would make them stop! The city is so old that no matter where you dig, you are bound to find something ancient and important. So instead, the city operates with only two underground lines, making an "X" across the city and then the rest you must take a bus. I had never seen anything like our shuttle to Termini. Like our taxi ride in Greece, the drivers didn't seem to care about the lines on the road. Instead, there were little cars cutting off semi's and nobody even remotely getting angry. It was organized chaos. We didn't see any accidents while in Rome, but the drivers just did whatever they wanted, including the buses.  Luckily for us, our hostel was only a five minute walk from one of the underground stops. We arrived at what we thought was going to be a hostel, but turned out to be an apartment building that had one floor as a bed & breakfast. We paged up and were buzzed in, and surprisingly let into a very nice private room. Not having to worry about the security of your bag while staying with strangers has become a great pleasure on the trip. Something to treasure. As you can imagine, after a never-ending ferry, a crazy night train, and crowded plane flight all in a row, we were wiped. Sarah and I ended up just taking ice cold showers, finding a local pizza place, getting some famous gelato and then headed back to our room for the night. We needed a relaxing night full of sleep. With Rome being so hot, the rooms were hot as well, but our hosts were very kind and tried to make the room bearable by giving us a fan. A nice gesture, but only worked well at night when it naturally cooled down. Hot air being blown into hot air isn't that great. But at night it did the trick! While lounging that night, we asked our host about seeing the Vatican, and without a pause, she told us to reserve our tickets online. Without them, we would be standing in line for hours, but if you paid four euro extra, you could just walk in. They only let a certain amount of people in at a time so if you don't have a reserved ticket, then you had to wait until you reached the front of the line, and the population was just right. Not wanting to stand in line with it being so hot, we agreed to reserve our tickets online. We woke up the next day, fully energized and made our way to see the inside of the Vatican City! Our ticket allowed us into the Vatican Museums as well as the Sistine Chapel and a quick path into Saint Peter's Basilica. By 11:00 am, the sun was already beaming down on everyone and the temperature had reached 90 degrees. We were given a time of noon to enter the Vatican with our tickets so we had an hour to kill. It was the perfect amount of time to fully view and appreciate the St. Peter's Square in front of the Basilica. 

Massive in size, the square is open to the public and has an obelisk in the middle (I'll tell you later how I knew that term and it's importance). The columns around the "square" make a circular shape, but stop across from the Basilica where a road begins. The amount of people around the Vatican is also amazing as every tourist that comes to Rome has to see it, and there are an equal amount of locals trying to manipulate the tourists. Luckily we had already purchased our tickets and avoided all of them. We had put our trust in our host and purchased tickets online, and it turned out to be the best decision of Rome. The line to enter the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel literally wrapped around 'The City.' The entrance to the Museums is on the North border of the Vatican, and the line wrapped around the outside wall to the East. So thankful for the advice, we dogged a huge bullet, and time killer by listening to our host. We walked right in, without waiting in the heat, and began our tour of the Vatican Museums. There are so many pieces of artwork in the Vatican Museums that I can't even put into words. I was surprised that we were allowed to take pictures, but then again I realized with the shear size of the Museums, mixed with the thousands of people inside the Museums at any given moment, that it would be a lost cause trying to fight that war. 

I show this picture to remind you how crowded the museums are. If you get caught behind a tour group you might as well add three hours to your visit, so Sarah and I spent a lot of time fighting and maneuvering to get around the 'blood clots.' Anyways, back to the art...

Then, after about an hour of walking around the Vatican Museums, we followed the signs that led us into The Sistine Chapel. The room had no lights, only lit by the natural light from the windows at the top of the chapel. But the aura of the Sistine Chapel made you feel you were somewhere special. It was the most crowded place yet, as everyone wanted to take their time to view the masterpieces painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling and four walls. Dead middle of the ceiling is the famous depiction of God reaching out his finger to touch Adam. Again, seeing this in person is one of those things I believe everyone should see, along with the Mona Lisa, Eiffel Tower, The Acropolis, etc. When I talked about the war being fought against tourist taking pictures was pointless, the Vatican disagreed in the Sistine Chapel. You couldn't walk five feet without seeing a security guard who was either shushing the crowd for silence or scowling at a tourist to put their camera away. They wanted to make sure that this room's artwork lasted. I don't know how, but we snuck a picture that shows the details of the ceiling. Purely amazing. 

Directly outside the Sistine Chapel, it leads you to the front of St. Peter's Basilica. The size of the Basilica, like lots of the other cathedrals we have seen on our journey, was amazing. I later found out that the Basilica can hold more than around 10 times the population of the Vatican. We entered St. Peter's and just like the museums, we were amazed at all of the artwork and sculptures. Very incredible place. 

The overall experience inside The Vatican City was incredibly memorable. The amount of people that pass through everyday is staggering. I wish I knew the number. We went on a Tuesday and I don't think I have been to a more crowded place. 

Like I said earlier, Rome was going through a minor heat wave. The amount of walking we did through the Vatican and then walking into the 90+ degree heat really took a toll on us. Thankfully, on almost every third block, there seemed to be a public fountain that was for drinking water. It was the most refreshing and cold water. The tourists lined up for this almost as much as the museums haha. It transformed not only into a drinking fountain, but also a body cooler as people, myself included, put their heads under the flow to cool off. Without these fountains, I might have only been able to see the Vatican. Instead, it rejuvenated us and we moved along to our next tourist sight, the Trevi Fountain! 

We walked from the metro station to find our destination. I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured it would be alone and around a big intersection. Instead, we found the fountain around a corner in a crowded square hidden inside taller buildings. Still, you can see, there were too many people, but we made our way down to the water and threw our coins in!

The architecture of the fountain and the sculptures are so detailed and the water literally flows from all sides of the fountain. The gallons of water per minute has to be high. And just off to the side of the fountain was another public water fountain, which meant refresher and on to the next site, The Coliseum!!!

The Coliseum wasn't as crowded as our previous stops on the Roman Tour, but we figured that even with a long line, we still needed to go inside this historic monument. A fifteen minute wait to go inside was well worth it. There isn't really a whole lot to read up on or look at individual pieces of art inside the Coliseum. The thoughts that go through your head about the events that took place there thousands of years ago hold all the majestic power needed to make the place memorable. Looking like it might collapse because it is so old and no where near how big it used to be only added to how cool the Coliseum was. I took lots of pictures of the Vatican and the Eiffel Tower and other famous sights, but everywhere I looked within the Coliseum made me want to take a picture. I couldn't get enough!

The afternoon was winding down and we had gone through our major sights of Rome in one day! We were worn out so we made our way back to our hostel to clean up and head back to our favorite pizza place! With our time winding down on our trip, we knew that we didn't want to rush to get back to Madrid. So, we decided to make our way north and make our journey to Barcelona a little easier. On our way, we would stop in Florence for the afternoon, stay the night in Milan, and then take the whole next day to get to Barcelona... Or so we thought!

Thank Goodness for the DaVinci Code

It was time for us to leave Santorini, and what lay ahead of us seemed haunting. Because the first ferry, from Italy to Greece, lasted 26 hours, we did not want to do that again. We did some research and found a reasonably priced flight into Rome. The only catch was that it left from Thessaloniki, not Athens. So before we left for Santorini we booked a night train to get up to Thessaloniki. The night train left at 11:50 pm and then got into Thessaloniki at 6:00 am. The flight left Thessaloniki to Rome at 1:00 pm. So all we needed to worry about was getting back to Athens before our train left. Wouldn't you know it, there was a ferry that left at 3:00 pm, but arrived at 12:15 am. Too late, we would miss our train. The ferry before that was a high speed ferry that would have only taken 4 hours total and got us back in time, but it cost 100 bucks. Sorry, not happening. So the only option we were left with was the ferry that left at 7:00 am.....arriving at 9:15 pm. Yep, 14 hours haha. I title this post 'Thank Goodness for The DaVinci Code,' because Kyle had bought the book and just finished it while we were in Santorini. I asked him if I could start reading it, knowing that he was taking a different flight from Thessaloniki, so I would have to hurry to read all of it. Not only did the book totally grab me, but I had nothing else to do on the ferry! I literally read the entire book on the ferry except the last ten pages, which I finished on the night train. I knew it had taken 14 hours on the ferry, but because of the book, it went by rather quickly. It was a fast read, but what caught me and dragged me in was that the book took place in many of the places we had already visited ( The Louvre, Westminster Abbey, Paris Train Stations) it was funny to remember the exact feelings when Dan Brown described a place and remembering thats exactly how it was! We ate dinner in Athens and then made our way to the train station for our night train, not knowing the great night ahead of us (sarcasm). The cab we were in had six seats, three across from three. Kyle, Sarah and I were on one side and across from us was a Greek man (very cool, nice guy. Made the trip twice a week for work as a civil engineer. Family was in Athens and was taking care of his handicapped brother.) next to him a girl in her late teens, and next her, her mother. Sounds fine right? What I didn't tell you was that the mother had a one-year old daughter with her that cried constantly through the night. And to make things worse, the air conditioning stopped working so we were in a claustrophobic, hot, crying filled cabin for the entire ride. Not the best. I couldn't have gotten off the train any faster, only to jump on a crowded bus to the airport. Once arriving at the Thessaloniki International Airport, it could be safe to say I had had enough of people. We waited for the flight and couldn't wait to get to Rome!!!!

Paradise Does Not Give It Justice

We woke up right as the city was going to sleep. The first night we arrived in Athens, we checked into our hostel and asked the man working if restaurants would still be open and he laughed at us. The family style restaurants don't close until 2 am at the earliest and the clubs and bars last call is at 5:30 or 6:00 am. Also, the railway workers went on a one-day strike so the Metro wasn't running in the morning. So we ordered a taxi to pick us up at 5:45 am to take us to the port. We bought our tickets and jumped on the ferry for Santorini! The ferry departed at 7:25 and we were scheduled to get in at 3:10 pm. Way better than the 26 hour ferry we took to get to Greece. The ferry wouldn't take that long if it were going straight to Santorini, but it stopped at what seemed like every island we saw. I might have complained a bit more if every island wasn't some of the most beautiful cliffs and beaches ever. I thought the water of the Adriatic Sea was such a sweet color.... It doesn't even compare to the color of the Mediterranean between the Greek Islands. 

We eventually were told that we would soon be arriving at the Port of Santorini, and wouldn't you know it was right on schedule!!! We made our way down to the garage where everyone waited in anticipation for the ferry door to open for about ten minutes. Once the door dropped all the way, all we could see were cliffs and we knew we were in for a beautiful sight once outside. 

All around us, the cliffs were straight up and towering. I wondered how we would get to our hostel, but there was a giant group of men holding signs with names of their hostels. We found ours and were on our way! The worst part about being at the base of vertical cliffs is that to get to the top by car, you must drive on switchbacks. This was a scary drive anyways, but with an older van, more scary. But we finally made it to the top of the cliffs and could see the rest of the island. 

Our hostel was in Perissa which is on the south coast of the island that is newer because of the boom in tourism over the last ten years has made more room for growth. The entire drive back to the hostel was amazing, but once we arrived at 'Hotel Perissa' we were even more amazed! Our private room looked out onto the sea and the place seemed deserted, giving us the entire pool to ourselves!

Basically we had stayed at hostels with loads of backpackers or in busy cities but this place was so nice and quiet. It was a family run hotel that didn't know how to be rude. They drove us places, have us free drinks and basically answered every question we had for them. They even let us use their printer. Their youngest son spoke little to no English but wanted to help us out with carrying our bags and showing us around. A highlight of our stay was we were at breakfast and the son walked by with three tiny puppies. They were only two-months old!!

On the first day, we wanted to just walk down to the beach and check out the "black sand beaches." 

The entire island is beautiful with spectacular views, but the side of the island where we stayed us fairly new. Santorini has had a major boom from tourism and the area where we were has only been popular within the last decade. People used to come to Santorini solely because of the amazing architecture built right into the cliffs, but it has grown to become a resort island. 

On our first full day, we planned to go see the rest of the island and then spend our last day just relaxing in the sun of our beach! There are only a few rental car places on the island but all of the tourists rent scooters or 4-wheelers to zip around the island. Sarah and I split a monster ATV and Kyle drove a smaller one and we had the time of our lives!

We drove all across the island and saw both big cities of Thira and Oia, but the coolest spot that we went to was the "Red Beach." Just off of a cliff, there is a beach where the rocks are all red. So interesting and so different from all of the other beaches you go to! Also, there was a local man barbecuing corn-on-the-cob and putting his special herbs to make some of the best corn I've had. 

We ended up eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant (go figure) and it was pretty decent but what drew us to the place, besides something different than Greek food, was the setting. Señor Zorba's was on the very edge of one of the cliffs overlooking the Caldera with the volcano and hot springs. 

We drove the ATV's around the rest of the night, visiting shops and other touristy things, and then after a night swim, decided to go to bed. We planned on getting up early and just hanging out at the beach. The weather our last day was very cooperative and I even got a little tan. The black sand beach collected all of the sun's heat so if you were barefoot you felt like you were walking on fire. The only good thing was that once you ran from our beach chairs and hit the water, your feet felt amazing. The water was just right! Cold enough that it continually was refreshing, but not too cold as to you couldn't just dive in. The setting was incredible. 

The clouds wore off by noon, you can imagine how nice it was!!! By the time we had soaked up enough rays, we got a bit to eat and then headed back to our hostel where the host family had promise us to take us to a spot to watch the sunset! I don't need to explain much, I'll just show you the pictures....

We didn't want to leave, but the only way for us to get back to Athens in time was a ferry that left the next morning at 7 a.m. The three of us looked back at our stay and although incredible it had been, I just don't think I could live there. It is so secluded from the rest of the world and it would be the hardest change. However nice it may be, a few days was the perfect amount of time on the island.