I've been dreading the moment to write this summary, largely due to the 1,000 pictures that I lost along with my laptop and backup drive. Of course, they are all materials but losing them has created a burden that is yet to be relieved at this moment (*update November 12* - finally got a new laptop). Nevertheless, the Italy trip had been fascinating and wonderful.
Rome "the Eternal City" really has a proud history to live in and so far the best city in Italy I have visited. Of course, I would not be able to share it with you since my pictures are now history. Still, I would ABSOLUTELY visit Rome again if God gives me the chance to. The list of places I visited (and took pictures of) were as follows:Saturday, 09/29 : Colosseum, Palatino Hill, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Piazza Venezia)
Sunday, 09/30 : Vatican City, Vatican Museum (Sistine Chapel), Castle D'Angelo, Isola Tiberina, Museum of Art at Barberini, Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountain
Monday, 10/01 : Via Antica of the Ancient Rome, Catacombs of St. Calisto and St. Sebastian, Aqueducts, Circa Maximus, Sacra Argentina, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and once again Trevi Fountain.
After some bewildered moments (my luggage was stolen in a train from Rome to Florence) upon my arrival in Florence on Tuesday, October 2, I got a chance to gather myself and enjoyed a little bit of Florence with a friend (we accidentally met in front of the Duomo). I only stayed for a day in Florence, but I got to enjoy Ponte Vecchio, Michael Angelo Hill that overlooks the city (very romantic spot) and the fake green David, a dinner at a restaurant, Galleria Uffizi (seeing "The Birth of Venus", "Primavera", and "Venus of Urbino" were certainly astounding), and certainly Duomo before my departure to Naples. I personally do not favor Florence that much since the buildings are so tall and the streets are so narrow and suffocated with tourists. It's amazing how everywhere I turned, people spoke English and nothing else.Naples....well that's a completely different story. It was definitely a lifesafer to meet my friend, Sandra there (and leeched off of her a bit), but I was very surprised to see downtown Naples upon my arrival on Wednesday evening. The city was crowded, disorganized, quite dirty and gave off the atmosphere of insecurity. Of course, given that I was just robbed a day before fueled my negative bias about Naples. However, some of my friends shared my impression and could not even wait to go out of Naples! Still, like another friend said, Naples looked like a certain city area in Jakarta (my hometown) so dealing with Naples, albeit seemed dangerous, was still doable for me.
I did not venture to the city; I opted to go to the beautiful coasts outside of Naples named Positano and Amalfi beaches. I did not go to Capri since I did not want to trouble my friend so much with the high traveling costs (and she said Capri was kind of overhyped anyway). It's somewhat regrettable that we saw a lot of garbage bags on the street sides on the way to the beaches. Also, the beaches could have had a better view from afar if the air was not so polluted. Nevertheless, the beaches were beautiful and I could have spent more time there had I not been "crushed" by the robbery and discouraged by Naples itself.After spending two nights there, Sandra and I hastily bade goodbye to Naples and went back to Rome to spend our last night there. It's truly bittersweet seeing all the wonderful sites once more and internally wept 'I took pictures of those sites before!' and encourage myself to create new memories with my camera (yes, it was not stolen, thank God). We managed to have some fun on our last visit to Rome before we went back to Paris on Saturday.
As I mentioned before, my camera was not stolen so I actually have the pictures starting from right before I left Rome (for Florence) until I got back to Rome. The album of my Italy Trip is accessible here.
So that's it, my very very much overdue travel update. I will now ditch travel journal updates and write more about my impressions with my EuroTrip so far and also my Germany trip. Until next time.
- to be continued -
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