Beautiful

This summer I had the opportunity to visit one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen, Italy. When I first arrived the first thing I noticed was how narrow the roads were. The taxi driver was navigating the street with easy but I feel like if it was me driving I might have been on the side walk. The second thing that struck me was how much everyone was walking. I thought at first the amount of walking would be daunting but by the time I left I found that my group and I were easily walking 5-10 miles a day and loving every step! We even became masters of the public transportation with the help of phone apps. One of the things I loved the most about Italy was that even without a car my group and I were about to travel far and wide throughout the country and stay in different cities for very cheap. During my time there I explored not only Florence, which was where our apartment was located, but also Rome, Pisa, Siena, San Gimignano,Padova, Cince Terre, Levanto, and the Vatican City. While in Rome I was able to see the Coloseum, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Roman Forum and Panthan. In Siena we got to climb the crazy hilly streets and learn about the different sections of the city and how each section is a build-in family for anyone who lives there. In San Gimignano we got to eat “arguably” the best gelato in the world and climb a tower to see the country side. In Padova we got to learn the rich medical history and how it affected the rest of Italy. In the Vatican City I got to do what most people will only dream of doing…. I got to see the Sistine Chapel close up. I could not take pictures for fear of getting tackled by security but I took very vivid mental pictures. I did an impromptu hike between the cities of Cince Terre in only flip flops. I would highly recommend the hike, just not in flip flops. My most treasured memory of all was sitting on a rocky beach in Levanto and looking out out the pristine sparkling ocean and up at the mountains and the sky and thinking I had to be the luckiest woman in the world! How many people in the world can say they had the opportunity to go on this wild and wonderful adventure. My roommates and I got lost… several times….the mosquitoes ate me alive until I figured out how to work the plug in repellent… I almost missed the train… my travel group and I got locked out of out Airbnb for hours, only to realize that we were not putting in the key correctly…. I had blisters on the bottom on my feet the first week… I was exhausted. In the end I would not trade a minute of that adventure nor would I trade the opportunity that I had to make life long friends.