End of London/Rome

After visiting the countryside, we tried to make the most of our final 4 days in London. On Monday, we toured around the city like crazy, hitting Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Camden Tow and Kensington Palace all in one day. Throughout the next few days, we also saw Wicked and Les Mis in the West End, both of which were absolutely incredible (and we got cheap tickets and decent seats!), went to a few more pubs, took a guided tour of the city, visited Myrissa's dad's old home in the London suburbs, ate at an Italian restaurant where Sofia used to work, went to Harrod's, went out to a great dinner with my aunt, did a bit of shopping, and stumbled upon an autograph signing for the new superman movie with quite a few celebrities in Picadilly Circus. We're really happy with how much we accomplished to see and do in our week in London!

Then it was time to say goodbye to that beautiful Chelsea neighborhood and head to Rome. Honestly, the trip over to Rome was anything but easy. We were both tired and frustrated from the night before because we had not slept much, and the airport we wre leaving from was a nightmare. We found a cheap flight to Rome in British Airways but it left from Gatwick Airport, outside of London, rather than Heathrow Airport which is very close to the city. Gatwick Airport is like a jungle. The terminals are crowded and noisy and there is hardly anywhere to eat or to sit. Finally, we found space at a restaurant and our food was pretty terrible. Our flight was delayed about an hour without notice, and when we finally got to Rome, our hotel was not what we had expected. It was way on the outskirts of the city in a very sketchy neighborhood and on the complete last stop of the metro. Our room had no air conditioning, no windows, and the entire hotel was guarded by gates and cameras. We spent the evening eating pizza at the Trevi Fountain and moved to a new hotel in the city center the next morning. We felt bad leaving our hotel because the workers were so kind to us, but we knew we had to do it.

When we arrived at our new bed and "breakfast" in Rome, the found that the receptionist did not speak a word of English. She kept speaking to us in Italian, asked if we understood, and when we said no, she repeated herself, asked if we understood again, and then mumbled "mama Mia!" under her breath in annoyance over our lack of Italian fluency. We were taken aback by her blatantly rude attitude, and left to spend the day in the city. We ended up having a great day exploring different piazzas, the Spanish Steps, did some shopping, ate pizza, and saw the Panetheon while eating gelato. The gelato place we went to is the same one I went to last year and it has about 100 different flavors. We went to a piazza called Piazza Del Popolo and climbed up to a small overlook above it called Villa Borghese. From up there we had a view of almost the entire city. On our way back down, the steps were quite slippery and Myrissa fell down and proceeded to slide for about 5 more steps. Luckily, her arm broke her fall, but now she has a pretty intense bruise that we have nicknamed Stella. We had such a great day exploring Rome that we decided to go out for the night, and joined a group of college age students who were going on a pub crawl. We went to two pubs and a nightclub, all of which were really fun, despite the creepy men who were trying to follow us around. But overall we had a great time and met some really cool people from America and elsewhere.

Before leaving Rome, we also saw the Colosseum, had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called Novecento, went out at night to Campo di Fiori, ate delicious pizza, ate local food from nearby supermarkets, and got totally ripped off for a terrible tour of the Vatican. I'm sad to say we payed almost $50 for an English tour with a guide who hardly spoke English and told us nothing about the artwork or history. Seeing St. Peter's was the highlight of the day, which was great but also frustrating because it was the only part of the day we really enjoyed and the only part that was free.

Overall, my second trip to Rome was fantastic, but we realized in a huge city like Rome, cheap hotels are not worth it. Even though our second hotel was in a good location, it did not include breakfast or air conditioning as the website had promised, the receptionist was incredibly rude, and it was very tiny and cramped. Next time, Myrissa and I agreed we will splurge a bit to get a nicer hotel.

Leaving Rome was just as hard as getting there. We dragged our heavy luggage all the way to the train station, waited almost an hour in the heat for our train, and got on the train only to find that the seating was really complicated. For some reason, Italian trains assign seats to each passenger, which gets very complicated because some people decide to ignore the seat assignments altogether while others take it very seriously. It also turned out that not a single person on that train spoke English, and when the seating arrangements got totally mixed up, we were really frustrated because no one understood what we were saying. Finally, we found empty seats, relaxed for a couple of hours, and arrived in Naples only to find that the local train to our hotel was delayed. We waited on the platform, drenched in sweat, exhausted and completely confused until our train finally came. About half an hour later, we were in Sant'Agnello, an adorable seaside town next to Sorrento where our B&B is located.

Arriving at our new hotel was really great. After sub-par accommodation in Rome, we arrived at Casa Susy, a pink bed and breakfast overlooking Vesuvius in the distance, and were greeted by the adorable Italian owner, Susy. We finally settled into our comfortable room (with air-conditioning!!!) and changed right away into our bathing suits. We walked along the breathtakingly beautiful coastline, passing by luxury hotels and restaurants overlooking the sea and the mountains, until we walked down many stairs and through a tunnel to the beach, all of which took no longer than 10 minutes. By this point, it was about 8 PM, so the beach was totally empty and Myrissa and I swam and watched the sunset blaze red and pink over the water. I really do not have the words to describe how gorgeous and peaceful the water and sunset were. We both agreed that we would come back to this exact spot many times in the future. We then had pizza at a cute local restaurant, then I Skyped with Joe for about an hour (which was so nice!) and spent the night sleeping so comfortably in our new hotel.

We woke up to cloudless skies and a perfect view of Vesuvius and Naples in the distance. Susy made us breakfast and homemade cappuccino, and afterward we headed for Positano for the day. After a somewhat terrifying bus ride that literally wove through the cliffs over the ocean, we arrived in Positano where we had a delicious lunch and laid on the beach all day. We bought some homemade limoncello, swam in the clear blue water, shopped (of course), napped in our lounge chaurs, got really nice tan lines, and just appreciated the unbelievable beauty of our surroundings. We went back to the same pizza place tonight and were greeted with free champagne and a friendly "welcome back!" from the waiter. The pizza was delicious and now we're going to sleep in our wonderfully air conditioned room. I think that our first day and a half in the Amalfi Coast has made us both realize how wonderful this trip and life in general really are.

xoxo
Christina

P.S. I will never take air conditioning or cold water (most water here is room temperature) for granted ever again!! also I finally learned how to add line breaks to my posts so that everything isn't one giant paragrap! but my grammar and spelling will probably not improve because typing on my iPad is really hard!