Ahh the splendour of Italy. Upon arriving in Venice, we were immediately scooped up into my cugino Francesco's tiny Fiat and taken to my family's home in the tiny town of Pasiano in Pordenone. We cracked open his car windows, lit a couple Camel cigarettes (Nilsa doesn't smoke), blasted some Tiziano Ferro and hit the gas. Boy, do those Italians love the speed inside a macchina. We rounded the curvatures of the roads with precision and ease, despite travelling at about 80km/h on 50km roads. What did it feel like, you ask? Exhilaration, emancipation, freedom. The sun was pounding down onto our arms that hung out the windows and the smoke from our cigarettes wafted around in the car while mixing with the sweetness detected only in European air.
Italia, we had arrived.
While in Italy we visited several immaculate cities. Venice, Florence, Rome, Salerno, the Amalfi Coast, and Bari. The charm of each Italian city withdrew "Oohs" and "Ahhs" from Nilsa and myself at a consistent rate. The bridges and waterways in Venice wrapped alongside by the tiny boutiques which sold ceramic Venetian Carnevale masks and Murano glass were picturesque and it was often difficult to walk at a pace any faster than that of a ninety-year-old woman so as to ensure you were capturing every detail your surroundings had to offer.
Florence, or Firenze in Italian, and it's narrow streets were chock-full of street performers, marketplaces, gelaterias, gypsies, and ancient relics of Renaissance artistry. Piazza di Vecchio was astounding. White marble statues of Poseidon, Hercules, Neptune and David (to name a few) aligned the outer walls of the piazza. In the center stood Massimo, a domestic singer who performed his own acoustic covers of Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga. If you listened closely enough you could detect a smidgen of his Italian accent bubbling up every now and again. Lovers held hands and tourists' heads were ever-revolving. We fell in love with Firenze. It was impossible not to.
All roads lead to Rome, and that's exactly where ours took us. Roma. It seems unfair to attempt a description of our experience in this city with brevity, so I will not say much more than: go to Rome, you will not be disappointed in what you find there.
After Roma we travelled due south. I had been to Italy once before but had never seen the coast of it. My parents spent their honeymoon in Amalfi and have always raved about it's sheer sublimity, so I knew it had to be one of our stops in this trip. So, off to Salerno we went! We took advantage of the reasonable pricing of train tickets, schedules and comfortable interior conditions Trenitalia offers and used it all while travelling through the country. After arriving in Salerno, we were in awe of the landscape in front of us. With the sea always in your peripherals and the lush mountain range ahead, we stopped on numerous occasion to simply appreciate the beauty in sight. We did not speak at these times. Sometimes we didn't even take pictures. We just stood and gazed in total wonderment.
And quickly we learned that beauty can outdo itself over and over and over and over again, as we experienced once again when we arrived in Amalfi.
Language fails when you try to express the way you felt while looking at a sight like this.
I will leave Greece for another day, ta ta!
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