TRAVEL WEEK #2: Athens and Santorini GREECE

Acropolis in Athens

Villa Manos (Santorini)

Well the second travel week was here before we knew it. Time this semester has literally flew by. Weeks go by like days and the second travel week meant off to Greece for 10 days of travel. The original plan went a little something like this: bus to train station, train to airport, fly to Rome (stay in the airport for 6 hrs), fly to Athens stay there for 2 nights, ferry to Santorini (8 hour ferry ride), stay there for 3 nights, ferry to Mykonos (2 hours—high speed ferry!), ferry back to Athens (5 hours), stay in Athens one night, fly to Rome, train to Florence, stay one night in Florence, train back to Bassano del Grappa, cab back to Paderno aka PDG aka home…..sounds like a lot of traveling right? Imagine actually doing all that.  Kenzie and I spend the first night in the Rome airport. Let me make a suggestion: never, I repeat never spend the night in the airport. I have never seen a place so deserted. The only other form of life I saw for 6 hours besides the one janitor mopping the floor was the flies that prevented us from getting any more than five minutes of sleep to say the least. First night of travel break: quite memorable. The next morning, with no sleep, we boarded our flight to Greece. 2 hours later we arrived in the ancient city. Lots of graffiti, great food, the NICEST people, and festive music is what Greece had to offer. One of our waiters put what took Kenzie and I the entire semester to learn: life is about happiness: a cappuccino, sunshine and time with the people you love. Brilliant man. After tourin’ around the city which involved seeing the market, the acropolis, and the Olympic stadium, we gathered our bags (still packed-living out of one suitcase for a week is far from ideal) and boarded our ferry to Santorini.

Santorini

6 h o u r s l a t e r, rockin and rollin on the seas, our ipods were long dead so I drew a picture for entertainment and after countless naps we arrived in the beautiful and well known island of Santorini. The view from where the boat docked was absolutely insane, our first picture of this island was indescribable to say the least, we knew it was going to be a good few days. We were greeted by the cutest couple ever, Poppy and her husband, who could not have been more friendly and helpful during our stay. Villa Manos was the name of their family run resort and located close to the near town of Fira, where we would ATV to go enjoy some authentic Greek food. Once Annie, Ally and the boys arrived, we all ATVed around looking like a biker gang. These four wheelers were an awesome way to see the island and explore. We rode them to the black sand beaches, town of Thira on the top of this ridiculously steep mountain where it was extremely windy (videos to come), and to the town of Pygros (white buildings with blue dome roofs). Unfortunately our ferry to Mykonos was cancelled because of the wind so we rode back to Athens on another ferry (5 hours) with Luke’s brother Wes and friend Jordan from Chicago. These two were a ton of fun (picture dumb and dumber). The next day in Athens, the four of us jammed to house music, which is still stuck in my head till this day, “did it live” in the fratties words and then barely made our flight back to Rome (fist pumping the whole way there). Took a little detour on the way home to Florence to visit the one and only boss man himself Tyler. Spent the night with the Captain and his crew eating a delicious meal, meeting a bunch of unique friends, and “keeping calm and carrying on” direct quotes (others include: was it something we said? If you’re jealous you can join? No flowers please, I already have my hands full).

Two word things to remember from this travel break:

Overnight airport

Ferry ride

Eye Bracelets

Missing tooth

Villa Mercedes

Intercontinental Hotel

Euro Shakes

Josh’s “Job”

Train Home 

Sicilian Adventures

Me and Tash

For this weekend get-a-way we flew off to Palermo, Sicily with Tasha, Morgan (GO PACK) and Lauren. Landed in late Friday night, got our Gelato fix in and settled into the quaint little Hotel Joli for the evening. Woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to SUN-finally the rain had not followed us on our travels this weekend! Palermo was not the cleanest of cities, so we hopped on an early train after eating some delicious Italian Pastries and were on our way to Cefalu a tourist location, but small town/beach area about 45 min away. We were in awe the entire train ride at how gorgeous the sights were. To our left we gigantic mountains and to our right was the clear turquoise ocean. When we arrived we looked at a map and kinda figured out our barring so we were able to make it to the beach. It could not have been a more perfect day out, sunshine and light breeze made it a great beach day and a great time to visit Sicily. Taking more than enough pictures as usual, Tasha, Kenzie and I walked along the beach and through the narrow streets of Cefalu to explore. 

Kenzie and Tasha

We stopped at outlooks along the side of the road where we were able to climb out on the rocks and see amazing views of the oceans and mountains. We felt like we were in the movies when they describe little Italian towns-this was definitely what we pictured. It was neat to see that every shop or restaurant on the left hand side of the street had a straight shot view right to the water. We walked a bit more then decided to stop at a little place on top of a hill that overlooked a harbor where it looked like fishing boats were docked to eat some bruchetta and drink some white Sicilian wine. Enjoying ourselves and our time to relax, we just sat and took in some rays. 

sunset 

When Morgan and Lauren arrived, we met back up with them at the beach put our toes in the cold water and sat on the sand for a bit. We all then found a table at a near by restaurant where we were able to sit outside to watch the sunset on the water. Some amazing pasta, filling gelato, conversation that lasted HOURS and uncontrollable laughs was what our evening consisted of. Back on the train and back to our hotel, we were in bed by 9 and watched “Casper” in Italian-difficult to understand, but entertaining to say the least. Up bright and early again in the a.m. we had no definite plans as to what Sunday would entail considering the forecast was rain (oh no, it found us). Thankfully, the storm passed and it wound up not raining. All of us found a cute little place to enjoy some pizza in the center of town, followed by a hilarious tour of Palermo in a horse carriage ride around. During our tour we waved “ciao” to literally every person we passed and were given some tasty snacks of wine, cheese, and salami by our friend at the local market. After our tour we boarded a bus and were on our journey back to Paderno. This weekend was one of much relaxation, great food, great friends, great conversation and of course WINNING. 

When in Rome...

Pantheon 

First travel weekend and off to Rome we go. We had a half-day of classes on Thursday and decided to spend this weekend in Rome visiting HANNAH! Left on a flight Thursday night and got there about midnight after taking a bus, train, another bus then sitting in the airport for a few hours listening to Jolie’s stories of roommates and then having the gelato place close on us….our travels are always a process. Getting into Rome late we met up with the fratties just to say hi and our new friends from Minnesota (don’tcha know?), but were soon to return to Hannah’s apartment to rest for a day full of being the tourists we are. Unfortunately, it was raining out the next day, surprise surprise. It always seems to be raining anywhere we travel, bad luck? After eating an AMERICAN BREAKFAST (yum), thank you Friends Cafe, we chose to go to the Vatican to avoid getting wet. Kenzie and I climbed up the four hundred STEEPEST/SKINNEST steps (that slanted inward) to the top of the copula. After almost passing out, we made it! Here we were able to witness a spectacular view of the city of Rome. On the way up, we stopped in the top of the inside of the copula as well and were able to see in inside of the church from the ceiling. The entire walls and ceiling are made out of these tiny square tiles and when put together make an entire picture---so awesome. Made our way back down the stairs and were able to see the Vatican from ground level. I didn’t realize how enormous this place was until I actually got to see it from the inside. It was incredible and so so huge….beautiful. Walked back to Hannah’s, chatted it up with my world traveler of a best friend who has been and seen SO much over the last few years spent in Europe and then got ready for dinner. Friday night we went out to one of Hannah’s favorite pizza places in Italy along with her 5 of her friends from school. We enjoyed another delicious meal of pizza and wine then headed to hear one of their classmates sing at a bar, parading around in Rome in the pouring rain lead to an eventful evening.

Making a Wish at the Trevi Fountain

Saturday morning we stopped at the pastry shop around the corner and headed across town to help Hannah pick up a few things and see the famous shopping street Via Condotti. On the way we passed through the Pantheon, yet another one of Rome's indescribable structures. Grabbed a quick bite then met up with Colin aka one of the fratties to go see the Sistine Chapel. It is hard to describe let alone put into words the structure of this museum and artwork by the one and only Michael Angelo. The detail and preciseness that went into ever inch of every room was incredible. Gold leaf, colorful tiles, and statues filled the room that lead up to the Chapel itself, which was painted from floor to ceiling…..unreal. After taking it all in, still pinching ourselves that we are even in Europe right now, we got some gelato…you can never have enough gelato and strolled the streets of Rome.

Colosseum

No longer raining THANK GOD, Hannah, Kenzie, and I enjoyed a tasty meal for dinner consisting of pesto and ravioli and some desserts that were special from carnivale. The three of us then conquered the main sights to see at night in Rome including the Trevi fountain (yes, we through a coin in and made our wishes) and the Spanish Steps. Our last day in Rome we were quite busy. We hiked it over to Hannah’s favorite spot, a lookout where you can see the entire city, then a market close to her apartment where they sold everything imaginable that you could want/need, then the Colosseum, arguably Rome’s greatest forms of architecture and engineering, followed by the Roman Forum, a place where people use to gather to deal with political and economic affairs. Took a bunch of pictures, typical. Ate some more pizza, typical. Then we were on our way back to Paderno. A train, easyjet (yay no ryanair!!) and a cab got us safely back to campus. A relaxing and entremely enjoyable weekend to say the least, Rome has become my favorite city in Europe and am already missing Hannah Montana already. Luckily we convinced her to come celebrate our birthday with us, so we will be seeing her in a few weeks! Until next time…..