What is "bad luck", and how to deal with it!
Город Сорренто
June 2019. Attempt number 1. Hooray, at the UIA low-cost tariff you can get very inexpensive tickets to Rome, it’s good that we have visa-free travel and it’s so easy to travel, I took tickets and flew cheaply a year later! Right on the May holidays! Later, the flight was slightly shifted, and the airline changed our dates directly to a flight from the first of May. Super super! We will also visit Naples and Sorrento !! ! Ah, that sounds good...
March 2020… So, something didn't go according to plan, Dasha and Misha urgently fly to Egypt until the borders are completely closed. Dasha and Misha manage to take the last flight before the border closes. In the meantime, I'm e-mailing tons of flight cancellations. They swooped in, everyone with the beginning of the Pandemic! Nothing, someday they will invent a vaccine and again it will be possible to fully fly around Europe.
In the meantime, let's explore open lands.
August 31.2020. Warm evening, we are celebrating the birthday of our beloved godfather by the company. Finally, part of the borders are open, although traveling is a bit creepy, but we will be as careful as possible. Someone else pessimistically said that the vaccine would have to wait another ten years...
August 31.2021. We are sitting on the embankment near the Dnieper, celebrating the birthday of the godfather, guys, are we really all vaccinated and can we start full-fledged trips to most destinations again? Interestingly, among all of us, we were all vaccinated in pairs with different vaccines. This is great! You can scale up.
September 2021. Try 2. Low-cost prices for Europe are back and it's open! Now flights are generally worth a penny. What previously seemed like a low-cost tariff from UIA is now almost three times more expensive than current prices. Well, Rome and Naples, you won’t get away from us anywhere, wait for us in a month!
October 10.2021.
I am lying in the park on the sidewalk next to the bike, with very broken arms. Thoughts in my head are confused “What happened? How did I fall? It’s good that I didn’t hit anyone during the fall. ” Dasha and Misha came to rescue me. To my question: “What is our next trip? ” Dasha sympathetically replied “Italy, in a week”. I was pleasantly surprised that we had to fly to Italy, as I could not remember any details at close range, but I understood that the psyllium injury would not heal. An hour later, we saw an x-ray of both hands and realized that another attempt was in jeopardy. A week later, when the plane was leaving, I was already in the process of rehabilitation, but at that time my strength was only enough for five minutes to go to the balcony in the hospital and back to the ward.
After this incident, different friends said the same phrase - "Maybe you shouldn't fly in this direction at all, since it doesn't work out that way. "
There was even a suggestion to slightly change the route so that it would not look like the previously planned one. My position was this: “Yeah, right now, that Italy is not going anywhere from us, so we will fly for the third time, and along the same route! ” “Moreover, hands, fortunately, are not legs. And in general, in general, with such a fall from a bicycle, I consider myself a very lucky person that I got off so relatively lightly, only four plates and only in my hands.
Beginning of November 2021. We successfully flew on a mini-trip to Germany. Of course, it was not easy for Ruka and Dasha, but we can already fly. So let's go to the third round! But let's not wait a year again, we're flying this month! Our idea of Italy inspired my parents so much that they managed to fly off and return even earlier than us, and for us to hide a bottle of money there!
November 28th. Attempt number 3. I woke up early in the morning.
I feel good, the test is negative, the green pass is green, all the documents are ready. Are we flying? While I was going to brush my teeth, I looked out the window and fell into a stupor, there was a thick fog on the street. We arrived in Zhuliany. Departures began to shift significantly, but not ours. From the flyradar, it was clear that two Vizeiras were about to land. One of them is ours, the second is for Warsaw. The first landed, it looks like ours! But the second plane was no longer able to land and flew to land in Boryspil. Flights have moved significantly, ours is only 30 minutes. Here, ahead of time, the announcer announces the boarding of passengers on the plane. We're flying!
The long-awaited Italy!
City of Positano
Now there will be a story about a very cool, incredibly tasty and emotionally warm journey. Let's go!
We had to check into the hotel before 15:00, due to the delay of the plane, there were risks that we would not be in time, and the hotel warned us about the early closing of the check-in. I wrote to the owner, he was understanding and told me not to worry and keep him informed about the time when the plane arrives. As a result, the plane almost caught up with its time and now we were in time for the hotel by 15:00. We ran to customs control, and then an interesting incident occurred. The officer had a visual defect, and his eyes were directed in opposite directions, and apparently he did not expect that we would go to the window together. As a result, he took my passport, then got distracted, talked to the intern for a long time, stamped it without looking, and looked at me again. But it seems that he saw Dasha.
Then he looked in surprise at the photo on the passport and took another passport, flipped through it, looked again at me, took my passport again and began stamping it a second time, he already took aim, I screamed like Darth Vader “Noooooo!! ! ". Then try to explain to the visa embassy for another country what kind of crap with stamps. Fortunately, the reaction from the officer was good. He and his assistant began to turn over the pages of both passports and were very surprised when they found mine already stamped. The man smiled and showed us with a gesture that he was looking in different directions. It was the most unusual passport control in our history. Before that, there was once an interesting case when a border worker, leafing through our passport for a long time, asked: “Are we traveling with Orel and Reshka by chance?
Naples
One of the highlights of the city, which takes about an hour to get from the airport to the city center on foot. And thanks to the Vizeire's requirement for a small hand luggage, we were, as always, light. And I can already fully carry my backpack on my shoulders. Italy is very green, we rejoiced, and Italy literally cried with joy that we had arrived. And she cried so hard that our feet got wet despite the umbrella and raincoat. Until we got to the hotel, we went through the downpour harder than we had been in exotic countries. And when we got to the hotel, we found out that the owner ended up stuck somewhere in a traffic jam and for about 30 minutes he still had to wait in the rain. When a trip begins with the fact that your only shoes get wet, this is not a good sign. What you need to do in this case, feet in dry socks, socks in bags, and sneakers on top.
We didn’t get to that immediately, but since the trip was generous with rains, we eventually learned to adapt to such an environment.
A great fact about the trip is that the rains made it a lot harder, but it didn't make it any worse. It looks like you can't spoil a good trip with rain, unless of course it's exotic seas. But at the moment it was raining - be healthy, and it seemed that the city with its beauty would not block it. We felt like Jacques Cousteau, who are going to explore the underwater city. I still can’t hold an umbrella with my hands, and raincoats are short for my height))) In general, as a child I dreamed of growing up to two meters, but at one moment I noticed that the height of the openings in transport was 190 cm. At first, I got used to my height of 189 cm hard, once he hit his head on the opening in the minibus with such force that he flew back right into the hands of a sitting unfamiliar grandmother.
Here the body apparently understood that it was necessary to stop with growth. But now I'm reaping the benefits of short coats and lack of legroom on planes. Luckily for us, the downpour intensified so much that most of the water from the cloud seemed to have poured out and the rain began to fade significantly when we left the hotel.
The first proper introduction to Naples should be made from street pizza! It was a super tomato pizza for one and a half euros. After the recent Hamburg, these prices seemed obscenely low. And remembering the trip to Garda, the prices really surprised us in a pleasant way. We started moving towards the old city along the way, tasting literally everything that you can bite off. Then there was coffee with Italian pastries. The cakes here are really chic, there is even an analogue of a rum grandmother.
Walking a little closer to the center, we met with a street Aperol syringe for 2 euros and after walking for another 10 minutes there was a famous acquaintance with Margherita pizza!
Why didn't we know each other before? Why is this the simplest and most unpopular pizza in Ukrainian pizzerias, and here is such a masterpiece!
But the stomach is not rubber, you will have to postpone the continuation of the culinary acquaintance until dinner. But wait, is that what they sell, frozen yogurt? Okay, dessert will fit. In fact, we have cognitive dissonance. Four years ago there was a big trip to Garda, Verona and Venice. The food didn’t impress us then, we were very disappointed in Italian cuisine and, in particular, in pizza. Even the day before the current trip, we joked that a hungry week awaits us, when we return to Kyiv, we will immediately eat delicious food.
And then, literally in the first hours of the trip, the world turned upside down. We have a delicious meal in Italy! I have not yet reached the acquaintance with Napolitana pizza. Already at this stage, one could conclude that the trip will succeed. The first thing that impressed Naples was the temples.
They knew how to build here with grandeur and beauty. Secondly, these are the narrow streets of the old city, there is a real party here, everyone is buying something or eating or playing, peppers are everywhere. And the farther to the center, the more peppers. At first they were just like a drawing on socks when we bought dry socks, now they are like statues on tables, and now they are everywhere in the form of anything, even a brooch, even a big pepper in human height with a crown.
It looks like they had some kind of batch with peppers here.
Later we found out that these are not just peppers, but horns in the form of peppers...It was very interesting to explore the streets of the old city, as the courtyards keep many secrets. Here you can find unusual restaurants and bizarre statues. Wandering here is a pleasure. The main thing at the moment when a heavy downpour begins is to be at the store with something interesting, since you will have to spend some time studying the assortment.
We are so stuck near one layout. You won't guess with what! With peppers! Now in my life I have seen everything that can be done in the form of pepper. We left the old city and headed towards the embankment. What pleased us with the city is a long yellow zone. This area on Google maps characterizes tourist places. In this city, the zone is very long and interesting. Here you will have a huge castle, and even a gallery like in Milan.
It's true that we haven't been to Milan, but judging by the photos, it's no worse here, although perhaps less. We had half a day in Naples on this trip.
To get around everything in half a day turned out to be another challenge. Even despite the large yellow zone, there is also a separate island where you must definitely wander. Well, at least the royal palace was closed on the main square)))) By the way, there was an interesting moment about the courtyards. If you walk only in the yellow zone, you can skip the Red Light District. We hit it by accident when we tried to cut it off, getting to the old city. The street is narrow and dark, sometimes there are apartments with an open door, standing at the door as if showing Italians. And obviously they stand in bad weather just to get some air. But we, as they say: “The image of morality! ".
So everyone smiled sweetly at each other, said hello and went about their business. During this evening we did the impossible - we went around all of Naples) I understand that in a good way it was necessary to allocate more time, but for this trip we only have a week for 10 cities including Rome.
Fortunately, all the traffic lights switched in our favor today at the crossings. And basically we got not green, but orange. In this country, for some reason, pedestrian traffic lights have three colors, with orange being the longest of those allowing. We celebrated the conquest of Naples with a delicious Neapolitan pizza in one of the restaurants. The feature of this pizza is that the cheese is made from bison's milk. In the ranking of pizzas in Italy, she took first place with us.
The cheese has a pleasant smoky flavor. Now you need to get to the hotel, and, as luck would have it, in another part of the city.
And to get that by transport, that on foot is about the same. But it was very interesting to ride the subway. We went down to the station and started to wait. They waited a long time. A very long time. I understood that there was still almost a week ahead and we seemed to be on time, but I began to seriously worry that a week would not be enough to wait for the train. The logistics of the metro itself are thought out half cool. It's cool that there are big boards, but it's not cool that instead of the train time, they just play ads on them. It seems that there should also be famous beautiful stations, but we figured that if we go out to admire each one in turn, then life may not be enough while waiting for trains. So we are at the hotel! We need to dry wet things before tomorrow's route. Luckily we have a shared kitchen, there is no one in the hotel and there is an oven. As it turned out, the presence of an oven in the hotel is an indispensable attribute for drying shoes. Now we are completely dry.
Pompeii
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“Pompeii, turned to dust in a moment ... ” played in my headphones when I was lying on a bed in the hospital. At that time, for us, Pompeii really turned into dust in an instant. But now we eat freshly baked croissants for breakfast and continue our long-planned route. It took about an hour by train. But local trains here compete with the metro in the competition of who will arrive later. Approximately a quarter of the time, trains stand somewhere between cities and wait for an oncoming train to pass. That is, if you plan to get somewhere by train, you need to take temporary risks. We were also lucky that the musicians who came in were stuck in our car. So we sat with music.
Finally, we arrived in Pompeii. By the way, I did not know before that this city still exists. That is, the old Pompeii, of course, is not inhabited, but new Pompeii have already settled around them.
When people get off the trains, an example of good European corruption begins. A local travel agency immediately sells tickets to everyone with an extra charge of two euros per person. Moreover, the regular price of 16 euros is printed on the tickets, but they demand 18 euros from you at the checkout. When I asked what kind of crap it was, the girl began to explain that it was a pier for skipping the line and so on. Although the queue here may be exactly in this desk, and they position themselves as official ticket offices for entering Pompeii. The local authorities are unaware of the fact that right next to the entrance to Pompeii tourists are bred for money. And, unfortunately, the same will happen in Rome and in the Vatican Museums. Moreover, “representatives of the box office” begin to lie that their price is real, and because of the covid or something else, you can only buy from them. And the most annoying thing is that in addition to colored guys, Russian-speaking aunts will also stick their heads into this business.
The most correct action in order not to get on the money is to always go to the official entrance, beyond which there is only the attraction itself and do not communicate with strangers along the way. Especially if they really want to help you.
We finally entered the ruined city. We have already seen many ruins before, but this is really the first time of this size. It turned out to be a very, very large city with preserved streets. There are many interesting elements, mosaics and small gardens. It seems like there can be crowds here at the peak of the seasons, but we can’t even imagine how many people it takes to fill a ruined city.
We really enjoyed walking here even despite the heavy rains. At times, the rain subsided and the majestic volcano Vesuvius opened up to us, then again everything dragged on and so on in a circle. But the city did not become less interesting from this.
We were already hungry and didn't want to leave. Therefore, we approached one of the exits and asked the guard to let us out for a snack.
Oddly enough, they really did have such an option, they can let you out of the city for five minutes. This is quite enough to have time to buy street pizza, and then return. This time, in addition to pizza, we met arancini. These are stuffed fried rice balls. Now I have a new favorite in local food, now I need to somehow balance arancini and pizza, and the balls can also be made from pasta or mashed potatoes. Even the rain made way for us to eat. It ended, poured while we ate under the tent, and died down when we were done. We just had an amazing lunch for 6 euros for two.
Let's continue to explore Pompeii, on a full stomach they become even better.
At the very end, we visited the central museum located on the territory. By the way, a convenient feature of this whole complex is free left-luggage offices from the outside.
That is, Pompeii is very convenient to set up during the move between Naples and Sorrento. Since all things will be in the locker, and there are large lockers as well. We walked a little around the new city, tasted the Italian cake “Baba”, an analogue of rum grandmother, and went on with coffee.
Sorrento
This city really is as beautiful as it sounds. Trees bend from ripe orange crops, kiwis hang in clusters on others, trees and houses are decorated with garlands of thousands of light bulbs. The city looks literally like candy, and what cliffs are there! And of course the view of the volcano!
The rains have finally subsided, the mood is positive, the eyes run up where to go first. By the number of New Year's garlands, we definitely give this city a medal, this is an absolute record.
So the New Year mood has already begun on November 29th. It is interesting that in this part of Italy it is clearly not the season right now, since most of the establishments are closed, perhaps at the peak of the season it is even more sincere here, but there are clearly more people than now, so we had a golden mean.
But the season or not, the New Year holidays are on schedule. At one point, a big Christmas tree was lit up, people released hundreds of balloons into the sky, fireworks began, and a DJ started playing mixes all over the square! This is what I understand the city knows how to walk, but it was necessary to be on this square in such a timely manner. We even got gifts!
We have never celebrated the New Year so early! Now let's go to a Michelin-starred restaurant for a meal! Or rather, he is half Michelin, judging by the history, he used to have a star and more than one year in a row, but now for some reason he doesn’t. Although if the Michelin Commission changed its mind, then maybe this is a bad sign to go there. But now we will add up our expert opinion. Literally every dinner we could not do without Margherita pizza, here it was cooked quite well, but we were more pleased with Dashino risotto with seafood.
Dasha had a lot of various shells with an edible middle on her plate. I always thought that only mussels are eaten this way, but this evening the boundaries of our knowledge of cooking have expanded significantly. Aesthetic pleasure was brought by forms and textures. After this dinner, I will look at the seashells in the sea with a different look, a little hungry.
After the meal we were served a dessert menu, we refused.
But the waiter decided to come in with trump cards and twirled a tray with different cakes near us. I don't like intrusive service, but it was really funny. Although we didn’t dare for dessert, it was fun! I also liked that the toilet was very warm as one of the walls on the other side was a pizza oven. At first I could not understand where the heat was coming from, then I realized that there was a hot wall nearby. I would not specifically single out this restaurant as a must-see, as I have shown experience in this region of Italy in all restaurants that are good, cozy and tasty. As soon as we started posting photos on the social network from Sorrento, they started quoting an old song to us.
An interesting fact is that everyone in this world seems to know the song except me. At first I thought it was what the TV bunny sings in Just You Wait.
So in the evening I got acquainted with the work of Alexei Glyzin. And now what we have been waiting for!
Sunny day in Italy
Various weather forecasters sang about this day long before our trip. Google and the weatherman drew that we would be flooded with rain throughout the trip, except for this cherished sunny day. We woke up and couldn't believe our eyes. It was really clear skies! Now you need to have a lot of time to invest in this moment of happiness! Let's start with Vulcan! We had a hearty breakfast, looked at the volcano from the cliff and drove to the train! Oh, the orange has ripened and fallen, we are also going with the harvest! After 50 minutes we were in Pompeii, here is one of the starting points at the buses. When my parents were here a week ago, they got on a volcano, but they were covered in a big cloud and nothing was visible. To be honest, Mom and Dad don't have much luck with volcanoes when they travel. We are more lucky.
We have already been to the top of the Teide in the Canary Islands and even on one Bolivian one, although we didn’t reach the very top because I didn’t have enough air, and I saw the moon with stars where it was clearly not there. I remember that feeling when you sit and seem to be full of energy, you start climbing, a couple of meters and you're back in the trash, nothing. Then you sit, like normal, but it's worth making one more attempt and again you're nothing. But here everything is simpler, the volcano is lower, you can take a bus almost to the top.
And instead of the bus, we go back by train. A lot of snow fell there and the volcano is closed today. This was learned by one of the tourists who called the reserve upstairs. Oblomchik came out, however, we are rebuilding plans. Let's go to Positano. Everything points to the fact that we should return to Sorrento and make a big detour, but Google says that you can get off on the way to Meta and take the bus there, which runs once an hour.
Let's try, it will shorten our route if this is true. But if Google misfired, then we will lose a lot of time. We got off at Mete, the station worker indicated where the stop was, there was some kind of agency nearby, the workers also agreed that the bus would arrive now. But he's not driving! As we learned later, in this region of Italy, not only the metro and trains have problems with punctuality.
While we were waiting for the bus, we realized that tickets might not be sold inside, so we returned to the station, bought tickets, and returned to the bus stop. There was still no bus, but now we also have tickets. By the way, it seems like you also need to buy tickets for the volcano in advance, before you arrive at the top. But, fortunately, our site gave an error while filling out personal data. The bus did arrive twenty minutes late. We began to drive along the mountain route.
If before that we just liked the trip, now this trip and the word “Love” have become synonymous. Such a beauty still needs to be looked for on the planet. The whole point is in these cliffs, along which the houses are located. As you go, you greedily eat the picture with your eyes. And when you come to Positano itself, you understand that now this city is all ours and you can climb everything to your heart's content.
Positano
We got off at the very first stop, one might say at the first peak of the city. It's a pity that we didn't know that the only open toilet in this city is on the opposite top. Although, it would seem, there should be restaurants ...But no. Out of season, and maybe covid, almost everything is closed. But, on the other hand, it was very cool, the whole city was literally just for us.
And if in Turkey the cities looked ominous during quarantine without people, then everything here is perfectly licked and looks very nice. Just a city for us. For some time we wandered up and down the streets and enjoyed every panorama. True, we didn’t dare to go down to the beach itself, because then we won’t be able to climb up. It is very important to balance forces in such travels. The city is like on photo wallpaper, I would say just a must to visit. We got to the other end of the city and there was a bus stop waiting for us. It seemed that it was impossible to see enough of this beauty, but it turned out to be possible. The bus was an hour late! During this hour, we have seen enough of the full. Although now we know that it looks like it just broke down and the next regular came for us.
Amalfi
If we described Positano as a mast, now I will say this Positano without Amalfi - a wedding without music!
It takes about 40 minutes to get to Amalfi. And this city appeared on the route due to the fact that we did not hit the volcano. Our topographer Dasha had everything figured out, and it was a wonderful replacement. You know, it's like when they say that the city has its own atmosphere. And it's good that we got a sunny day here. By the way, restaurants are open here, and we made sure to check the local Margarita and lemon sorbet. The city has received our culinary approval!
By the way, that beautiful church in the photo from 16:15 opens for free admission. At least in November. When it seemed to us that we had explored everything that was possible in this cozy town, we began to wander through the labyrinths between the houses. This is a separate kind of pleasure - urban tracking.
You seem to be going up all the time, but all the time along the houses.
Our wanderings were rewarded with a sudden discovery - we found a large pedestrian tunnel right in the mountain. Curiosity got the better of us, and so we reached the neighboring city of Atrani.
City of Atrani
Apparently, it should also be cool, but there was no time for corny. We return to Amalfi.
Fortunately, in Amalfi, the final bus stop and there are a lot of them and you can find out the exact time of departure directly from the drivers. In the evening they went about every 30 minutes. The sun went down, just like our sunny day. It was fantastically wonderful. When we were driving back, we saw a broken bus that departed half an hour before ours, next to it was a second broken bus, presumably the one that did not come for us during the day.
Someday technological progress will reach the point where it will be possible to see any transport in real time and the current problems of modern tourism will go away. But thanks to modern progress, I can publish photos of this trip.
Because of my broken hands, we can't physically take a camera with us, and even inexpensive phones already take quite high-quality photos, although, of course, the difference is still visible. We slept most of the way back, and judging by the rocking serpentine, it was a great decision. But upon arrival in Sorrento, another cozy restaurant awaited us with a text written in chalk in English “We cook the best lasagna”. We checked the reviews and people really admire the lasagna here, we will check it!
The restaurant turned out to be quite small, about 6 tables inside.
A large family sat at one of the tables and exchanged gifts with the owners of the restaurant. It was so cute! They were all so sincerely happy and laughing! I have already described that the food in the restaurants here is delicious and this one was no exception.
Island of Capri
For me, Capri has always been a small print center at the Polytechnic Institute on the first floor, we were constantly xerifying something there. A little later, I realized that Capri is a wonderful caramel candy! And now we know that Capri is something more. If for some reason, after traveling around the outskirts of Sorrento, there is an empty space in your heart, then the island of Capri will fill it to the brim!
There are quite a lot of ferries from Sorrento, much more than we could find on the website on the Internet.
The price and speed are different for everyone, but from the experience of getting into a storm, I want to say that it makes sense to pay extra for speed.
The closest was the ferry, which will take 45 minutes from Sorrento. While we were waiting on the pier, a man approached us and began to offer a boat tour around the island for 15 euros per person. He told us everything in Italian, during these couple of days we got so used to the language that we didn’t even stop him right away. But then they still asked to switch to English. The man was very charismatic, and when he told how exactly the boat would sail around the island, he depicted the boat as “floating” around us.
For this alone I wanted to buy tickets from him. But we did not have much time, and the weather today will be cloudy. A ferry sailed behind us, and we went on a mini cruise.
The morning sun was saying goodbye to us with its last rays, going into the clouds. But at least it won't rain. We will have about 5.5 hours on the island, as in the evening we need to leave for Rome on the flixbus. The closer we sailed to the island, the more we realized how much time we had back to back to see everything here. We went ashore and made the right decision. Here you can take the funicular for 2 euros and climb immediately to the top, and from there start the route.
True, we thought it was a big cable car, which actually ended up in another part of the island. Nevertheless, it was thanks to the funicular that the further route went very well. Capri is a very green island with a sea of orchards. Here you can say summer.
There are many natural and man-made interesting things on the island, they are very easy to find because everywhere there are posters with a map showing where you are and how to get to the next point, and most importantly, indicating how long it will take. Moreover, you can track here not only on the paving stones, but also along the paths in the mountains, in fact, the island consists of two high mountains.
Initially, we were not sure whether it was worth paying about 70 euros for two to swim to the island and return, but now we understand what a pearl on the trip we could miss. Just five and a half hours was enough to climb everything that was possible here, say “wow” or “wow” five times, and even taste the local pizza twice. Twice, because it turned out to be very tasty, and we ran to buy more.
Climb into the most distant jungle, get out of them, go through a downpour and dry in a strong wind, and even almost miss the ferry when landing. I would single out two mandatory points on the island, these are Giardini di Augusto and Arco Naturale. Although in sunny weather, other places may be favorites. Well, it's time for us to go further along the route.
Now we had to pick up things at the hotel, but the entrance door to the reception was opened only with a special remote control, it was taken from us during the checkout. There was a button on the wall that was disabled. I wrote to the owner in WhatsApp, he replied that he sees us on the surveillance camera and activated the button on the wall for us remotely. Here is the service! We can move on! Why I love flixbuses, the driver knows how many passengers should get on and as soon as the last one comes in, the bus leaves without waiting for the schedule.
Olives in oil, jamon and a head of grana cheese served, which we ate as a snack. Ever since childhood, I loved to eat deliciously on the road, my grandmother always packed homemade dumplings in thick foil for me. Grandpa never shared my love of eating on the road. When we met Dasha and went on our first trip to Poltava, we were happy to discover each other's love for delicious food on the road. True, due to an error in the tickets, we left for Kharkov, but at that moment it was not so important for us where to travel, the main thing was with whom.
Rome
Here we are in Rome! How many years have I wanted to come here! How many attempts have been made, and we are here! It's a pity though that it's already night and it's pouring downpour, but tomorrow we'll put on our diving suits and start discovering this city!
We were very lucky that mom and dad had two transport tickets left, which we successfully used, jumping from the flixbus to the city bus. While we were walking to the hotel we had our first acquaintance with the city. In truth, from the outskirts of the city, nevertheless, they saw some kind of collapsed old wall. Morning! Outside the window is something between sunny and now the global flood will begin. We quickly went to the center. As we found out later, the weather simply decided to give us a chance to get dry to the Vatican. While we were riding the subway, everyone was flooded with rain. There was no rain when we got off the subway.
Vatican City
View from the dome
We got to the Vatican, we were already glad that we had discovered a new country, but then we were told that this was not the Vatican. Okay, let's go to another Vatican! As soon as we got to the present, the promised rain began, so be it - we now have a long program under cover.
We started by climbing the dome.
There were two tariffs - with and without an elevator. The elevator is only part of the route. We decided to shorten the rise. And literally immediately found themselves under the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The size and beauty is really impressive, just very impressive. To be honest, I can’t even imagine how much colossal work has been done here! And some do not believe that people were able to build the pyramids. Yes, you visit the Vatican!
But that was only the beginning of the rise, as it turned out. Then there were so many steps that it didn’t fit in my head how they could build so many steps. When it seemed that there was nowhere further, it turned out that this was only half of the route. When we finally got to the top, there were more steps. I was afraid that at the very top, when we leave, there will be space and nothing to breathe.
But there was no space above, it was pouring with rain so that it was hard to walk. Fortunately, we had enough time to wait for good weather, we still had about 85 hours left ...So we took a breath and just waited until the downpour was over. Water could not flow in such a stream endlessly. Now we really have a cool panorama.
Dasha even seemed to be the first to see the Colosseum in the distance. But this is not accurate, since the outlines were not entirely clear. From above, there were really worthwhile views of all this ascent. Now let's go to the cathedral itself. As I wrote earlier, Italians know a lot about cathedrals. Now you need to slip between the rains to McDnoalds for a quick bite and dive back into the Vatican.
It's rather strange with McDonald's here.
If you see a sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of McDonald's, then the restaurant itself may be in almost another city in distance. Most often, the arrow will lead to another arrow, and that one to one more, and so it can be indefinitely. And in the literal sense, almost in a circle. While we were eating, the city was again covered with a downpour. It will be necessary to slip between the rains as we eat. While it's raining, I'll tell you about the mask regime in Italy. In our experience, it turned out to be the most quarantine-compliant nation. In the premises, transport and museums, everyone wears properly dressed masks. On the train, even a passenger, sitting in another part of the carriage, can inspect whether all the tourists put on the mask correctly and make a comment if the mask suddenly does not cover the nose. To move around Italy you need a green pass. That is, this is an application from the playmarket where you can download Qr codes that will be scanned everywhere.
If everything is observed according to the vaccination rules, then the green pass will be green, if the vaccine is not suitable or the number of doses is red. With a red green pass, you won’t be able to visit anything at all and you can fly with a hotel.
The greenpass verification app is called VerificaC19. And the application for storing codes is Green Pass Italia. So even from Kyiv we were calm that we had green green passes. In one application, you can download codes for all travelers. I remember once they laughed at conspiracy theories about barcodes on their foreheads, but now I’m seriously thinking how it would be easier if the QR code was stuffed on my forehead. It would not be necessary to get an application with a green pass every time, and automatic scanners could read it right from everyone’s forehead. It's just a pity, it would somehow look ugly. Although I remember a year and a half ago, people in masks also looked very unusual to me.
By the way, it’s an interesting fact that in my dreams I still dream of people without masks, and the fact that I have broken hands is a dream quite often. That is, in a dream, I realize that my hands are broken and movements must be done carefully. At the time of writing, I already have only two of the four fractures left, which is very pleasing.
But back to Rome, as the rain outside the window subsided. It took about 15 minutes to walk to the Vatican Museums, unfortunately, the rainless window was only 5 minutes long. Well, at least the rain is not cold pouring from the sky. During the next window, we did run to the museum complex. Museums have their own trick here, if there were endless arrows on the streets pointing to McDonald's, then for some reason the same story with the Sistine Chapel. Which in fact will be at the very end. That is, from the first arrow to the Sistine Chapel itself, about three hours ...
I won’t particularly describe the museum complex, I’ll just say that we VERY liked it when visiting Rome, it’s necessary to lay at least half a day to the Vatican. And we had nowhere to hurry with such weather. There are a lot of halls, various themes, and there are even exits to the garden. We noticed in Italy as a whole, they seem to have “helped” Egypt a lot in their time. Since there are many Egyptian obelisks in Rome, and the museum has entire halls dedicated to Egyptian themes. It's great that such a journey turns out to be diverse. Yesterday we explored nature, and now we have such famous man-made masterpieces.
Rome
One of the differences between the Roman region and the Naples region is that there is no such general street food here. The level of pizza in the blood dropped significantly, we were already almost a day without pizza. It’s simply not for sale on the streets here, well, or we’ve been so unlucky all three days.
Although stridfoot is very important when traveling, it is a banal time saver during the day. But the one who really felt free in terms of food is the Roman gulls. They are literally people's best friends. When you come to the next observation balcony somewhere in the city, a seagull will certainly be waiting for you with a proud look on the railing.
As our godfather told us, in Rome, wherever you go, there is always something interesting. This evening we had the main focus on the fountains and the Pantheon - a marvelous temple with a hole in the dome, there was just an open sky. According to the descriptions, due to the currents of ascending air, rain does not get inside the temple. But it seems that today's rain was an exception, or the workers just decided to wash the floor in the center. We had a special activity planned for tonight - the search for a bottle with a hundred hryvnias, which my parents hid here a week ago.
We had a picture of dad with a bottle near a road sign and a map marker. This time it turned out to be a Hard Rock restaurant.
Although Dasha had a significant advantage in the form of whole hands, she found the bottle with her legs! No, this is not a special solidarity, just the thick grass was very wet after the rain, and we began to grope with our feet from above. This is how a bottle of money can lie in the grass for a week and no one even knows. This was the second bottle we found after Cappadocia. It was joyful.
For some reason, finding a restaurant for dinner was also not the most trivial task, although it would seem that there are so many restaurants here. But somehow in Rome the infrastructure is strangely located. If you left the street, where there was a clear concentration of restaurants, then then you can wander around for half an hour looking for them and you won’t find anything. We ended up having dinner at a Lebanese restaurant.
Just got through another rain. But it can be said the last one on this journey. Now we have a whole sunny day waiting for us! It was necessary, as always, to squeeze the maximum out of it!
So let's start it right from the Colosseum!
Yes, I agree, at first I also thought that it was more round and there should be a lot of people near it. But no, it’s all so lonely, to enter the truth you need to get a free ticket to some exhibition on the site. Moreover, the security warns that now during covid you can’t beat around the bush, but you need to go only inside. It was strange, because because of the covid, they usually can’t let you in, and not vice versa. In general, the Colosseum is good! Now you can also see the second one ...Yes, oddly enough, there are officially two Colosseums in Rome - round and square.
But around the round people there were not that many, tourists from all over Italy seemed to have gathered here. Apparently, therefore, there were almost no people in Positano at all, everyone came here. We did not go inside because we had already visited a fairly large number of such amphitheatres, including the third largest in El Jem, Tunisia. Nevertheless, I touched it for show. Then we wandered a lot around the surrounding sights, enjoying the sunlight. I want to say that Rome went to me so much that in my rating Paris moved to third place among European big cities.
But in comparison with Barcelona, it’s hard to say who is in first place, maybe both. And then I'll leave Paris on the second. Dasha's Rim still took third place after Barcelona and Paris. But this is so, comparisons are purely for the famous European cities.
Now that we are in the city, we need to decide which villas we want to visit here. The villas are just a feature of the city. We chose the Gregorian, the entrance costs 8 euros. The villa is famous for the large artificial waterfall in the park. But for some reason, the girl selling tickets told us that it was impossible to go to the waterfall and to a number of other sights too. She explained that it was dangerous. It's just not clear why. That is, you pay the regular price for entry, but you see almost nothing.
For some reason, the phrase “Don't go there, it's dangerous there” sounded like a real challenge to us. For some reason we are drawn to such places. We stocked up on a map and went along the route. It is not clear where the villa itself is, but the canyon is gorgeous here, it is very nice and beautiful to walk. And here is a sign indicating that you can’t go along that path because there is a beautiful waterfall. And behind it is another, for those who did not notice the first, and the second is hard not to notice. What to do?
After we didn’t go down a bit to look at the 120-meter waterfall, the power of which can show how the elements are ready to put a person in their place at any moment, we just went on.
And further on the route there were grottoes, although it was possible to enter partially, further the passage was blocked with a sign - you can’t go there either. Yes, something like that. It is clear that in no case did we go beyond the sign to wander along the path passing under the stone arches and leading to a wonderful view of the cascade of smaller waterfalls. Well, let's go and see where else we can't go. Then there were quite interesting locations at the foot of cascading waterfalls and even, lo and behold, you could go inside one of the caves with a waterfall!
Let me tell you, she was amazing as always!
It was already completely unusual for us to remember how, after returning from Garda, Verona and Venice, we criticized Italian cuisine and, in particular, pizza.
Now, after the pizza, you need an after-party in the form of an Italian patisserie. It was a cafe with a pleasant interior and beautiful tableware. The first thing I remember about the gatherings was that their cook was sitting at one of the tables of a cozy quiet cafe and having lunch, but at the same time someone on a mobile phone showed him a video at full volume. It was very strange, but it did not bother anyone. Apparently, if we knew Italian, we would also be happy to listen))) But the cafe itself was remembered by an interesting case. We ordered there two croissants with cream, coffee and tea. We paid 6.40 euros for it.
At first we were delighted at how inexpensive it was in such a glamorous cafe, but on the bill we were surprised by the most expensive item - dashin tea, which cost 3 euros, almost like two croissants with cream and coffee.
We were really sure that this was a typo and maybe the coffee just had to cost three euros, for the sake of sports interest, I asked “Do they really have such cheap coffee”, in response I heard that it was, it’s just that their tea is not simple, but some super-organic and the best. So, if they knew what kind of golden tea Dasha drank in relation to my coffee, then it would be better to try to taste the notes of alpine meadows in it. We have recently begun to notice a trend that tea is usually more expensive than coffee in establishments, but so that for the price of three cups of coffee this is a record)))) Then we walked down the street and everyone tried to remember what kind of notes we felt while drinking tea.
There was still a lot of time before the scheduled train, so we decided to visit another villa - d'Este. The entrance costs 10 euros, here the visit is conditionally divided into two parts - this is the villa itself with painted walls and ceilings and the garden of fountains. Personally, I am rather cold to architecture and murals, but I would classify a garden with fountains as a wonder of the world.
There are so many of them here that it will definitely be a record in your life when you see so many different fountains at the same time, especially since they were designed without a single pump.
I don't know who was the owner of the villa, but I put him in my idols. It was a real fountain therapy. I can imagine how many people are here in the summer, but now the number of fountains is dozens of times greater than the number of visitors.
So we completed the main program, now you can move towards the station. But the city seems to have decided to give me a farewell gift and a closed yogurt store with frozen yogurts opened on our way. And I don't miss those things. The policy of local yogurt is just a cannon, you can add an unlimited number of different toppings to yogurt. We relied on the owner's choice, and now I was happy as a child with delicious yogurt.
At the station, to get to the platform, we had to go down the stairs, because in the morning we decided to use the elevator, which consists of only two floors and eventually got lost between them. We went to the first, and to zero, and even to the first again, because we could not figure out exactly where the exit was)
Despite the very rainy days, the trip was one hundred percent successful, we now remember it with great warmth. The next day, early in the morning, we returned by flixbus to Naples, where we had just an hour and a half to walk to the airport. We bought pizza for the road, I ate that super-tomato pizza again, which I first tried a week ago, and we started walking towards the airport. But they couldn't pass by McDonald's, for the sake of the Italian McFlury, to which they add Snickers, the planes and the whole world will wait a bit!
Travel Information
Date of travel: 28.11. 2021 - 5.12. 2021
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 4/10 (Below average)
