Jeremy and I went to Italy for a "fun" "relaxing" get away. It turned out to be quite the adventure with lots of stories to tell! My friend Amanda watched the kids for a few days and then we flew Grammy T out to stay and watch the kids the rest of the time we were gone.
When we first landed we were supposed to catch the fast train to Rome. That was the plan, we had a hotel booked for that night and planned to wake up and start the tours. Well, once we landed we found out the last fast train to Rome had already left. There weren't any other trains until the next morning. So we had to decide 1) do we get a hotel in Milan for the night and wake up and catch the train to Rome 2) do we rent a car and drive to Rome that night or 3) do we take a Taxi. We talked to a few people left at the airpot. It was about 11:00 pm so there weren't many people to talk to. One guy said taking a Taxi would be way too much money. Then we asked how long the train ride was going to be. They told us the train ride was about 3-4 hours so we figured the best option was to rent a car (instead of waste money on a hotel for a few hours that night plus pay for the hotel we had already rented in Rome that night). We also thought it would be nice to have a car to use and not have to try to figure out the train system etc. So we started the hour long process of renting a car. When we finally left the airport at 1:00 am we were ready for 3-4 hours in a car (after our 17 hour plane ride...yuck!) . We just wanted to get to our hotel in Rome and get the trip started!! We stopped at the first place we saw (Fudruckers lol) 30 minutes the ride to get something to eat. We asked the guy for directions on the best route to take to get to Rome. The way he was talking made us think it was a lot further than we had expected. He then told us it would take 8 hours to get there. Say what?!?! Yeah, apparently the train we were going to take was the "fast train" and by car it was 8 hours. So we started our 8 hour road trip, after our 17 hour plane ride....this was just the beginning of our cursed trip to Italy! We arrived to Rome at 9:00 am and decided we needed to sleep for a few hours before we went on our first tour. We checked into the hotel and then tried to find the parking garage to park the car. The hotel worker told Jeremy how to get to it, but he couldn't find it in the dark and decided to park in a parking spot that he found. After our few hours of sleep we woke up and realized we had we missed our tour time of the Vatican. So we decided to just do one of the walking tours we planned to do. We walked to the car first to get my sunglasses. Apparently Jeremy had parked in a Police station parking area. They saw us getting into the car and told us we needed to move they were going to give us a ticket. So we decided we would just move the car and try to find that parking garage we were supposed to park in anyway. Well we put in the address in GPS and it was super unhelpful. The roads there are so narrow and most of them are one way. So GPS told us the parking garage that was one block away would take us 20 minutes to get there! We kept following the turns it told us to take. Pretty soon we were driving in an open space but there were so many people around you had to go 1 mph and wait for people to move. We saw a car in front of us (you can see the red car in the picture) and so we were following that car. Before we knew it we were being pulled over by the policia and being yelled at in Italian. He asked Jeremy for his drivers license. He didn't have it because he didn't plan to be driving and left most that stuff in the hotel. We told him we were just trying to find the parking garage and that we were lost. I told him we were following the car in front of us why didn't he pull them over, and he said that was a policia car (which it totally wasn't). He said we were in a pedestrian area no cars allowed. I tried to give him my drivers license. He knew we were American's now. He was so mad, he was yelling and saying "is this JOKE!?" Then he told us to get out of the car he was taking us to jail. We refused to get out of the car. He called another police officer who came over and looked at our rental car paperwork and our information. After 20 minutes of yelling back and forth he gave us a ticket and told us to leave. When we tried to drive off he yelled at us again we were stupid Americans and didn't know how to drive. Good thing he didn't know I took a picture of him or he probably would have given us another ticket :)
The Jerk Policia
After a full day exploring we went to sleep. Woke up the next morning to find a parking ticket on our car! Seriously, we couldn't catch a break. We had one last day in Rome and we made the most of it.
Found some yummy pizza
We threw coins in Treve fountain and made wishes. I probably wished that we wouldn't get anymore tickets and we would stay safe the rest of the trip :)
Taking a tour of the Colessum was probably the coolest thing. It gave me chills to picture what went on in that arena and just being there I could feel the thrill and excitement of the fights and the crowds cheering! It was really interesting!
The view right as you step out of our hotel. This was the main square, the center of town.
Our hotel room in Rome
The walk around the Forum in Rome was awesome. All the old ruins, pillars, and buildings that are still there just amaze me.
On the way out of Rome we drove over to check out the progress of the temple being built. It was awesome to see. Too bad it wasn't finished so we could do a session. Guess we will have to go back one day! (I deserve a do-over of this trip anyway!)
Of course once we got to Florence we had to go to the Academia and see the art and the statue of David. I took a picture of the other side of him....nobody ever sees that side?!
Florence was awesome. The architecture all over Italy is unreal. This was outside the Duomo. We loved the little restaurants that seat you in the street.
The view on top of the bell tower. We walked hundreds and hundreds of stairs to get to the top. The stair case was so narrow, if you had any claustrophobia problems this was not for you! It was nice to get to the top and get some fresh air. You can see the tall part of the Duomo building behind us.
We drove over to Pisa for part of the day. We ate lunch and walked around. There wasn't much to do in Pisa so we didn't plan to stay more than a few hours. Really all we went for was to see the leaning tower! It was way cooler in person than I expect it to be. It was such a cool place. I took so many awesome pictures of me jumping in front of the tower, ones that looked like I was pushing the tower over, you know all the touristy pictures people take. Well, my phone got stollen and so most all of my pictures of that day and the day before were gone! The only pictures we still had were the ones we took on Jeremy's phone. Those were mostly with the selfie stick. And we only had ONE picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa :(
Just paying one of our 3 tickets...I think this was a parking ticket?? They told us we had to go pay the ticket at any tobacco shop. Interesting.
This was one of Jeremy's favorite meals of the trip. Overall we weren't that excited about the food. It was just eh to me. I prefer American Italian!
Milan was one of our last stops. Which originally was planned for our first stop. That's why we flew into Milan. However, we found out AC Milan played that Sunday so we rearranged our trip around the soccer game. We bought tickets before we even left Utah. We planned our whole trip around the game. So we had to end up in Milan on a certain day. Sunday came, we were super excited to go to the game. We got to Milan and turned our rental car in at the airport. We ran to catch the train to get to Milan. Once we bought our tickets I realized I didn't have my phone. So Jeremy ran back to the rental car place to check the car. I remembered I had taken it out of my pocket and left it on the car seat and then took out the suitcases. The car rental people said they already took the car to get washed and nobody saw a phone. We searched all over and then gave up figuring they stole my brand new iphone 7+ I had just got a month before...the worst part is it had all my pictures on it from Pisa!! Anyway we had to hurry back to the train so we wouldn't miss it to our hotel. We got to the hotel and decided to sight see. We took a tour of the Duomo, such a fancy building. Then we went to eat lunch. After we ate and tried to pay the bill the credit card kept getting declined. I had to stay at the table while Jeremy went back to the hotel to get a different credit card and pay with that. That was an hour of our day. We paid and went back the hotel and since the game wasn't until 6:00 pm and I was still depressed that my phone was stollen just a few hours before, we decided to rest for a little bit in the room. So I took a little nap. Jeremy worked. I woke up a little while later to him asking me if I wanted the good news. I said "you found my phone!" He said "No, AC Milan won the game." I said "what are you talking about?" He said the game was actually at 2:00 pm and we missed it! So we paid for the soccer game, but never even went to it. Total bummer. Especially since that's what we were looking forward to the most. We even bought Cameron a jersey of the team. Oh-well, I decided it just made our story of Italy even more funny!
These cars are what they drive. I completely understand why they drive such small cars now. The streets are insanely narrow. Barely enough width to even fit this small car. Plus you have to share the street with people just walking, as you can see in the pictures below.
These drinking fountains were pretty cool and awkward at the same time.
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