My holiday began on the 27th February, thanks to my 3-day timetable, so that was the day I flew back to England. It was a long day of travelling, mostly due to the 9 hour coach journey from Gatwick all the way to Manchester! Thankfully I was greeted at the coach station by a happy family, a mug of tea and some jam sandwiches, and spent the next 10 days relaxing, catching up with friends and strolling around my beautiful city.
I also had the chance to drive over the hills with my dad to visit my sister in Sheffield, and meet her housemate's adorable bunny!
It felt amazing to be back with everyone, to see some people I haven't seen in a very long time and spend some quality time with the family. I really appreciated the R&R before the hectic two weeks that was travelling!
Just over a week after landing at Gatwick I was flying from Manchester airport and landing in Rome. I can't even begin to describe how incredible this city is, but it shot immediately to the top of my favourite places list (possibly on the same level as Barcelona, can't decide!). I met Helen at our hostel and we proceeded to spend the next 5 days walking for 12 hours a day in order to explore as much of the city as we possibly could! Notable locations include Trevi Fountain (by day and night),
the Spanish steps, the large park in the north (the name of which I have completely forgotten), Piazza Navona (by day and night),
the Pantheon,
and, of course, the Vatican!
We went at the perfect time of year to avoid queuing for most places, and were lucky enough to be able to climb all 551 steps of the Vatican Dome in order to get an incredible view of the whole city.
Needless to say we managed to make time to try out the never ending supply of pizza, pasta and gelato, which was so tasty!! We were also fortunate enough to meet a lot of nice people along the way. All the Italians we met in the shops and on the streets were lovely, and very understanding of our total lack of language ability! We made an Australian friend called Olivia, had a lovely host at the hostel named Riccardo, and had dinner on the last night with our Albanian and Italian roommates, as well as Olivia.
Then it was onwards to Pisa! We arrived at the hostel and were immediately told by the owner not to spend our time in Pisa! So we took his advice, and hopped on another train the next day over to Florence.
The city is gorgeous, but felt tiny compared to Rome!! We spent a sunny day getting lost in its windy streets, before heading back to the hostel for an early night in preparation for our next day's adventure: Cinque Terre. This is basically a set of 5 very small towns all linked by rail, right by the sea. Helen and I were joined by our hostel roommate Brynn, who was from LA! It was an amazing day out for all of us, and was a gorgeous bit of peace and quiet after the hectic time we'd been having.
We did manage to make a day to explore Pisa, which is very small but very pretty. The Tower of course made for some very amusing people-watching, and we saw a huge variety of poses executed with various levels of commitment by the hundreds of flocking tourists. If you ever go to see the tower, I would definitely advise going at night as well, it's so peaceful!
After all that, we headed to our third airport of the trip, and flew over to Paris for a brief 24 hour tour. We managed to squeeze in a trip to the Moulin Rouge and the Sacré Coeur on our first night, which gave us a beautiful nighttime view over the city. The next day we climbed the Eiffel Tower, wandered along La Seine for a while and went for a quick walk around Notre Dame.
Then it was back to the hostel, back on the metro, and finally on to our last train, back to Montpellier. We were very sad that adventure time was over, but it turns out to be for the best, as I have been ill in bed pretty much ever since we got back! Fingers crossed we'll both be able to make the adjustment back into uni life, as classes start back up tomorrow and exams are just around the corner.
Retour au travail,
Sarah
xx
