Italy

After Spain, my next stop was Venice, Italy! I was really excited about going to Italy because it was one of the countries I most wanted to go to on this trip.
The trip took over 24 hours and it had it's ups and downs. Things were going well until I got to the stop in France where I would take the train to Italy. France has more rules about Eurail pass holders than other countries do, and they only allot a certain number of seats for Eurail passes, so when I got there and tried to make a reservation, all of the Eurail seats were full. I didn't realize that this particular train is a very popular one, so this was the first time I had had this problem on my travels. So the man at the ticket window (who was very nice, not unfriendly like the stereotype of French people) told me that my choices were to wait for the train to arrive and ask whether I could get on and pay for the reservation on board or buy a full price ticket. There was no guarantee that I would be allowed on the train without a reservation, it would depend on what the specific person working on that train would allow. So I told him I would think about it because I had about an hour until the train came. When I left the window, a girl came up to me and said she'd overheard my conversation and was in the same situation. She was from New Zealand and was on her way to Milan as part of a 6 month trip around the world, not just Europe like I'm doing. In the end she decided to wing and see if the person would let her on the train, but I really didn't have the energy it would require to figure out an alternate plan if I didn't get on that train, so I bought a full price ticket for 85 euros. I was going farther than she was so it would be harder for me to get where I was going if I missed that train, and I had planned such a short amount of time in Venice that I didn't want to miss any of it. It turned out that she was allowed on train and only had to pay 22 euros. I sort of wished I had done the same thing but I basically paid for the peace of mind that I would get where I was going without too much trouble. We chatted the whole train ride until I got off, and it was really nice to have someone to travel with after spending so much time on trains alone.

I got to my next train fine, but after that one I had 3 hours between 1:00 and 4:00 am that I had to wait in Parma, Italy. I thought since it was such a short amount of time that it would mean the station was open all night, but no. Between 2:00 and about 3:30 I and another guy got kicked out onto the street with nowhere to go. Those almost 2 hours were by far the worst of my whole trip so far. I was starting to get worn out of traveling in general by that point, so all I really wanted to do was lay down in a nice warm, comfy bed and sleep for days. It was also raining, so I couldn't go lay down on the nice green grass across the street from the station, and since I had had a travel buddy for a few hours earlier in the journey, I felt even more lonely that I normally would have. Needless to say, my morale was the lowest it had been since arriving in Europe. I was so relieved when I finally go moving again.

After that terrible night though, I really enjoyed my time in Venice. I was only there 2 days, but since I stayed on the main island the whole time it was enough to get a good sense of what the city is like and see some landmarks. I couchsurfed with an Australian guy who works in Venice, and he lived right around the corner from Piazza San Marco, so it was super convenient to just walk out the door and go exploring. My host was really nice and he walked around the city with me one of the days and showed me some sights, and we made dinner together both nights I was there which was nice.

One interesting thing about Venice is the acqua alta, the flooding that happens sometimes with the tide. When I first arrived, I met my host at the water taxi stop and we had to take an alternate route back to his apartment because the area around Piazza San Marco was flooded. In some places there were raised platforms set up for people to walk over the water, but some areas you would need rain boots to get through without getting your feet soaked. Even though I knew Venice was built on water, I never really thought about how common flooding must be, and it was an interesting thing to experience, one that you'd become accustomed to thinking about if you lived there.

I wasn't able to take pictures since I still didn't have a camera, but my host took 2 pictures for me, and I will also include pictures from the internet of the major sites I saw:

I don't remember exactly where this was, but it's a good example of the Venetian buildings and canals, and you can see Rialto Bridge in the background

This is at the tip of the area that I think is called Dorsoduro. It had a great view of San Marco (behind me) and some of the other islands.

Piazza San Marco and St. Mark's Basilica (the basilica was under construction when I was there, so this is better than any picture I could have taken anyway.

Rialto Bridge

After 2 days in Venice, I went to Rome. The trip there was way easier because I only had to take one train to get to the city. I then had to take another train to get to my couchsurfing host's house because he lived near the airport which was a little inconvenient, but overall the travel to and from his house worked out fine.

I really enjoyed my sightseeing in Rome! There was so much to see and so much history there. Rome has some of the landmarks that stood out the most to me before this trip as really important ones in Europe, like the Colosseum and the Vatican. The first thing I saw when I got into the center of Rome was the Colosseum, and I think it was my favorite thing I saw there. It was just as impressive as I expected it to be and I really like the style (the only downside was that part of it had scaffolding on it for restoration work, which seems to be a theme for many of the big landmarks I've seen on this trip). I also walked around Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum that day, but they were not as impressive as the Colosseum. That afternoon I went to do a free walking tour that I had read about online, but it turned out there was only one other person waiting for the English tour so it got cancelled. However, there was also a Spanish tour which had plenty of people so I just joined that one instead. It was fun to get to practice some Spanish again, and I really liked the tour guide. This tour included the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, among other things, but the Trevi Fountain was also under construction like the Colosseum. The water wasn't turned on and there was scaffolding covering the whole thing, so it was quite a let down. I guess I'll just have to go back someday and see if when it's fully open.

The next day I did another free tour with the same group, and on the tour I met a girl from Taiwan named Mavis. The tour included the Spanish Steps (again) and the Pantheon, and ended at the Vatican, so the two of us decided to go to the Vatican museum together. Mavis took some pictures of me while we were together and said she would email them to me, so once she does that I will have some pictures from Rome. There was a lot of really cool art there (I especially liked the statues) and of course the highlight was the Sistine Chapel. Somehow it was different than I was expecting, I thought it would feel bigger than it actually did, and there were tons of people there, but it was still an awesome experience to see in person something I had been seeing pictures of my whole life. Like so many things I've seen on this trip, it was amazing to see what human beings are capable of and how much people did centuries ago without all of the modern technology we have to help us today. Then we went to St. Peter's Basilica, which was also breath-taking. Even after seeing so many churches and cathedrals in Europe, I still really enjoy them, and St. Peter's is probably  one of the biggest ones I've seen.

My last day in Rome I didn't really have any ideas about anything else to see, so I decided to meet Mavis again at another free walking tour. It was the same tour I had done the first day but this time it was in English, so I figured maybe I would learn something new that I had missed in Spanish. On that tour we met a guy from Australia named Scott, and the three of us hung out a bit after the tour as well. We went to another church, which I believe was called Basilica San Giovanni. It was beautiful inside, and it's not something I would have thought to go to unless Mavis had suggested it, so it was nice to have someone else to show me new things.

This post has gotten way longer than I expected it to, so I will stop now. My next post will be about my trip to Greece after I left Italy, so stay tuned for that!