Europe: Italy, Part 1
Italy, Part 1
Milan --> Lake Como --> Verona --> Venice --> Cinque Terre --> Pisa --> Florence --> Rome
MILAN
Milan --> Lake Como --> Verona --> Venice --> Cinque Terre --> Pisa --> Florence --> Rome
MILAN
Tay: The next morning we left for Milan. We had to backtrack about an hour again--both Switzerland destinations were tucked out of the way. After all, it’s not too easy to move the mountains to a more convenient place.
Milan. Milan was worth the stop just to see the Duomo, although probably worth it only for that. The Duomo is my new favorite architecture that we’ve seen on this trip. The marble exterior is a gorgeous mix of pink and white. It’s another gothic-style cathedral, and it is massive. Much bigger than Notre Dame even. The inside was similar to Notre Dame, with huge pillars leading down the knave, but again, everything was bigger. The inside was dark, unlike the pretty, light-colored exterior. We were told that it was imperative to buy tickets to the top of the cathedral, but we weren’t as impressed with the top or the interior nearly as much as the exterior view. I think a podcast or some research would have helped us appreciate more on the inside or the view from the top. But we didn’t love the view of Milan because we didn’t really love the rest of Milan generally. I think we could have found other neat things to see if we had more time there, but we were pretty limited for time in Milan. The Duomo justified the stop though, and without a doubt it was the most important thing to see. If I were to go again, I’d want to buy tickets to another cathedral in Milan where they have Leonardo’s Last Supper. We didn’t learn until the night before that you had to buy tickets beforehand, and they were all sold out for the next couple of months. I think tickets were 10 or 20 euros for only a 15-minute look at the painting, but that would probably be worth if considering the Last Supper is so famous.
Becca: The Duomo was absolutely gorgeous. It won the best exterior for any cathedral we saw in Europe, hands down! It was interesting that so many of the cathedrals we saw were either stunning on the outside or the inside, not both. I think the one that did the best on the outside and the inside was the cathedral in Pisa (more coming up about that later). We did love the floor of the Duomo, and the beautiful stained-glass windows! We just wished the inside wasn't so dark and matched the outside marble. Going up to the top of the Duomo may have been more impressive if the biggest spire at the top wasn't covered in scaffolding. :) I was actually surprised by how nervous I was climbing the marble steps on the roof up to the very top--I was so grateful it wasn't raining, because I just had a picture in my head that I would have slipped and flew right off the roof.
Tay: We had our first Italian pizza here at a cute shop close to the train station. Many of the restaurants have a small interior, and instead, they have an enclosed canopy--like the white Scout tents we used to set up for shade out on the wide sidewalks where people can sit and eat. Like Paris, dining seems like a pretty public event and people can just walk by watching as you eat and chat.
Becca: We loved the pizza in Italy. There seemed to be two different kinds, either on a thicker focaccia bread or a thinner crust. Both were good, but my favorite was the thin. Yummm. On the way to the Duomo, we walked through a fun shopping center that was quite beautiful. It had a gorgeous glass roof, and made me think that City Creek in SLC, UT, could have been inspired by it. It was very high end, with Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada there.
LAKE COMO
Tay: Lake Como. We stayed in Lecco to see Lake Como. Our Lecco Airbnb was huge and nice, poorly furnished. The furniture all seemed super out-of-date, but it wasn’t a problem per se. We were so happy to have a nice kitchen, sitting area, bathroom, and bedroom. The only notable thing about Lecco itself was the supermarket we asked our hosts for directions to. Turns out the whole mall, of which the supermarket is a part, is underground. We wondered why because in that spot there seemed like plenty of room above ground to build everything we saw below.
Becca: I was super excited to head to Lake Como, as it was recommended highly and was said to feel like Switzerland with the alps. It lived up to our expectations. :) We stayed in Lecco, on the bottom right leg of Lake Como, because...well, we got a better, cheaper hotel there. But! That was for a reason. Nothing really too special about Lecco. It had an underground grocery store (which took us forever to find, cause who ever thinks of looking underground?1), so that's cool. But it was still beautiful to be surrounded by alp-like mountains, and just a short train ride away from the more famous cities on Lake Como.
Tay: After grabbing groceries, we enjoyed relaxing at our apartment the rest of that night. Friday, the next morning, we went by train to Varenna, a town nearby with pretty views of Lake Como. Lake Como is a large lake that has some very pretty, picturesque towns surrounding it, including Varenna and Bellagio. Our Airbnb host told us that George Clooney has a house in Bellagio. We didn’t go there but went to Varenna instead. It was very nice to walk around the small town and explore a little bit. We had our first Italian gelato, and it was awesome. To me, it’s not that much different than ice cream, but I’m happy for any excuse to eat ice cream-like food. Rebecca was particularly excited because they had dairy-free fruit flavors of gelato--a lot like sorbet.
We enjoyed walking around the town for a couple hours while it was sunny, but we knew the weather was supposed to turn rainy. Our timing was just perfect and we were ready to go home just when it started to rain. We took the train back, picked up a few more groceries to last the next few days--including a bag of shortbread cookies that we discovered the day before and wanted more of.
Becca: I loved Varenna! It was the perfect Italian town on a lake. Absolutely gorgeous. We were going to take the ferry across the lake to see the other cities, but it was overcast and looked like it might start raining at any minute, so we decided to just explore Varenna itself. We did enjoy looking across the lake and seeing the cities--they were beautiful. We had so much fun in this romantic little city! We saw a group that we overheard say something about a wedding, and it just make me think how dreamy a wedding there would be! The gelato place we stopped at had a "dairy free" sign, which made me oh-so-happy. I had looked this up online, because I was nervous about missing out on all the gelato, so I knew that some places offered it, but I didn't think we'd actually find it on our first stop! Now I'm not actually sure if it was actually dairy free, or if it was just sorbet--which is always dairy free, and which I ate the rest of our trip in Italy.
VERONA
Tay: Verona. After two nights in Lake Como (technically we were staying in a town called Lecco because it was most cost-effective than Varenna), we went to Verona. Verona is a cute little city, supposedly Shakespeare’s inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed it because we thought of it more as a pit stop on our way to Venice. About twenty minutes’ walk from the Verona train station we ran right into the town center where they had a large, circular Roman-style open theater (like the Coliseum). We just got a glimpse inside, where they were setting up for a production of some sort. The town center was really cute. In the middle was a small park with a statue, trees, and benches. It was surrounded by a pedestrian roundabout, and at the edge of the roundabout were all the buildings. In particular, there were a bunch of little Italian restaurants. The restaurant seating was all out on the street in front of the buildings and with rows of chairs facing toward the center of the square. By the setup, it was clear that dining there was more about watching the goings on than chatting in a booth with your friends. It was a very public dining setting, but it seemed enchanting.
We had a little difficulty with our apartment in Verona. We booked one but apparently missed an email a few hours beforehand to my email account where we were informed that our booking was no longer available and that we were to call the company, Booking.com. We didn’t learn this until we walked twenty minutes to our apartment only to find it vacant. They sent us another email with a link to a new booking we were supposed to make while they reimbursed us for the first one. The link wasn’t working, so we started walking toward the new place, assuming we’d be able to talk to the clerk there if we couldn’t get the link to work. After another twenty minutes of walking, we arrived at the second hotel, only to learn that during our walk, someone else had booked the room. After some back-and-forth with Booking.com, we finally managed to book a new place, this one on the opposite side of town, about a thirty-minute walk. By now we were hungry and a bit frustrated to have wasted our limited time in the city.
Thankfully, as we searched for food along the path to our new hotel room, we found our first Italian pasta to-go shop. They had one-minute pasta ready for us to carry on our way, and it was delicious. Mine was tasty pesto, Rebecca’s a nice tomato sauce. With some warm pasta in our bellies, we were much happier, despite being frazzled with the hotel problems.
In the end, everything turned out great. We ended up in the nicest hotel we’ve had yet, and Booking.com covered the cost difference, including our ordering in breakfast (because at our first hotel we were supposed to have continental breakfast). We enjoyed the rest of the night.
Becca: Someone should start a pasta to-go shop in America. It was amazing! Or we were just really hungry. Although we were kind of frazzled from all the hotel confusion, it was really fun to walk through the city and see sights while we were headed to the hotels. We were trying to find Juliet's balcony, but Google took us to a place that was all boarded up and closed, so we were a little sad we had missed the one thing we had on our agenda for Verona. Fortunately, while we were walking, we stumbled right into Juliet's courtyard! Ta-da! That worked out well. Not sure what was closed up in what we thought was Juliet's balcony, but we did get to see it. It was so fun to walk through Verona and think about Shakespeare being inspired to write Romeo & Juliet. We also had fun walking along the river, walking through the main piazza of town, and seeing a castle on our way to the hotel. Oh, Europe!
Our upgraded hotel was so nice. We loved it. :) One of the best things was that they delivered breakfast to us on a cute little cart. There was so much food! We ate what we could and packed the rest, like the frugal backpackers we are. I loved eating croissants so much in Europe. The sugared ones were the best. We thought the little prepackaged toasts we had throughout Italy were pretty funny. Our tray even came with cute bottles of water, milk, and orange juice.
Tay: The next morning we found an LDS chapel and attended a 10:50 sacrament meeting. Some missionaries translated for us, and it was fun to see the worldwide church. The meeting reminded me a lot of a particular Ohio branch I served in and the D.R. church. The D.R. because it was hot and sweaty and foreign in the upstairs chapel. Bellefontaine, Ohio because the members were so welcoming and friendly. The Bishop didn’t start the meeting until about 7 minutes late, and until then the members were all in the chapel talking loudly and visiting like good friends. We were welcomed by many members, and about six people were trying to help us get translation set up at the same time.
Becca: I loved church in Verona! The members were so friendly. Everyone was talking so loudly, and the meeting started late because everyone was socializing. We also enjoyed chatting with the missionaries in the ward, there seemed to be 3 pairs.
VENICE
Tay: Venice. From Verona, we trained to Venice. True to the advice from Brady and Corinne, Venice was a bit of a let-down. Part of it was our own fault because we took forever finding dinner.
As a side note, we’ve had several nights where dinner hunting has taken longer than expected and we waited too long to start searching. We have to be pretty sensitive about price, but we are also trying to find a fun, local experience. Being picky about the experience but also cost-sensitive means we walk to quite a few restaurants checking prices and searching for something that looks tasty.
Anyway, Venice was the first time that I felt like it was really hard to find a place that would take credit cards and had affordable food. Lots of the little pasta and sandwich shops would take only cash. I’m not opposed to using cash, but I’m a little stubborn after making it two weeks abroad without using cash. We eventually found a place where we found the perfect pizza, but it came after wandering through the streets. For a while, the wandering was fun--that’s what we purposely set out to do in the first place.
Venice is quite the maze. It was fun to walk over the Grand Canal a few times. But after seeing one section of the city, everything else felt like more of the same. The water also caused some stink in some places. The buildings were cute, and the alleys between many were very narrow. It seemed like part of the stink was probably from limited sunlight in those alleys and waterways because of the tall structures on both sides of the alley. It was cute and probably worth seeing, but we were glad we didn’t plan for more time there.
Becca: Like Tay mentioned, we were a little let down by Venice. This was a place where I had always dreamed of going, but it looked quite different from the pictures. While it was still cute and fun to explore, it just looked a little old and worn, the colors on the buildings were faded (with the exception of a few that had been re-painted). It was still worth going, but just not as exciting as I was expecting. We didn't end up getting a gondola ride, which was the hope, but they were ~$90, and we didn't think it was worth the money.
Tay: We are really enjoying ourselves here. Like last week, we’ve felt a little exhausted at times, so it’s nice that we had some slower days, like our day in Lake Como and--except for the four-hour hike!--Zermatt. It was good to plan that way, as I get the feeling Rome will be much more like Paris and London--tons of walking back and forth through the city and different museums.
I also tried to think of some interesting things I’ve learned about Europe. First, with the automatic hand dryers in public restrooms, you have to put your hands up super close to the sensor. It’s a small thing, but so weird to me. At public restrooms, they also often have a common entrance that then splits into men and women. So unlike building codes in the U.S. that require that you wouldn’t be able to see into the stalls or anything from the common entrance, at some restrooms I can see Becca washing her hands at the sink or even stepping into a stall from my the men’s side. Another note, bidets are great. Like most people who have used them, I fully support them.
Becca: The public bathrooms in Europe are the best, because the close fully--no crack in the stalls doors! Come on, America.
People in Italy have been very nice. True to expectation, it’s much more laid back than Paris. But that might be partially because we are in smaller towns, not a big city like Rome. In Paris, you wanted to be very careful about standing on the wrong side of an escalator in the subways. The left side was always for people hustling up or down the steps. And people just sort of pushed past you, like I mentioned in my last update. Here, personal space seems a little more respected, and people don’t normally bump you or skirt quickly around you on a stairway or in a tunnel. I’m curious to see if Rome is more like Paris or not. We haven’t really used the subway systems since London, just trains, so it may be that Rome is just as busy as Paris or London.
Milan. Milan was worth the stop just to see the Duomo, although probably worth it only for that. The Duomo is my new favorite architecture that we’ve seen on this trip. The marble exterior is a gorgeous mix of pink and white. It’s another gothic-style cathedral, and it is massive. Much bigger than Notre Dame even. The inside was similar to Notre Dame, with huge pillars leading down the knave, but again, everything was bigger. The inside was dark, unlike the pretty, light-colored exterior. We were told that it was imperative to buy tickets to the top of the cathedral, but we weren’t as impressed with the top or the interior nearly as much as the exterior view. I think a podcast or some research would have helped us appreciate more on the inside or the view from the top. But we didn’t love the view of Milan because we didn’t really love the rest of Milan generally. I think we could have found other neat things to see if we had more time there, but we were pretty limited for time in Milan. The Duomo justified the stop though, and without a doubt it was the most important thing to see. If I were to go again, I’d want to buy tickets to another cathedral in Milan where they have Leonardo’s Last Supper. We didn’t learn until the night before that you had to buy tickets beforehand, and they were all sold out for the next couple of months. I think tickets were 10 or 20 euros for only a 15-minute look at the painting, but that would probably be worth if considering the Last Supper is so famous.
Becca: The Duomo was absolutely gorgeous. It won the best exterior for any cathedral we saw in Europe, hands down! It was interesting that so many of the cathedrals we saw were either stunning on the outside or the inside, not both. I think the one that did the best on the outside and the inside was the cathedral in Pisa (more coming up about that later). We did love the floor of the Duomo, and the beautiful stained-glass windows! We just wished the inside wasn't so dark and matched the outside marble. Going up to the top of the Duomo may have been more impressive if the biggest spire at the top wasn't covered in scaffolding. :) I was actually surprised by how nervous I was climbing the marble steps on the roof up to the very top--I was so grateful it wasn't raining, because I just had a picture in my head that I would have slipped and flew right off the roof.
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| Baptistry under the Duomo |
Tay: We had our first Italian pizza here at a cute shop close to the train station. Many of the restaurants have a small interior, and instead, they have an enclosed canopy--like the white Scout tents we used to set up for shade out on the wide sidewalks where people can sit and eat. Like Paris, dining seems like a pretty public event and people can just walk by watching as you eat and chat.
Becca: We loved the pizza in Italy. There seemed to be two different kinds, either on a thicker focaccia bread or a thinner crust. Both were good, but my favorite was the thin. Yummm. On the way to the Duomo, we walked through a fun shopping center that was quite beautiful. It had a gorgeous glass roof, and made me think that City Creek in SLC, UT, could have been inspired by it. It was very high end, with Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada there.
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| Leonardo Da Vinci |
Tay: Lake Como. We stayed in Lecco to see Lake Como. Our Lecco Airbnb was huge and nice, poorly furnished. The furniture all seemed super out-of-date, but it wasn’t a problem per se. We were so happy to have a nice kitchen, sitting area, bathroom, and bedroom. The only notable thing about Lecco itself was the supermarket we asked our hosts for directions to. Turns out the whole mall, of which the supermarket is a part, is underground. We wondered why because in that spot there seemed like plenty of room above ground to build everything we saw below.
Becca: I was super excited to head to Lake Como, as it was recommended highly and was said to feel like Switzerland with the alps. It lived up to our expectations. :) We stayed in Lecco, on the bottom right leg of Lake Como, because...well, we got a better, cheaper hotel there. But! That was for a reason. Nothing really too special about Lecco. It had an underground grocery store (which took us forever to find, cause who ever thinks of looking underground?1), so that's cool. But it was still beautiful to be surrounded by alp-like mountains, and just a short train ride away from the more famous cities on Lake Como.
Tay: After grabbing groceries, we enjoyed relaxing at our apartment the rest of that night. Friday, the next morning, we went by train to Varenna, a town nearby with pretty views of Lake Como. Lake Como is a large lake that has some very pretty, picturesque towns surrounding it, including Varenna and Bellagio. Our Airbnb host told us that George Clooney has a house in Bellagio. We didn’t go there but went to Varenna instead. It was very nice to walk around the small town and explore a little bit. We had our first Italian gelato, and it was awesome. To me, it’s not that much different than ice cream, but I’m happy for any excuse to eat ice cream-like food. Rebecca was particularly excited because they had dairy-free fruit flavors of gelato--a lot like sorbet.
We enjoyed walking around the town for a couple hours while it was sunny, but we knew the weather was supposed to turn rainy. Our timing was just perfect and we were ready to go home just when it started to rain. We took the train back, picked up a few more groceries to last the next few days--including a bag of shortbread cookies that we discovered the day before and wanted more of.
Becca: I loved Varenna! It was the perfect Italian town on a lake. Absolutely gorgeous. We were going to take the ferry across the lake to see the other cities, but it was overcast and looked like it might start raining at any minute, so we decided to just explore Varenna itself. We did enjoy looking across the lake and seeing the cities--they were beautiful. We had so much fun in this romantic little city! We saw a group that we overheard say something about a wedding, and it just make me think how dreamy a wedding there would be! The gelato place we stopped at had a "dairy free" sign, which made me oh-so-happy. I had looked this up online, because I was nervous about missing out on all the gelato, so I knew that some places offered it, but I didn't think we'd actually find it on our first stop! Now I'm not actually sure if it was actually dairy free, or if it was just sorbet--which is always dairy free, and which I ate the rest of our trip in Italy.
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| Bellagio |
VERONA
Tay: Verona. After two nights in Lake Como (technically we were staying in a town called Lecco because it was most cost-effective than Varenna), we went to Verona. Verona is a cute little city, supposedly Shakespeare’s inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed it because we thought of it more as a pit stop on our way to Venice. About twenty minutes’ walk from the Verona train station we ran right into the town center where they had a large, circular Roman-style open theater (like the Coliseum). We just got a glimpse inside, where they were setting up for a production of some sort. The town center was really cute. In the middle was a small park with a statue, trees, and benches. It was surrounded by a pedestrian roundabout, and at the edge of the roundabout were all the buildings. In particular, there were a bunch of little Italian restaurants. The restaurant seating was all out on the street in front of the buildings and with rows of chairs facing toward the center of the square. By the setup, it was clear that dining there was more about watching the goings on than chatting in a booth with your friends. It was a very public dining setting, but it seemed enchanting.
We had a little difficulty with our apartment in Verona. We booked one but apparently missed an email a few hours beforehand to my email account where we were informed that our booking was no longer available and that we were to call the company, Booking.com. We didn’t learn this until we walked twenty minutes to our apartment only to find it vacant. They sent us another email with a link to a new booking we were supposed to make while they reimbursed us for the first one. The link wasn’t working, so we started walking toward the new place, assuming we’d be able to talk to the clerk there if we couldn’t get the link to work. After another twenty minutes of walking, we arrived at the second hotel, only to learn that during our walk, someone else had booked the room. After some back-and-forth with Booking.com, we finally managed to book a new place, this one on the opposite side of town, about a thirty-minute walk. By now we were hungry and a bit frustrated to have wasted our limited time in the city.
Thankfully, as we searched for food along the path to our new hotel room, we found our first Italian pasta to-go shop. They had one-minute pasta ready for us to carry on our way, and it was delicious. Mine was tasty pesto, Rebecca’s a nice tomato sauce. With some warm pasta in our bellies, we were much happier, despite being frazzled with the hotel problems.
In the end, everything turned out great. We ended up in the nicest hotel we’ve had yet, and Booking.com covered the cost difference, including our ordering in breakfast (because at our first hotel we were supposed to have continental breakfast). We enjoyed the rest of the night.
Becca: Someone should start a pasta to-go shop in America. It was amazing! Or we were just really hungry. Although we were kind of frazzled from all the hotel confusion, it was really fun to walk through the city and see sights while we were headed to the hotels. We were trying to find Juliet's balcony, but Google took us to a place that was all boarded up and closed, so we were a little sad we had missed the one thing we had on our agenda for Verona. Fortunately, while we were walking, we stumbled right into Juliet's courtyard! Ta-da! That worked out well. Not sure what was closed up in what we thought was Juliet's balcony, but we did get to see it. It was so fun to walk through Verona and think about Shakespeare being inspired to write Romeo & Juliet. We also had fun walking along the river, walking through the main piazza of town, and seeing a castle on our way to the hotel. Oh, Europe!
Our upgraded hotel was so nice. We loved it. :) One of the best things was that they delivered breakfast to us on a cute little cart. There was so much food! We ate what we could and packed the rest, like the frugal backpackers we are. I loved eating croissants so much in Europe. The sugared ones were the best. We thought the little prepackaged toasts we had throughout Italy were pretty funny. Our tray even came with cute bottles of water, milk, and orange juice.
Tay: The next morning we found an LDS chapel and attended a 10:50 sacrament meeting. Some missionaries translated for us, and it was fun to see the worldwide church. The meeting reminded me a lot of a particular Ohio branch I served in and the D.R. church. The D.R. because it was hot and sweaty and foreign in the upstairs chapel. Bellefontaine, Ohio because the members were so welcoming and friendly. The Bishop didn’t start the meeting until about 7 minutes late, and until then the members were all in the chapel talking loudly and visiting like good friends. We were welcomed by many members, and about six people were trying to help us get translation set up at the same time.
Becca: I loved church in Verona! The members were so friendly. Everyone was talking so loudly, and the meeting started late because everyone was socializing. We also enjoyed chatting with the missionaries in the ward, there seemed to be 3 pairs.
VENICE
Tay: Venice. From Verona, we trained to Venice. True to the advice from Brady and Corinne, Venice was a bit of a let-down. Part of it was our own fault because we took forever finding dinner.
As a side note, we’ve had several nights where dinner hunting has taken longer than expected and we waited too long to start searching. We have to be pretty sensitive about price, but we are also trying to find a fun, local experience. Being picky about the experience but also cost-sensitive means we walk to quite a few restaurants checking prices and searching for something that looks tasty.
Anyway, Venice was the first time that I felt like it was really hard to find a place that would take credit cards and had affordable food. Lots of the little pasta and sandwich shops would take only cash. I’m not opposed to using cash, but I’m a little stubborn after making it two weeks abroad without using cash. We eventually found a place where we found the perfect pizza, but it came after wandering through the streets. For a while, the wandering was fun--that’s what we purposely set out to do in the first place.
Venice is quite the maze. It was fun to walk over the Grand Canal a few times. But after seeing one section of the city, everything else felt like more of the same. The water also caused some stink in some places. The buildings were cute, and the alleys between many were very narrow. It seemed like part of the stink was probably from limited sunlight in those alleys and waterways because of the tall structures on both sides of the alley. It was cute and probably worth seeing, but we were glad we didn’t plan for more time there.
Becca: Like Tay mentioned, we were a little let down by Venice. This was a place where I had always dreamed of going, but it looked quite different from the pictures. While it was still cute and fun to explore, it just looked a little old and worn, the colors on the buildings were faded (with the exception of a few that had been re-painted). It was still worth going, but just not as exciting as I was expecting. We didn't end up getting a gondola ride, which was the hope, but they were ~$90, and we didn't think it was worth the money.
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| Training in to Venice |
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| My go-to pose when it's too bright is to just kiss Tay. haha. |
Tay: We are really enjoying ourselves here. Like last week, we’ve felt a little exhausted at times, so it’s nice that we had some slower days, like our day in Lake Como and--except for the four-hour hike!--Zermatt. It was good to plan that way, as I get the feeling Rome will be much more like Paris and London--tons of walking back and forth through the city and different museums.
I also tried to think of some interesting things I’ve learned about Europe. First, with the automatic hand dryers in public restrooms, you have to put your hands up super close to the sensor. It’s a small thing, but so weird to me. At public restrooms, they also often have a common entrance that then splits into men and women. So unlike building codes in the U.S. that require that you wouldn’t be able to see into the stalls or anything from the common entrance, at some restrooms I can see Becca washing her hands at the sink or even stepping into a stall from my the men’s side. Another note, bidets are great. Like most people who have used them, I fully support them.
Becca: The public bathrooms in Europe are the best, because the close fully--no crack in the stalls doors! Come on, America.
People in Italy have been very nice. True to expectation, it’s much more laid back than Paris. But that might be partially because we are in smaller towns, not a big city like Rome. In Paris, you wanted to be very careful about standing on the wrong side of an escalator in the subways. The left side was always for people hustling up or down the steps. And people just sort of pushed past you, like I mentioned in my last update. Here, personal space seems a little more respected, and people don’t normally bump you or skirt quickly around you on a stairway or in a tunnel. I’m curious to see if Rome is more like Paris or not. We haven’t really used the subway systems since London, just trains, so it may be that Rome is just as busy as Paris or London.
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