Italia Island Hopping: Sardinia, Sicily, & Roma
Roma, 06/11 - 06/12
My mom and brother flew from the States to meet me in Roma, so for the next week we spent the time traveling around Italia. I haven’t seen them in 6 months, so of course my mom was bawling at the airport lol. My flight from Budapest and their flight from New Jersey landed at the same time, so that worked out well. We got an Airbnb near Termini (the main train station in Roma) because the following day I was taking them to Sardinia. I told them to only bring a backpack and a small carry-on, but of course they OVERPACKED. Each of them had a checked bag on wheels (which was horrible because every street in Italia is stone.) Adding checked baggage for our flights was nearly double of what we spent on the flight itself lmao. My dad gave them the credit card, so I barely spent anything. Swipe Swipe Swipe Swipe Swipe :) I showed them Colosseum, the Roman Forum, a couple piazzas, and then we grabbed a pizza and wine for a snack. We visited the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps and then had dinner in the neighborhood of Monti. We had to be at the airport for 6am, so we ended up only getting a couple hours of sleep.
Sardinia, 06/12 - 06/14
We flew into Cagliari and bused to our Airbnb in a small rundown town called Capitana. There was literally nothing, but it was kinda nice just having your own place in a secluded spot. The public transit was horrible. There was no metro and can only travel by bus. It came very rarely, and sometimes the schedules never lined up. Like, you need a car for this island in order to see the amazing shit, but we made the best of it. We spent the day at the beach and then had dinner at this really fancy place in town (it was so weird, like idk why this place was in this rundown part of the island.)
The next day, we were going to try to take a bus to a popular beach near Villasimius. We went to the stop, ended up getting on the wrong bus, then got off the bus and was in the middle of no where. Literally stranded. We ran to the next stop where we thankfully caught another bus that was heading to Villasimius. We laid on the beach, had some lunch, and then I dragged them for a hike lol. They were not having it, but when we reached the top it was all worth it. The walk back to town was an hour, so they were complaining non-stop lol. They just weren’t used to the daily walking. My mom’s flip flop ended up breaking from when we were running to the bus stop and had to search for new ones in the nearby shops. It was so funny. We caught the last bus back to our small little village, and then cooked up some pasta. I ended up washing all of my clothes in the washer (last time I washed them was probably 3 weeks ago lol.)
We got up early and took the bus to Cagliari (be mindful that my mom and brother are still carrying around these huge luggages lol.) We rented a locker to store the luggage for the day and then walked around. I took them to a famous piazza called Piazza Martiri d’Italia, showed them a couple churches, and then had pizza and a Sardinia beer at a cute restaurant.
Sicily, 06/14 - 06/17
We took a flight to Catania, Sicily where we had a flat near a cute church. There was no lift, so we had to lug all of their fucking luggage up 3 flights of stairs. My mom finally met her breaking point and freaked out when she was wheeling it on the sidewalk lol. We settled in, and then went to dinner. I had sea urchin risotto (sooooo good.)
My mom wanted to get a tattoo so bad, so the next day we stopped at a tattoo parlor and got tatted. I got a rose on my forearm and my mom got two hands cupping my brother’s and my initials. We met two super cool US marine soldiers who were on-duty near Catania, so we were chatting with them for a bit. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch and then took a quick nap back at the flat. We went to the one of the best seafood places I have ever been to called Pescheria Fratelli Vittorio. Highly recommend, you need a reservation!!
The next day, we went to one of Catania’s best bakery’s called Savia. We picked up some cannoli’s and went to Villa Bellini. We walked to a cute neighborhood called San Berillo District and then walked back to the flat. We scheduled a tour to Mt. Etna (if you go to eastern Sicily and do not go to this place, then you’re just plain stupid.) Etna is Europe’s largest active volcano, but it’s not that dangerous compared to others in the country. There was a recent eruption, but it was no biggie. Our tour picked us up at our Airbnb in a small van with another group, and then we headed to the volcano!! We stopped at a region that produced nearly 40% of all Italia’s honey. Note that the region only has around 100 families, so there was a ton of honey being produced by such a small community. Kinda cool. There was a ton of tastings - wine, lemonchello, honey, olives, olive oil, liquor, etc. We nearly got drunk, it was so funny. We bought some honey and wine and then continued our journey to Etna.
The tour guides were super cool btw!! The one didn’t really speak english, so we spoke mostly to the other woman. She just graduated uni with a major in geology, but has been a tour guide for Etna for a couple years. She was explaining a lot about lava tubes & rivers, craters, and the different types of ash. Pretty neat stuff. We hiked around the volcano, took some pics, and then my mom was freaking out cause she’s afraid of heights lol (it wasn’t even that high.) Afterwards, we took the van to a big lava tube and walked around inside. Sooo cool. We grabbed dinner, and then they dropped us off at our place. We had to get up at 4am the next morning to make our flight back to Roma:) RIP
Roma, 06/17 - 06/19
Shit hit the fan in Roma lol. We weren’t allowed to check into our Airbnb until 4pm (stupid). We arrived in Roma at 8am lol, so we checked our luggage into a storage facility. I’ve been living in the city for 4 months and still haven’t seen the Vatican and St. Peter’s Cathedral, so I made it a priority to visit. Of course, all of the tickets were sold out online, so we either had to buy tickets from one of the 3rd party street vendors, or wait in the 3 hours line lol. We picked up tickets, and literally spent 4 hours in the museum. There was so much to see, so beautiful. I took them to my local grocery store, Todi’s<3, where we picked up lemonchello and some snacks. I showed them my local market, my old street, and then took them to the best gelato place in the city. At this point, it was time to check in, so we headed to the Airbnb. It was terrible lol. The pics and reviews online looked fine, but it was such a shithole (not really, my brother and mom just couldn’t deal lol.) We booked another hotel room down the street that was a lot nicer though!!
We walked along the river and grabbed aperitivo at one of the pop-up bars. We walked to Trastevere and had dinner at Nanurella’s, such a great place. The next morning, we checked out and then walked around the Piazza Navona area and grabbed tiramisu at Pompi. I said goodbye to them :( and then I taxied to my hostel. I went to my old barber below my apartment, grabbed a liter of wine, and reminisced about Rome while I sat on the steps on the side of one of the Vatican Walls. I literally got drunk by myself and then peed myself as I ran to the McDonald’s bathroom. It was so funny lmao, I wish someone else could have enjoyed my humor. I took a flight to Switzerland the following morning. Ciao Roma, ci mancherai xoxo.
