The tour ended this morning and I’m a little sad about it.
I’ve spent 8 days with some incredible people and have made some new lifelong
friends. There were people from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa,
Singapore, all over the US, and many other places. It was obvious very quickly
how the groups formed with people who are similar and have fun together.
Our last day was spent in Venice. We had traveled all day
long from Florence on the 3rd stopping in Verona and some outlet
shopping mall. I really liked Verona. We got to see Juliet’s home and have a
nice afternoon prosecco at a local eatery. The shopping was incredible in
Verona. I bought a really cute green bikini.
There was an included dinner in Verona. We had dinner there
at about 7:00pm. It wasn’t the best dinner we’ve had on this trip but not
terrible. The cheeses are always great, 2nd course was Gnocchi which
is always delicious as well, but the 3rd course was a bland chicken
and some potatoes. I was not impressed at all. But, the wine and gelato made up
for it later.
We left the restaurant ready to make the 1.5 hr drive to our
hotel just outside of Venice. We didn’t stay in the town of Venice because the
only way in is by a 30 minute train and then you would have to walk with all of
your luggage through uneven streets, over bridges, and loaded into boats. Not
easy at all unless you have the bag like this lady I saw that had three wheels
on it that were arranged in a circle so her bag was capable of actually
climbing steps. Anyway, we made it only about 10 minutes outside of town and
Yannick was going over the survey’s that he needed us to complete and a few
other things when all of the sudden he says “Ok, we may not make it to the
hotel by 10:30pm now, we must stop for a short time to repair a belt on the
bus.” We all started laughing because this happened just as we were to complete
our survey’s about how wonderful the trip was. Ironic, right?
It wasn’t that bad after it was all said and done but we had
to get off the bus because it was so hot without it running. We all made quite
a few jokes about the whole ordeal. We had just taught Yannick about the term
FML earlier that day so it was quite appropriate when he was standing behind
the bus helping the bus driver remove 4 giant belts from the engine’s
alternator and try to replace them. He looked back at us and said very
affirmatively “FML!” We all died laughing.
To kill time we decided we should open a bottle of wine that
we had purchased the night before to drink while watching the sunset in Florence
from Piazzale Michelangelo. We were always prepared with wine openers and tiny
plastic cups. All in all it turned out to be an ok pit stop except the fact
that we didn’t get to our hotel until 12:30 am and we were all exhausted
because this particular day started at 6:00am and none of us had slept the
night before considering it was our last night in Florence and we wanted to end
it on a good note.
I actually went out every night in Florence. I didn’t care
how tired I was or how early we would have to be up the next morning. It was
completely worth it every single night. So with that being said, the day we
drove all day and stopped in Verona was a beating for me. I am not one to sleep
on trains, plains, and automobile’s but I was OUT during that bus ride. I fell
into my bed when we arrived and woke up pretty early because we had to catch a
train into Venice at 8:20am. I swear I didn’t actually wake up until I started
drinking wine again at about 1:00pm for lunch. Of course, after lunch we all
split up to go see and do the things we wanted to do on our own. I just walked
around and got lost over and over and over again. I stopped for some truffle’s
in a very nice chocolate shop. Every so often I would come across a piazza and
stop to sit down around the fountain or statue that was in the middle. I’d
watch people and rest my feet.
In on piazza in particular I saw a young girl kicking around
a little ball and had a Barbie in her hand. I started kicking the ball around
with her and we laughed and giggled. She was adorable but of course didn’t
speak English so we just kicked the ball and chased after it time and time
again. After a bit I decided to continue on, so I headed back towards the San
Marco Square where we were meeting prior to our final dinner. I stopped for
some gelato. YUM! I found a little garden/park area with some benches. I still
had about 2 hrs to kill before we were all meeting back up so I sat on a bench,
took off my cardigan and rolled my pants up a bit. I couldn’t hold my eyes open
any longer I was so exhausted so I laid down half on the bench and my feet on
the ground and literally took a nap with the sun shining down on me in this
park. It was amazing!!! I wasn’t the only one napping so I didn’t feel out of
place. I wrapped my purse around my shoulder and just zipped it up, clasped my
arms around the zips and napped away.
Once it was time to meet back up, I walked to our meeting
spot. We had another group dinner that we had to pay extra for but we (the fab
6, Brian from CT, Sarah from OK, Allison from NYC, Jacob from Ft. Worth,
Marissa from Singapore, and myself) decided to do it so we could have a final
dinner with the group. Yannick sat with us and he told use some incredible
stories about previous trips he’d been on and crazy stories about Ibiza and
Brazil. He meets some really crazy people but also very nice ones as well.
We’ve all decided that if we go on another Contiki trip it will be one of his.
We all have is email and I got his phone number so we can stay in touch.
I'm in Monterosso now and it is breathtaking. The cliff views over the ocean are just amazing. We had dinner outside sitting on the edge of a cliff pretty much. Just lovely. We are headed out to do the hike this morning. Just finished up breakfast and about to head out.
Ciao!!!!