Green Eggs & Jamón: Italia, prego! [Part 2]

[Cinque Terre: nature is good for the soul]

And for the much anticipate story that happened in Florence....here we go!
First of all, Tuesday morning we decided to take advantage of our last few hours in Rome by going up to the top of the St. Peter's Basilica Copula. I must say, not too shabby of a view!

View from the top of the Copula

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

And alas, we hopped onto the train where I somehow managed to get a business class seat (I knew something was off when I stepped on and everyone around me was an Italian business man in a suit, seated in the super comfy reclining chairs) but hey, I'll take it! The ride needless to say, was quite comfortable and the views of rolling Tuscan hills were absolutely breathtaking. I've always loved train rides for this reason, you can't help but stare out the window while taking in the amazing sights for a few hours, getting lost in your own little world. These moments are just good for the soul.

I've set up this great, "I'm in my happy place" feeling to draw the stark contrast of the awful unfolding event just around the bend....

After the train ride we arrived in rainy Florence and found bus #17, just like the hostel directions told us. To our confusion and surprise, no one on the bus paid the bus driver anything...and the bus driver was plugged into his ipod headphones in his little bus cubicle of a plastic box. So we wondered, maybe you pay when you get off? Maybe it's a ride free zone? Nevertheless, we were a few stops away from our stop when an "inspector" gets on the bus and starts asking people for their tickets...."no problem," I think, "just show him our money and say we didn't know where to pay," I tell Carly. Dead wrong, it was a problem indeed. The guy got all mad and treated us terribly saying condescending things like, "In-a Italy, we don't have a 'sorry,' we have a 'you pay da fine!' " Despite our shocked faces (mine of course, on the verge of tears), and explaining that we had literally just gotten here (as if the giant backpacks on our backs weren't enough to show that) and really weren't trying to cheat the system, he began writing up a ticket for our 50 euro fine...that's right, FIFTY EUROS! (that's about 70 U.S. dollars) Ouch. I am so thankful we both managed to have that much cash on us or who knows what could have happened...we probably would have ended up in an Italian police station with the nerve this guy had...the next Amanda Knox cases, perhaps?

Once we got off, I let some of the tears go and once again, when we got the hostel...haha. The front desk lady gave us our bill and when Carly mentioned 'hey, this is cheaper than our bus ride,' the story had to be told and so I lost it in front of her and just had to say, "I'm sorry, it's just been a long day," and "people can be mean," I thought in my head.

Although we felt as if we had been treated like criminals and nothing we would say mattered, we were determined to not let this guy define Florence for us. Hard lesson definitely learned, though.

And so we decided that what we needed was to get away from the city, the tourists, and get ourselves some nature fix. Spontaneous day trip to Cinque Terre (5 little towns that are situated on cliffs, overlooking the ocean) ensued the following day.

As great as Rome was, we were feeling overwhelmed by all of the touristy aspects, the hundreds of peoples on the streets trying to sell you the weirdest, purposeless things, the crowds...Cinque Terre soon solved all of that though and did our souls good. We pulled into the tiny cliff town of Vernazza and spent the afternoon soaking up the NATURE (we quickly realized we really are Pacific Northwest girls at heart) and the WATER, under some Tuscan sun...the day was absolutely perfect and made me wish we had made more of our Italy based out of small coastal towns like this. The locals were so nice, the views were amazing, and it was just so peaceful. This was the Italy I had been wanting to experience.