Is there any country in the world that you could travel around all your life and never be bored? Certainly yes, and more than one. But for me until now it is Italy. I think the whole life can’t be enough to explore this country, to check all the small and big cities, cozy villages, mesmerizing beaches, breathtaking history and architecture and tasty food and wine. I’ve been twice in Italy, both times for a short visit. Each time I tried to use my time to see as much as possible in Rome, Milan and Genoa. But after each visit I was sure I want to come back again and again, to wander in other places, to feel the local atmosphere and enjoy every moment.
When something comes into my mind, some destination, some trip idea, I take my notebook and start making notes. It’s something like a project planning. I mark the cities, make a rout and after that I start to mark all the main places I don’t wanna miss in each city. And my draft itinerary is ready. The booster for this trip were some movies about Italy, such as “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Eat, Pray, Love”. The movies that were showing the real life scenes, the local spirit, made me dream about Italy more and more. So this idea was stuck in my mind and I started to work on it. So this time also, when I decided to spend my next vacation in Italy, I started to make planning, from South to North, South or North only, included the main places I wanted to visit. But what came at the end wasn’t planned at all.
Every time I was creating some rout plan and was happy about it, something was happening to ruin it. I wanted to make a trip from Venice to Naples, but it came out to be impossible due to some reasons. Then I decided to explore North area only, from Milan to Venice, again all changed. So I decided to visit my friend in Munich, and decide together where and how can we go in Italy. And it came out that the only cheap flights that we had from there was a flight to Palermo, in Sicily. That was not in my initial plans at all, but Sicily was also in my future list and I said “why not!?”. And we bought the tickets. These were the tickets to my birthday celebration. This was the first time in my life I flew on my birthday.
Usually, when I start my trip planning, I also make a detailed itinerary for each day. I know when shall I wake up and have my morning coffee, where shall I go first and where next, which museums I will have on my way, which streets I shall pass, which historical landmarks I shall see, etc. This helps to see all I really wanted without getting lost or spending more time on finding then on the way. But this was not about me this time. I decided to have more relaxed trip, to spend more time on admiring and enjoying the moment, than to follow the map and mark “checked” all the places one after another. I just decided the cities to visit, mentioned few places in each city that shouldn’t be missed, booked hotels for each place stay and packed my bags.
I don’t know why it took some time to start my stories from Italy (the trip was in March). But I want to share with you all my feelings I had during the trip, would it be good or bad, exiting or disappointing. This is what I always do after any of my trips, because I don’t want to share some standard information from Internet, but I want to show you what I really experienced, my feelings, my recommendations, my travel memories. During my one week vacation in Sicily we could feel the crazy vibes in Palermo, relax in adorable Cefalù, “run” in Agrigento and regret about it (later I will tell you why), visit Catania, “hike” and relax again in lovely Scilla and have the last night at Lamezia. You’re right, the last two places are not in Sicily, but we had to include some places on our way to Lamezia, as our departure was from there. So in upcoming post I’m gonna tell you more in details about every place we visited during my Italian vacations, which was the most unplanned, but still planned trip until now. Stay tuned, it must be interesting 😉
My Life in Travel 