MY FAMILY CAME TO COME! My mom, Ethan and Ryan came to visit me the week before my spring break. It was such a change of pace to be the ‘expert’ and not depending on others to tell be where to go. It was fun to have my family look to me on how to order gelato or how to take the tram. To think that in just a few months I’ve begun to think of Rome as my home in incredible.
I was coming off a kind of rough state of mind. My trips to London and Barcelona the weeks before were completely draining (even though I loved them both) and I was almost to my breaking point with stress. When I finally saw my family I burst into tears because I was just so happy and comforted to have them here.
Having them here brought me back to earth/reality in a good way. I feel pretty disconnected from life back home for obvious reasons. So like how I mentioned that seeing Lindsey and Alex in London brought me back to reality, my family made me feel the same way.
They were staying at an apartment in the heart of Trastevere, closer to my school then my apartment was so I moved in with them for the week. We spend a lot of time in Trastevere and I I took them to my favorite restaurants and gelato places. Needless to say the whole family was in love with Italian food after the first day. I think Ryan had spaghetti carbonara at every meal.
Our first major excursion was to the Vatican Museums. This was something that I hadn’t done yet in Rome so we got to experience it for the first time together. I didn’t realize just how much was inside the Vatican Museums! There were art and artifacts from all over the world. The best part was obviously seeing the Sistine Chapel. No photos were allowed but it was more beautiful that I thought it would be. I can’t imagine what it would be like to paint it in such great detail.
Another highlight of my family’s visit to Italy was our day trip to Capri! Its hard to choose a favorite but I feel like Capri might be my favorite place in Italy. We took a 3 hour bus ride to Naples where we hopped on a ferry boat that took us to the island in about an hour. When we arrived to the island we pulled into one of two towns, Capri. The other town is Anacapri and is located on top of the hills of the island. The Blue Grotto was closed on the day that we were there so we opted for a tour around the island where we got to outside of the all the grottos and see the rock formations in the water surrounding the island.
The water was the bluest water I’ve ever seen. It was absolutely unreal. I will actually amend that statement and say that Capri was overall the bluest place I’ve ever been in my life. I could try for forever to count all the shades of blue between the sky and the sea and not even come close. We looked down over the edge of the boat and saw little jelly fish bobbing along in the water. I absolutely did not want the tour to end.
After our tour around the island we got some to explore the town on top of the island in Anacapri. We ate a delectable meal with super fresh seafood and got to check out the little shops that were sprinkled over the cliffs. Not to mention the incredible lookout points at the top of the island.
Now this was probably the best part. Our tour guide called this look out point the “Mamma Mia” spot because everyone always says “Oh My God” when they see it. It lived up to its name for sure.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my families visit! More to come 🙂
everywhere emily 