Keeping Up with Elise: Meet me in Milan

Fallen in love...with Italy. The open fields of green and stacked colored houses. With the people and amazing food. And especially with the language. Everything that was said sounded like a song! And it’s fairly easy to figure out what people are saying thanks to that lovely Latin root that I loved so much when learning Spanish (although I think I love Italian a bit more!)

The trip was almost a teaser glimpse of Italy…seeing images flash by on the train to Cinque Terre and on the way back to Milan of places I hadn't seen, towns I hadn’t gotten to experience due to the lack of time. I feel lucky to have been able to be there though, even for a little while.

Cinque Terre was exactly as I pictured. The weather was forecasted showers the entire trip, which was kinda a letdown. But the few afternoons of sunshine we were blessed with helped so much with our ability to be able to explore and lounge outside in that beautiful place.

We stayed in Monterosso, the Northern most point of the five cities. I have to say after visiting (almost) all the other cities, it was my absolute favorite. Granted there were plenty of tourists, it had such a homey feeling, as we were staying on the main street paralleling the beach. There were cafes and gelatarias everywhere as I had pictured. And after a half an hour walk along that road, there was another section of the town that had clusters of shops that looked like storybook land.

I was able to visit Vernazza, Manarola, and Riomaggiore (which was my least favorite, we quickly left to go to Manarola). We weren’t able to see Cornaglia unfortunately, but maybe that will be seen next time I visit.

I loved seeing the different traits these towns had, along with the similarities…almost like how each of the Greek islands I’ve traveled to are both alike and different in many ways.

Some of the best times were afternoons of walking along the pebbled beach, eating at a little beach café (specialty being strawberries and whipped cream!) and collecting unique pieces of colored pottery and sea glass along the waters edge. And nothing beats that initial awestruck feeling we had when we arrived and saw where we would be staying, and how beautiful it all looked, even in the rain.

We met so many people along this journey, on the plane, trains and stations, buses, hotels, restaurants, all of them adding different elements and stories to our trip.

I’ll explain more on each blog post of what we did that day…this is just an overall reflection of those six days, in a nutshell.

I miss it already, and can’t wait to go back eventually to experience the other well and lesser known towns that I didn’t get to see this round. It may not have been a stereotypical 21^st birthday, but it meant worlds more to me to have been able to travel to a place I’ve always wanted to see and spend it here (although I thought of everyone from home and carried them on my journey with me!)

Ciao! Arrivaderci!

Milan Day 1 (Saturday's journey):

Our friend Shayla was going to a different part of Italy at the same time, so we were able to travel to the airport with her.

The cutest couple from Milan that I met on the plane. They taught me a few phrases in Italian and told me multiple times to try the "Foccacia con formaggio". Also in Athens, we met up with Carleigh's friend Chloe who went on the trip with us, and is also staying in Greece until we leave.