Wednesday May 23rd

Wednesday brought an end to the rain and ushered in some much needed warm, sunny weather. Today was considered a free day where the members of our group were allowed to either begin their free travel or cruise around Rome for an extra day. With the hotel already booked Wednesday night, a group of us decided to stay in Rome to save money on getting a hotel wherever we intended to travel. 

I slept in until about 9 this morning and met up with the five other students who I am traveling with to Cinque Terre. As I alluded to previously, our group has free travel days from Thursday until we are scheduled to meet at noon in Florence on Sunday. The six of us decided to travel to the western Italian coastal region of Cinque Terre, known for its scenic hillsides and beaches. We will be staying in Cinque Terre Thursday and Friday night, then arriving in Florence Saturday night. Back to this morning, the six of us went to the train station to activate our Eurail passes and reserve our tickets for our Thursday morning train. Even with the language barrier, the process was pretty simple and not too much of a hassle.

Picture from Sunday at the Roman Forum

After making our travel arrangements we decided to walk around town with no real destination in mind. All of us wanted to see the town when the weather was perfect, so we stopped by a few sites we had already seen as well as visiting a couple of shops. After eating a quick lunch, the group broke up and went their separate ways for the afternoon. I decided two walk around a little while longer and actually stumbled across a newspaper stand with this past Sunday’s edition of New York Times. Realizing I had a five hour train ride Thursday morning, I thought it would be good to have some reading material along the way. As I went to pick up the newspaper I saw that the price was €12, which equates to approximately $16! I really enjoy the New York Times, but not for that price. 

I ended up heading home shortly after picking up, and quickly putting back down, the most expensive newspaper I have ever seen. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up some assigned schoolwork, blogging, and packing my bags for our trip. Since the next few days will be “free days” I’m going to take some time off from my blog and will post a trip summary when I arrive in Florence Saturday. Until then, thanks for following my travels throughout Europe.