Backpackers Lesson #4, Part 2!

Missed part one of my trip through Italy? Here's the first few days.

The facade of the Medici Family Church. Never finished, but prepped to
receive the marble!

My second morning in Florence I took a FREE walking tour of the city, where I learned the history of the Medici family, really the family responsible for starting the Renaissance. Exploring the ancient part of Florence, I saw the image of Dante, and entered the tiny chapel outside of which he met the inspiration for his Divine Comedy. The rainy day that followed saw me fighting to get into various museums and churches, after a wonderful panino, or sandwich at a small shop tucked away on a side street. Eventually I made it in the museum, saw the David and left. I wasn't particularly impressed by the rest of the works--nor was I a fan of the masses of people that seemed to bump into me at every opportunity. If I had extra time, I really wanted to go to the Uffizi museum--which seems to have a much greater variety of classic art by some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. I spent the rest

Backpacker's Lesson #4: Avoid the tourists.

I'm not kidding. Avoid them. "Wait...aren't you a tourist, too?" No. Well, technically yes. But I like to think not--there's a reason I stay at a hostel; it's because I'm a cheap college student that can't really afford to pay for a hotel. So no, I'm not a tourist. I'm a backpacker. (Let's just avoid the technicalities of this, okay? Great.)

My Italy trip was the second (and final) trip that I made solo. I spent my first day in Rome, checking out the Vatican City. Like a true, uninformed tourist--er, backpacker--I took my passport with me. I was going to the world's smallest country; I wanted a stamp to prove it!

Backpacker's Lesson #3: Trust Yourself

My first solo adventure, and it took some guts. I took a weekend trip to País Vasco, in the northern part of Spain and visited Bilbao and San Sebastian. It's an incredible part of Spain and so different than Madrid, Barcelona, or the southern regions. País Vasco is all its own. I was struck by how much of a different world it really is. The region has its own language known in English as vasco, in their language as euskadí. And from what I've heard, the language has no known connection to ANY other modern language. Strange, eh? So let's get started on this journey.