Joseph Youl

Rome turned out to be as amazing as I expected. After nearly 24 hours chilling on the ferry, we arrived at Ancona. We then had a quick train ride to Termini, the train station which we became very familiar with over our stay in Rome. Once we had dropped off the luggage at the Downtown Hostel, we went out for a night tour and caught out first glimpse of the Colosseum. It’s nearly impossible to remember all of the churches we visited over those 5 days but some of them stick in your mind. Most certainly, the most impressive church we visited was St Peter’s in Vatican city. The scale of the cathedral was astonishing, it surpasses all other buildings I have ever been to and there’s no doubt that it is the most impressive church built. Some other amazing churches we went to were St. Paul’s without the walls, St. John Lateran and St. Maria. We didn’t only see churches though we also went to various Piazzas, ruins, arches, fountains and buildings. The only other places which stick in my mind are the Trevi fountain, the ruins of Ostia and the Colosseum.

Once we had finished in Rome, we took an hour and a half train ride to Florence, in which we stayed in a very nice hotel, right next to the Arno river. On the day we arrived we headed out to Pisa to see the iconic leaning tower of Pisa. The tower was more impressive than I expected, and there were some great markets set up around it. Once back we went for a night tour of Florence and saw Il Duomo, the massive dome. The next day we endured a “pleasant” 3 or 4 hour wait in the queue for the Uffizi Gallery. The wait turned out to be worth it though, as we saw some of the most incredible paintings and statues. The following day we finally visited Il Duomo which was certainly the highlight of the city, after seeing this, we  saw a church or two then had the afternoon to ourselves, to roam the market and forage for food. To finish off that night we went up a hill and had a night view of Florence. Our final day in Italy was spent in Venice, the city which had very few major attractions other than the city itself. Venice was definitely one of the highlights of Italy, simply because the city was awesomely confusing and great fun to walk around.

The Thello overnight train to Dijon was great fun, with 6 boys being crammed into each 1.5x1.0x2.0 meter cabins. During the trip we viewed an awesome lightening storm happening off in the distance. Upon arriving in Dijon, we proceeded to take yet another train, this one a mere 3 hour ride to Avignon, at which we collected some mini vans and headed off to our luxurious hotel in the country side of Beaucaire. Beaucaire was no doubt the holiday/break part of the trip. Every day we would have a late breakfast at 8am, where we would stuff ourselves with pain au chocolat, croissants and various other breads and pastries. After this we wouldn’t leave until 9:30 at which point we would take the vans out and view only 2 or 3 things and we would normally be back around 4 or 5. We would then proceed to have bombing and diving competitions in the pool followed by sun bathing for several hours. Dinner would then be a 3 course meals with a seemingly infinite amount of bread between the courses. We would then hang out for an hour or two and finally head back to our rooms and have the best sleeps of the trip.

In conclusion, the amount of famous art in Italy is astonishing, the amount of pizza I can consume is also astonishing and Beaucaire is astonishingly chill.