It's all about the people you meet along the way

Topic of my choice - spring break 
Blog #6

It will be hard to ever top the spring break that I just had here in Europe. It was filled with sight seeing, beaches, sunshine, good food and even better company. My experiences in Naples, Italy and Barcelona, Spain have shown me how many amazing people are out there. I am going to highlight the best things that happened otherwise this blog would be a book! 

We started our spring break flying from Venice to Naples. When we arrived in Naples we were a little taken aback at first. The city looked kind of rough and we quickly learned to not judge a book by its cover when we found our hostel in Naples. The hostel we booked on hostelworld.com had amazing reviews and was voted the #1 hostel in the world several times. We were so confused because it looked like someone's home but the second we walked in, we realized it basically was. The man who runs the hostel, Giovanni, welcomed us in just like we were family. He sat us down, got us a big glass of water and took out a map of the city and started highlighting. He pointed out the areas we had to see, the areas to avoid, best places to eat and the quickest ways to get places. I would have normally paid someone for the kind of information he gave us, but he did it all just because he wanted us to have a good time! Right after that he offered to cook us lunch and teach us how to make Italian Gnocchi. We couldn't believe how friendly he was and we immediately felt better about everything. 

That day we went on to see the Archeological museum, the underground aqueduct and ate at Sorbillo's Pizza which was voted the best pizza in Naples, and where pizza supposedly originated!

The crew in the aqueduct below Naples.  

Sorbillo's Pizza in Naples! It was so good even the Pope has eaten here!

Our second day in Naples, we had all planned out thanks to Giovanni! We took a bus up to almost the top of Mt. Vesuvius and then walked the rest of the way up to see the top of the volcano. We also visited Pompeii. This was the second time I had been to Pompeii but I think I had a whole new appreciation for it this time being older and because of all the history I have studied the past month here in Europe. We met two people in our hostel room that wanted to come with us so all of us had an awesome time traveling around Naples. 

At the top of Mt. Vesuvius!

The volcano!

Exploring the Pompeii ruins. 

We found Nebraska in Pompeii!

That night we had an awesome dinner with our two new friends. We all got along so great and it seemed like we had all known each other forever. We all decided to go to an island together the next day that Giovanni recommended which was known as "Italy's secret island".  The island of Procida was about an hour ride on a ferry from Naples. When we got to Procida, we were absolutely amazed by how calm and beautiful it was. There were no tourists, we were seriously probably the only ones on the island. The locals were so nice to us and the views were breathtaking. We stopped at several little shops on the way to the beach to get stuff to have a picnic for lunch. When we got to the beach there was a pier that we layed all of our stuff out on and enjoyed strawberries, bread, cheese and olives looking out on the ocean. This was my favorite part of the whole trip. The sun started beating down so we went for a swim in the water and got a tan on the beach! I honestly couldn't believe that we were some of the only tourists on the island because it was the prettiest place I have seen in Europe. 

The beautiful island of Procida!

Our Picnic on the pier!

Sadly after a full day on the island we had to head back to Naples. We got to spend all day there but we wished we could of stayed for more. That night we went to a restaurant that served us a four course meal for only about 15 dollars! It was so fun to socialize on our last night all together. 

The next day we spent exploring Naples and going on a route that Giovanni told us would cover the best of the city in the least amount of time. We made stops at Christmas Alley where they make figures of celebrities and for nativity scenes, the Duomo cathedral, the Church of San Francesco di Paola, and some souvenir shops! We also spent time getting our bags all packed up to travel to Barcelona the next morning. 

Some funny figurines of celebrities in Christmas Alley.

Having fun with the panorama feature on our iPhones. We found our clones :)

Enjoying the view on our last day in Naples.

Naples would not have been the same if we hadn't had the knowledge of Giovanni and the friends we met and spent our days with. We were so lucky we stumbled upon these people cause they made Naples unforgettable. 

We were pretty sad in the taxi ride to the airport but excited to get to Barcelona! We stayed at a beach hostel which was about a two minute walk from a local beach. It wasn't touristy at all! We were pretty tired from the day of traveling so we just went for a walk on the beach that night and got some dinner! One thing I thought was really neat about Barcelona was that there were people exercising everywhere! You couldn't look around without seeing people on a run or doing workouts in the park or sand. They even have free exercise equipment built into the concrete on the beach! Oh and they also had free public water fountains, this was a first for us in Europe! 

This exercise equipment was everywhere along the beach!

The next day we were rested up and ready to go and see Barcelona. We were in a pretty good location so we decided to walk to the main attractions. The weather was beautiful so it was really enjoyable to see the city by foot. We admired the Sagrada Familia for quite a while. It has been under construction for over a hundred years but many are predicting that it will be finished in about 11 years. In 2026 it will have been 100 years since Gaudi's death and they want it to be finished by that year. The rest of the day we spent shopping and stopping at touristy things on our way back to the hostel. 

We only had two days left in Barcelona and we knew we wanted one of them to be spent completely on the beach! So we decided to to do a little touristy stuff one day and a beach day the next. We went to Park Guell which is a park made all of mosaic stones on the outskirts of Barcelona. It was absolutely beautiful and we even hiked through the trails around the park. After that we played sand volleyball for the rest of the night on the beach! Our last day we literally didn't do anything other than soak up the sun and pack for our trip back to the Czech Republic. It was a perfect way to end spring break and after two and a half weeks of almost constant traveling its safe to say it was nice to be back in Olomouc!  

Park Guell!

Had to say goodbye to a beautiful beach and city.