Day 8 & 9: Trip to Roma and Home

(Molly Post)

The last two days in Europe were made up of bus, trains and planes (and everything in between). We woke up on Saturday morning in Positano to a spectacular view, though it was a VERY windy morning.

You can actually see the wind blowing the water in the below picture!

We had a great final breakfast at our hotel, showered, packed, and went down to the beach for a final walk around town. We found a bench in the sun, and I couldn't resist laying in the sun for a few minutes while Cody walked around.

We finally went to the Duomo (the dome we saw from our window). It was very pretty, though if you enlarge the photo you can see that some of the stained glass window was broken.

We went back to the restaurant we ate at the previous evening for a bite to eat before we left (it was the only place open). Cody tried some lemon dessert, while I had some of the great mozzarella and tomatoes once more. Below is one last view of the beach...

By 12PM, we were on our way to the bus stop to catch the bus to Sorrento. From Sorrento, we caught the local train, the Circumvesuviana, to Naples.

When we arrived in Naples, we discovered we had just missed the train to Roma and had to wait around for over an hour. Cody had drank one too many bottles of water that morning and needed a restroom, and I was freezing in the train station - it was outdoors, as most train stations in Europe are. So, we stopped in McDonald's...our greatest shame of the trip...and rested there for the hour.

The train back to Roma was not as nice as the one we took on the way down. We had an assigned seat and were stuck facing other passengers. I spent most of the 2 hour train reading and Cody listened to music. We got to Roma around 5 PM. After a quick stop at the best gelato place in Roma (the train station), we walked over to our hostel. Even though we hadn't been there for 3 years, I remembered exactly where it was. Unfortunately, they didn't have any 2-bedroom rooms left for the evening, so we took our 2 beds in a room of 6. There were 3 Aussies in the room when we arrived, and they were getting ready for a night on the town. They seemed very nice, but definitely ready to party. On the other hand, Cody and I dropped off our bags and set off to window shop and grab an early dinner. To Cody's dismay, we didn't find any "Euro-shoes", but we did have some good pizza for our last Italian meal.

We attempted a fun last night in Italy by grabbing a beer in the hostel bar when we returned from dinner but were both so tired that one beer was all we managed. It didn't help that some high school kids made the hostel their weekend hangout place and were blasting Italian music. We were in bed by 10PM, though we were woken up multiple times between 11PM-2AM by the various people knocking on the door for help getting in. They were all too drunk/tired to figure out the lock. Poor Cody had to let them all in since he was on the bottom bunk.

We woke up Sunday morning around 6AM to catch our flight back to Dublin. A walk to the train station, a bus to the airport, and a plane later, we found ourselves back in Ireland! :) Below are some pretty pictures of the Alps from the plane.

Back in Dublin, we got some lunch (and our last Guinness/Magners) and did all of our souvenir and gift shopping. Leaving Dublin was a little sad. It felt like we had barely left New York, and we definitely hadn't spent enough time in Ireland this trip. Italy was absolutely beautiful, but Ireland is a second home. Cody and I agreed that our next trip to Europe should include at least a week in Ireland. Below is one of our final views of the Emerald Isle from the plane...the rolling hills of Glendalough.

Until our next trip...