This morning Alex and I slept in again, then promptly ate breakfast at the cafe on Porta Rossa by Strozzi. Feeling stresed and anxious about packing, we headed back to the hotel and got it out of the way so we could enjoy the last day of our vacation. Alex had been in Florence once before, but had never seen the inside of Santa Croce, so that was our first stop. We saw the church and the museum, then ate pizza margherita in the piazza. Next we headed across the river to the Pitti Palace. I was interested in seeing all of the paintings, as well as the palace apartments, fashion designs, and modern art installations. We loved it, but tired quickly from being on our feet for five hours. We walked by up to our hostel and took a quick siesta to prepare for our night’s plans. After our rest, we grabbed Chinese to go and a bottle of wine and took the bus up to Piazza Michelangelo to watch the sunset. We turned in early, as our plane left the next morning at 7:30 am.

Sleeping in this morning felt great, as it was the first morning in a long time we didn’t have to travel anywhere. Our first priority when we woke up was to buy presents for our families, because we only had two days left to do so. We found my dad a calendar at a book shop near our hotel, we found Alex’s dad a book that contained drawings and models of Da Vinci’s inventions, and Alex’s mom 2 cashmere scarves and a bottle of Limoncello from the San Lorenzo open air market. For lunch we ate at a kebab place near San Lorenzo. After shopping, we dropped our purchases off at the hotel, and headed to the Duomo to climb the dome. The line wasn’t too long, and the views of Florence were beautiful. We came back down and made a beeline for Zara and the open air market at Piazza dell’ Republica, where I splurged and bought myself a leather photo albumn. Exhausted from so much walking (442 stairs to get up to the top of the Duomo!) we went back to the hotel for a quick siesta. After our rest, the concierge of our hotel gave me directions to a Mexican restaurant called Tijuana. The restaurant, located near the Bargello, was really cute and I thought it’d be a great break from Italian food. I ordered enchiladas, and Alex ordered fajitas. Unfortunately, my enchiladas contained chunky sour cream, so I opted to drink margaritas for dinner instead. Alex’s fajitas were amazing. Go figure. After dinner we stopped in the Piazza della Signoria to listen to an orchestra perform, before turning in for the night.

Alex and I were both depressed that we had to wake up early and leave Capri. We wanted to hire a boat to take us to the Grotta Azura, but our train was scheduled to leave Naples at 3:45, so we made the decision to take a cab down to Marina Grande. We got on an early boat and sat on the top deck, and the views, sunlight, and water cheered us both up. Once we landed in Naples, we began the long walk from the docks to the train station. About half way there, I told Alex we had to stop and eat lunch, as the dirtiness, traffic, and general disarray of the city was bothering me. We chose the nearest restaurant, and it turned out to be a diamond in the rough: great food, great wine, and kind service. About an hour later we continued on our journey, and arrived at the train station with 45 minutes to spare. We took the Eurostar back to Florence, and I lost myself in Anna Karenin for the entire ride. We arrived at the Santa Maria Novella train station and walked to our hostel, which turned out to be located only 2 blocks from the San Gallo campus. Along the way we ran into Allison and Bob eating at a Chinese restaurant. We said a quick hello, then continued on our way. At the hostel we changed, grabbed a slice of pizza and a bacardi breezer from the Jolly Cafe, then headed to the Academy. Normally the Academy, which contains the famous statue of “David,” is crowded, and the line to get in wraps around several city blocks. BUT since I lived in Florence so long, I knew that it was open late on Friday nights, a little known fact to tourists. There was no line, and only about 20 people total inside the museum. Afterwards we went to the same Chinese restaurant we saw Allison at and ate dinner, then went to the hotel for bed.

This morning we woke up around 9:00 again, and I had another melt down. I checked my bank account at our hostel’s internet kiosk, and it was grim. Alex and I came to the decision that he would pay for everything for the rest of the trip, and I’d pay him back when we got home, because I didn’t have any more money left. We ate our continental breakfast, and headed to the docks to catch the boat to Capri. Once we arrived on the island, we waited for an hour and a half for the bus to Anacapri, a town on the other side of the island, where our hotel is located. The bus dropped us off at Piazza Vittorria, and we attempted to walk to our hotel. Unfortunately we didn’t have a map, and the directions we were provided with from hostels.com were no help. After about an hour, we gave up, walked back to Piazza Vittorria, ate lunch, bought a map, and finally found our hotel. We rested for about an hour, then consulted our concierge for how best to spend our night in Capri. Unfortunately, everything on the island closes at 5:00 pm, so our only option was to take the bus to Faro, the Southwest point of the island with a lighthouse, beach, and excellent views of the sunset. We hiked around the coast for an hour and a half, then took the bus back to Anacapri. We found a cute restaurant where we ate pasta and tiramisu by candlelight, then headed to the hotel for bed.

Alex and I woke up fairly early today, but got a late start, as I had somewhat of a meltdown first thing in the morning. I was upset because I absolutely hated my first impression of Naples, our hostel was disgustsing, and I was exhausted from our last two days of traveling. I finally got myself under control, we ate breakfast, then walked to Napoli Centrale to catch the train to POMPEII! We spent about 4 hours exploring the ruined town, and I loved every second of it, although Vesuvius is still looming in the background. After we took the train back, we showered, changed, and walked to a castle near the fishing docks that housed a myriad of outdoor restaurants. It was very relaxing and romantic, and we got to share a bottle of wine.