Life as a Military Wife and Special Needs Mama : Jennifer’s Visit to Italy

First, I should say that I should have written this a month ago, but it seems that I have had other things going on, it’s been crazy! I’m warning you now, this is going to be a long post.

Jennifer and I met while we were in college, we worked at the same place and became friends and have been friends since. She was in my wedding and despite being thousands of miles apart, we manage to keep in touch the best we can. She arrived on August 24th and even though we hadn’t seen each other in over 2 years, it seemed like it was just last week that we saw each other. Her trip lasted until September 13th and I think we did a lot of traveling and she was able to see a lot of Italy along with a little bit of Croatia.

The day after she arrived, we went to Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet. We first stopped at an olive orchard and we were able to taste different olive oils with the option to buy some as well. They also make soaps and shampoo’s and sell wooden spoons made out of olive tree wood.

Jennifer and I tasting olive oil….interesting experience

Then we headed into the town of Verona where we had free time to shop and look around. We went to the arena, Casa di Guiletta and walked around the city to shop. We stopped and enjoyed lunch with some wine, overall it was a pretty good day in Verona.

After seeing the city of Verona we headed to a Medieval Times dinner. This was fun, I’ve never been to one, but the audience was divided up into 4 different colors and you cheer on the knight that matches your color. I must say, I think our crowd was the best and the loudest, we even did the wave, but despite all this, our knight got second place. It was a fun experience though, everyone had a blast.

On Sunday we relaxed and on Monday we headed to the train station to head to Florence. I love Florence, I like that it’s small and everything is within walking distance. We checked into the hotel and made our way out to explore the city.

Where the cast of Jersey Shore worked while in Florence

After a day in Florence we hopped back on the train and headed to Rome, where we stayed for 2 nights. Thankfully, Rome wasn’t too crowded, we didn’t wait in lines, it was nice. It’s hard to see everything in 2 days though, so we were busy trying to see as much as we could see in the little time that we were there.

Roman Forum

Colosseum

View from our hotel window…our Hotel was in the PERFECT location.

Jennifer and I in front of the Spanish Steps

St. Peter’s Basilica

Last night in Rome, at dinner, free drink on the house!

Our Dinner, pizza and 4 cheese gnocchi

After Rome we headed back up here to Sarone and had about 24 hours to relax before going on a trip with Nikki Travel. She organizes trips to different places, the one we signed up for was the Southern Italy trip, which was going to Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, Positano and the Amalfi Coast. We left at 8pm on Friday night on a bus and got to Pompeii the next morning. We had a guided tour around the city of Pompeii, which was nice, I’ve been to Pompeii before, but we explored it on our own, so I learned more on this trip by having a guide.

Cast of a body

Brothel with dirty paintings on the walls

Bed in the Brothel

The penis on the wall points the way to the brothels

Same with with penis carving on the rocks on the roads

Jennifer and I with Mount Vesuvius behind us

After Pompeii we headed to Sorrento to get on a ferry to go to the island of Capri. This is where it started raining and was pretty cloudy. The boat that took us over was huge, but it was rocking so bad from the choppy water, people were puking all around us. Luckily, we didn’t get sick, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling being on that boat from 20 minutes. When we got to Capri, we got on another boat that took us on a tour around the Island, luckily, the water calmed a bit, so the ride was nice.

Bus ride from Pompeii to Sorrento

Luckily, once we got to Capri the rain stopped and the sun came out for a little bit to get some pictures. These pics were taken on the boat ride around Capri

Mount Vesuvius

Leaving Capri

The next day we went to Amalfi City and Positano and had a few boat rides from place to place, it was so beautiful!

Amalfi City

On a boat headed to Positano

Positano

I found where Santa Vacations!

We spent Jennifer’s last night in her 20’s in Sorrento, we went to dinner, to an Irish pub, then to a club called Fauna. Good times!

We headed back up to Sarone for a few days rest then went to Lake Barcis, Prosecco land, Venice and Croatia.

Lake Barcis

Prosecco land

Croatia

Jennifer, Creighton, Mike and Myself. We met Mike and Creighton on the Southern Italy trip and they came along with us on the Croatia by boat trip that the base puts on.