Dear T
Your Easter break sounded so fun – I hope you’ve had time to recover. We’ve both been lucky enough to enjoy a nice European holiday this Easter. I spent ten days in Italy, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go but never had the opportunity. Until now.
Where better to start the Italian tour than Rome. It felt to me like a city of a different era. In a good way. What I mean is that it didn’t particularly have the same modern, major, industrial city feels like say London or New York. I can’t recall a single time in those four days where a piece of Roman ruin or ancient architecture wasn’t rearing its old head just meters away from me. SO much to see so little time. We got as much in as physically possible without staying up all night. I’m talking the Colosseum, Forum, Jewish Ghetto, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s, Santa Priscilla catacombs, Villa d’Este, Hadrian’s villa, and what felt like 20,000 churches. And of course, I ate as much as I could stomach without exploding (when in Rome).
Here’s a nice photo montage so you get the idea.
From Rome we drove through Naples and onto the winding mountain roads of the Amalfi Coast. Our first stop was Positano where we stayed in the most magical surreal amazing dreamy place in the entire universe. Villa Treville, all I have done since the plane landed is dream about you. My life will never be the same again.
Villa Treville is made up of a number of little villas, all with stunning views of stunning things. You told someone what you wanted to eat and they made it for you. One of the showers was literally a huge room with water pouring from the ceiling. There were tunnels to the lobby that made me feel like I was in a James Bond movie. The sea changed colour every time you looked at it. There were chickens. I’m weeping a bit because I think maybe that this was the peak of my life.
Anyway, enough gushing about long lost loves hotels and back to the whirlwind tour. We spent a day exploring the buried city of Pompeii, as well as Herculaneum and Oplontis. I still cannot understand how well these remains have been preserved seeing as they were buried by Vesuvius in 79AD… The world really blows my mind sometimes.
I also spent two days lying on a yacht. I know. It. was. the best. I sang the Lonely Island all day long. We explored little caves and nooks and docked at Amalfi for some pizza and gelato on our first day, and sailed off to Capri on our second. A highlight was definitely the blue grotto. The entrance is so tiny you have to go in via a little rowing boat and lie down. I was terrified but once inside… there are no words. It’s totally worth cramming yourself in/giving oneself a mild heart attack. Google it!
I spent the last two nights in Ravello which is further up the mountain than Positano with, as you’d imagine, rather impressive views. There was an infinity pool at the hotel. Enough said really.
So that’s it! I’m exhausted after writing that. And craving carbonara.
So after we’ve spent the last two blog posts exploring the world I’m a little reluctant to see what our next letters have to offer. Hopefully they won’t be too anticlimactic now reality has ensued with an almighty, harsh bang.
Here’s a picture of some big Italian lemons to kickstart us back into normality.
Love from Alex xoxo
TwentyWise 