Travel memories to fill our souls
Do you dream of traveling somewhere as soon as possible and as far as you can go?
Probably you are. Me too sis, me too…
I’m writing this sitting at home with a slow gaze set upon the horizon through my room window. Living through a pandemic is something we for sure didn’t expect to have in our lifetimes but here we are. I see all over social media that many people are travel deprived and in almost pain like need to go somewhere and change their scenery to feel like they’re still living their lives.
As simple as it seems just staying at home is not easy for our mental states and my heart is with each and every individual that really has a hard time dealing with our “new normal”. YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS, we will get through this together! But for now, let’s travel down memory lane!
The town, the history, the FLORENCE of Italy!
To think about the time when my only worry of the day was which piece of my collection I will wear and showcase through the streets of Italy!
Somewhere in March, I stumble upon a really cheap airplane ticket for Milan in June 2019. Of course, I couldn’t just let that occasion slip away. My friend lived in Florence and for many years I have planned to go see her. Spending the beginning of the summer under a Tuscan sun definitely seemed like a good plan.
The trip to the destination went like this: Makarska-Split by car, Split-Milan by airplane, and Milan- Florence by bus. The experience of Milan for us was…interesting… We landed in Milan and went by bus to a remote part of the city from where we walked around 10 minutes and got on the subway to the bus station where our bus needed to be. I personally saw a lot of our eastern European bus stations that are shady and shabby looking but this one… oooh this one… We came onto the station directly from the subway. There is nothing around that bus station. Half of the people there seemed really sketchy and were selling something equally suspicious. One automated machine with some food and drinks and one kiosk that seems like it belongs to the first edition of the kiosk ever made. The burger on display seemed as old as the kiosk itself. A friend tried to eat one of those but it quickly ended up in the trash and we decided to stay hungry till Florence. We needed to wait for our bus for an hour and a half, it was one of the longest hours of my life. Our bus was running late so imagine our panic slowly rising but the bus finally came and it was a night ride so we slept through it all the way to Florence.
Florence. The beauty she is. The architecture, detailing of it, the obvious, rich history behind the city is amazing. The weather was sizzling hot, the night air was electrified with good vibrations and Florence was filled with people all over the world strutting and showing their best styles in the streets of the city center. Life itself was supercharged there.
Wherever you go, there’s amazing food, good drinks, and ambiance that sucks you in for a stunning experience.
We didn’t even know it, but that week when we were there, Fashion week was taking place as well and we found out about that only when we arrived, so naturally, it was too late to get into fashion shows even thou we tried, really hard, but for this occasion, we stayed heartbroken and deprived of the possibility to enjoy the glamour of the Fashion week.
But nonetheless, every day is a fashion show and the streets are your runway! That was my motto and I lived by it. We packed very lightly and the temperature was over 35 celsius so you can only be fashionable to a certain extent. It was just not possible to wear a lot without having a heatstroke.
The joy of Aperitivo!
Our friend/host was too busy having crazy working hours to be able to show us around, so we were pretty much on our own, wandering around Florence and that is how we stumbled upon the best tradition Italy has. At least in my opinion 😀 We were just walking around in the sunset hours to see the town from the above. We came by foot from the town through gardens over Michelangelo piazza and found one open-air type cafe/nightclub with a wonderful view of the city. Inside, all over the place, there was a buffet with magnificent food, we were low-key concerned we just crashed someone’s wedding or something like that but we soon learned that is Aperitivo. You order one drink and you can eat whatever you want and however much you want to. We embraced that tradition in the blink of an eye. Of course, we end up drinking way more than one drink and danced our night away.
When you’re in Italy, you have to see one of the seven world wonders and visit Rome and Vatican 🙂
The “fun” thing is, we choose the hottest day there was to spend the day walking around Rome.
It was almost 40 degrees and when we came to Vatican I was ready to throw myself in the fountain or at least someone to pour some holy water on me and save my soul, which was more than ready to depart my body in those moments.
Rome was, simply put, breathtaking. Colosseum and the area around it completely blew my mind. I know for sure I need to go to see it again and enjoy it even more in some cooler days. You learn in school about the Roman Empire and the magnitude of it, but the moment you see it with your own eyes and when you realize how small you are in comparison with the constructions, buildings, and streets, you feel blown away by it all. I was so amazed by the scenery. To have something like that, of such monumental proportions build thousands of years ago and still leaving people of today breathless and in awe is truly fascinating. In the end, heat completely drained us to the point where we decided to return to Florence earlier than planned. We end up sitting on the floor of Rome train station, waiting for our train, just so we can collapse inside of its airconditioned vagons.
From Italy, I went directly to Vienna to be a speaker and representative of Croatia at CoConet annual training by the European Union Intellectual Property Office. I was in Viena only three days, but that was more than enough to fall in love with the city. What more do you need than your fellow creatives, good vibes, a great experience of the event, and amazing nightlife that Vienna offers, where we danced with a little bit of karaoke till the early morning hours. Maybe not the smartest idea when you have an early flight but Livin La Vida Loca, I always say!
