Churches, challenges and COVID – Italian Honeymoon, Part 2

Travel opens doors of understanding, enhances one’s world vision, and expands the horizons of one’s mind. There is nothing else quite like it. Travel is also exhausting, exciting, and enriching in a way that few other things in life can ever be. Especially the way I travel – and now the way David and I travel together.

Since my first European exploit with my mom to Italy in 2012, I was determined to create travel immersion experiences like none other. What first began as a one-week excursion with an Italian-based tour group quickly developed into an annual two-week adventure where the two of us traveled from city to city – staying in local apartments, shopping in regional markets, cooking our own meals – all the while driving across the country and back again. While the planning for such events was an ordeal unto itself, we ended up with unique experiences that tour companies can never replicate.

Using this same theme as my guide, I began orchestrating David’s and my honeymoon after the second trip my mom and I took to Italy in 2015. The “Team Olson” travel itinerary follows:

• Day 1 – Touchdown in Rome; move to Ostia along the Roman coast, where we would stay for three nights, and then travel by bus and two trains into Rome to visit the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps
• Day 2 – Journey by three trains into Rome to visit the Colosseum and Roman Forum
• Day 3 – Travel by three trains to visit the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica
• Day 4 – Return to the Roman airport to retrieve a rental car for the next 11 days; drive 3+ hours to Assisi, where we would stay for four nights.
• Day 5 – Visit Assisi; tour the Basilicas of San Francesco and Santa Clara
• Day 6 – Visit Orvieto and Civita di Bagnoregio.
• Day 7 – Visit the Basilica de Santa Maria degli Angeli; return to the historical region of Assisi to celebrate the Feast Day of San Francesco and witness the religious pageant from the lower to the upper basilica (on my birthday)
• Day 8 – Leave Assisi; drive 1.5 hours to Siena; tour Siena; move to Certaldo for one night in an agriturismo apartment.
• Day 9 – Leave Certaldo; drive 45 minutes to tour San Gimignano; drive 3+ hours to Cinque Terre, where we would stay for two nights.
• Day 10 – Hike the cliffs of Cinque Terre National Park between Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza; take the train to visit the rest of the towns of Cinque Terre; swim in the Tyrrhenian Sea
• Day 11 – Drive 3.5 hours to Impruneta, near Florence/Firenze, for our next 3-night stay; take the bus to Florence for the afternoon; tour the Galleria dell’Accademia; and walk the town to sightsee.
• Day 12 – Take the bus to spend the day in Florence; visit the Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Basilica San Lorenzo, the Duomo, the leather market, and Giardino di Boboli.
• Day 13 – Bus to Florence to tour the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Santa Croce, and the Palazzo Pitti
• Day 14 – Drive 4 hours to Focene for our final night’s stay; take three trains back into Rome to visit St. Peter’s Basilica
• Day 15 – Move to the FCO airport in Rome to return our rental car, then travel back to Philadelphia and Jacksonville before heading home.

Altogether, we visited 15 cities during our 14-day journey to Italy – including the towns we stayed in overnight. If we were to combine all the steps we walked, miles we travailed, and total flights of stairs we climbed (Italy is incredibly hilly!), we end up with the following statistics:

• 172,657 steps
• 75.32 miles walked
• 394 floors ascended
• 29,819 calories burned

Needless to say, David and I were tired yet invigorated every single day of our journey. The things we saw, the encounters we had, and the beautiful love we shared along the way were unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. While capturing every aspect of our trip would fill volumes, I will endeavor to share a few of the most exciting occurrences here – and there were plenty of thrilling incidents to detail!

Few plans proceed perfectly, and there’s so much more that remains to be orchestrated on the ground, even with the best-laid strategies. For example, on day one, with little sleep on our overnight flight, we landed in Rome at 9:00 am local time. Our bodies, of course, thought it was 3:00 am due to the time difference – a strange time to start such a venture. “You just have to push through it,” I told David.

After a boondoggle with Customs at the FCO airport that kept us waiting in line for an hour and a half, we needed to buy bus tickets to get to our first apartment in Ostia, along the western Roman coastline. Easier said than done. After walking inside and outside the airport, I stopped at a coffee shop on the exterior perimeter to inquire about tickets. I was finally able to purchase what I needed – despite no signs detailing the same and, of course, the perpetual language barrier.

After a long walk to another terminal, we found a stop for our bus and were soon on our half-hour journey to this remote town. Absent international data on my phone for GPS guidance, David and I used the Tom-Tom GPS unit I brought for our rental car to help guide us to our first apartment. From previous experience, I knew I wanted to avoid driving in Rome. Instead, we would use trains and buses for our 3-day stay near the city. That meant lugging our suitcases up and down steps and along local streets for eight challenging blocks and eventually up and into a tiny elevator that was more like a closet. We had arrived and were extremely grateful for that fact, just the same.

After a quick change of clothes and some minor guidance retrieved from the internet in our new apartment, we went to the Ostia Centro de Lido station to buy train tickets to venture into Rome. An hour and a half later, having taken a regional train and two bus rides (one of which was wrong), David and I chanced to hop off the bus to an area that “looked familiar” to me, only to find we were a few blocks from the Pantheon – which few people in Rome seemed able to help us locate.

Rome is not like it appears in the movies. The ruins and significant sites are all at different parts of the city, embedded deeply into areas that are not quite “safe” and surrounded often by graffitied buildings with cars, buses, motorcycles, and pedestrians walking, driving, and rushing around in a frenzied pace that seems more like an ant hill than a world-renowned tourist zone. There are seldom any signs advising anyone where to find the attractions – and without being able to speak the language, bus drivers can’t help.

Which is why it’s such a miracle that we found the Pantheon at all. Despite my online guidance regarding which buses to utilize, we soon discovered that the drivers couldn’t help us. One even advised us – in Italian – to return to the central train station and start over.

By the grace of God, we found the ruin, nevertheless, and were so grateful! We also chanced upon a beautiful local church where we thanked our Creator along the way. Although we later found the Trevi Fountain – which we were hoping to visit – we were so exhausted by that time that we gave up on locating the Spanish Steps and decided to turn back.

Somewhere along our route, we found a Tourist Information booth and a kind gentleman who gave us directions to utilize trains instead of buses for our return journey. Everything was going well until we disembarked from our first train. It was there that we followed the crowd and ended up outside the turnstiles by accident. Unable to reenter the station without buying new tickets, we purchased new ones outside the station and then rushed back into the platform we thought would take us to our regional train for the return trip to Ostia.

Unfortunately, in our frenzy, we ended up on the right platform but on the wrong track. Jumping onto the rapidly departing train, we soon realized we were going the wrong way: back into Rome. Exiting at the next station, we waited for the right train to move back to our previous stop, where we’d mistakenly left the station. Having learned from our past mistakes, we rushed down and back up to the right side of the tracks to catch the correct regional train to our apartment. Arriving back at nearly 8:30 pm, we still had to purchase food for a meal at the end of an extremely long day.

As exhaustion set in, David and I became quieter and quieter – very unlike our usual jubilant selves. I could feel the day’s tension becoming more and more profound as hunger and fatigue became an oppressive force. It would have been easy for tempers to flare, disappointment to rule, and frustration from the day to overshadow what should have been a beautiful start to our long-awaited honeymoon. While I fretted that David was disappointed in our first day’s activities, he remained silent, and I was so grateful. We had vowed to each other long before this trip that we would not let the devil get to us. On this day, the first of our journey, he had been using every weapon in his arsenal to do so. We couldn’t let him win. 

Instead, David and I chose to hold our tongues and remain as positive as possible in our lethargy. 

After gathering a few essentials from a local store near the train station, we walked back to our apartment in quiet submission to the day. I remember praying for God to keep us strong and help us end well. After baking our fantastic find of a salami and provolone cheese pizza, David and I crashed in grateful surrender to a comfortable bed in utter exhaustion from our less-than-perfect but still remarkably blessed excursion. 

The following morning, I awoke to a beautiful sky and a fresh new day – with no mistakes in it. In our languor, I slept for 9.5 hours and David for over 13. Although we couldn’t figure out how to use the apartment’s automatic espresso machine, we YouTubed advice on how to make stovetop espresso and started our morning with laughter and joy, once again, at God’s grace and provision. We were in Italy, we were learning new things, and we were on our honeymoon. Nothing else mattered but each other and the God who had brought us together. 

And so, we continued our adventures with a new perspective on that bright, blessed morning – our second day in sunny Roma. Love conquers all – which is all that really matters in the end. 

What we started on day one of our trip, David and I would continue throughout our Italian honeymoon. We vowed to stop at every church we could along our pilgrimage to constantly thank God for bringing us on such an incredible trek of unexpected joy and triumph. We know how blessed we were to take such an extraordinary journey together. 

Even so, our trip was all the more remarkable due to God’s incredible love gifts of perfect weather, good health, and safe passage every day we traveled. As further evidence of the same, once we returned home to America, I was battered by an aggressive case of COVID that I could have contracted at any point during our expedition. I never did. 

If that wasn’t enough, we later learned that the Italian weather took an abrupt turn for the worse – with high winds, torrential rain, and cold temperatures – just a few days after we left the country. Had we traveled a week later, we could never have completed even ten percent of all the walking, hiking, standing in line, driving, and sightseeing we accomplished every day of our journey. We would have had a completely different trip had either of us been sick or if the weather had been wretched. These facts serve as additional reminders of our Savior’s grace and protection. 

In hindsight, David and I know that whether we’re at home or traveling, touring churches or facing challenges, fighting COVID or just muddling through our regular workdays, God is always with us, always blessing us, and always providing just what we need at precisely when we need it. We will always be grateful to our Heavenly Father for every trial and triumph that He places in our lives. Nothing that touches us is ever wasted, and we will never stop praising Him for His mercy and provision.