West Coast

Hi everyone! This is our first intercontinental trip, organised to celebrate our graduations. Everything was decided about a month and a half before departure, and from that moment we started researching to build the itinerary and make the various online bookings for lodges and motels. We're happy to share our fantastic experience and to give anyone who wants to undertake a similar trip the chance to draw on our itinerary... 1st stop (5 days): San Francisco, an enchanting, artistic city... it stayed in our hearts! The most beautiful evening: the sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge, with a sky that seemed painted given how many shades of pink and red there were, with the downtown beside it starting to light up for the night.

We leave San Francisco renting a car: thus begins our on-the-road trip along the American roads that will take us to see wonderful landscapes crossing the states of California, Nevada, Arizona and a corner of Colorado. 2nd stop: Mariposa, a western town at the gates of Yosemite National Park, a park where you can admire ancient giant sequoias and contemplate landscapes comparable to those of our Dolomites. A pity we had little time to explore it... 3rd stop: Death Valley, the infamous valley of death! The largest depression in the northern hemisphere, where the heat is truly unbearable..in fact we decided to visit it at dawn, an early wake-up repaid by spectacular landscapes that at that hour bring out all their shades of colour.

4th stop: Las Vegas, nicknamed the Sin City, the city of sin, where anything is possible...just think that it was built only a century ago and right in the middle of the desert! 5th stop: Grand Canyon. One of the seven wonders of the world, a place of indescribable beauty, breathtaking. For us it was energising; it's hard to explain, but we felt recharged! That day President Obama was visiting too and we didn't pay the park entrance fee...though we had to postpone the helicopter trip to the next day. 6th stop: Monument Valley, a tribal park managed by the Navajo Indians. Another place with a sensational charm for us, above all for our passion for the history of the American Indians. Moreover, we slept in a traditional Navajo house, what a thrill! 7th stop: Mesa Verde, in Colorado.

A very green park where you visit the ancient constructions of the Anasazi Indians, very well preserved, built beneath the canyon wall. 8th stop (3 days): San Diego. A dynamic, young and fun city. After a week spent in the midst of nature and above all after clocking up miles and miles by car, we really appreciated staying put for a few days in a city! 9th stop (4 days): Los Angeles. A plunge into cinema and the American myth created by the best-known TV series...Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood Boulevard.

We stayed in Santa Monica, on the seafront, and we also had the chance to live the real Californian beach life, between surfing and everything that goes on wheels: bikes, skateboards, rollerblades...Not to miss anything, we also visited Santa Barbara, a fabulous seaside town and the place where the TV series of the same name that we used to watch as kids was filmed...and to round it off nicely, spending a more than fun day, we went to Universal Studios Hollywood: we felt like children as we rode the Jurassic Park rides over and over, The Simpsons Ride (a 3D roller coaster), The Mummy, Shrek in 4D and many others..What a fairy tale!

Conclusions: A fantastic trip that catapulted us into American reality, and now that we're back in Rome it's hard to turn on the TV and not hear American spoken, not see their constant and absurd food adverts, not be able to observe them in the street while they eat enormous sandwiches and drink giant bottles of Pepsi Cola, or do acrobatics on a skateboard..they're a people full of contradictions, sometimes absurd obsessions, patriotic but extremely hospitable and helpful with tourists...On this trip we came into contact with many different cultures, Mexicans, Chinese, American Indians, who coexist together in the States: that's the melting pot.. What this, our first intercontinental trip, left us with is certainly the desire to keep travelling, to explore the world; it truly opened our minds to new horizons! Valentina and Francesco