Italia
Venice moves at the speed of water. Once you leave the big canals behind, the city folds into alleys so tight you could stretch your arms and touch both sides, and every turn feels like it might dead-end or open onto something beautiful. Rome is the opposite. It's loud, gilded, and enormous, and inside the Vatican you spend most of your time staring straight up. Then everything gets older and quieter.
The Colosseum and Pompeii trade gold for dust and brick, the kind of places where you find yourself running a hand along a wall just to feel how long it's been standing, and wondering who touched it last. Pisa tilts the skyline for a moment, and Vesuvius closes things out, still watching over the city it buried.
