3 Days in Paris!

In Paris, we stayed at a hotel close to Charles de Gaulle Airport. The journey to and from Paris was a bit of an expedition. We had to take a shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport, a train to downtown, and from there, subways to anywhere else we wanted to go. We spent Saturday and Sunday downtown, and the subways were packed! Sometimes new passengers couldn't even get on! It's not even summer yet!

On the first day we spent in Paris, we started out at the Louvre, which was really quite big. We navigated all the exhibits, making sure to stop at the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. I personally enjoyed all the sculptures, I thought some of those were amazing!

Later that afternoon, we visited Notre Dame and the Pantheon, which looked similar to the Pantheon in Rome. After a break for dinner, we managed to find the Moulin Rouge shortly after it got dark out.

The next day was absolutely gorgeous out, although that meant that the entire city was packed, everywhere we went. We started out by visiting Sacre Coeur, which was up on a big hill with tons of steps to climb up to reach it. We also visited the Arc de Triomphe, where the streets were totally packed. Later we tried to visit the Museum of Modern Art, but because of the big robbery a few days prior, it was closed to the public.

We ended the evening by visiting the Eiffel Tower. Like everything else, it was extremely busy, with huge lineups just to buy tickets, then even longer lines to take the elevators. Instead of waiting forever, we decided to take the stairs, which had a much shorter ticket line. The climb up wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, despite there being over 300 steps to the first platform, then another 300 or so to the second level. The view from the tower was great, and taking the stairs made the experience even better!

Our third and final day in Paris, we didn't go downtown, but instead went to a shopping mall, and then the Chateau de Versailles. The palace was closed since it was Monday, but we were still able to take a walk through the gardens, which were huge and amazing. The weather also reached a record high of 29 for Paris, which was also really awesome!

Overall our stay in Paris was a lot of fun, and one of my favourite cities on our trip!

Monaco!

The next stop in our itinerary was Monaco, which is one of the wealthiest countries in the world (although technically it's a principality, and is part of France). It was a nice change from Italy, which was a bit run-down. The weather was nice and sunny, and the area was beautiful. It's right along the coast and has many hills and mountains.

We did a lot of exploring of the city on our second day there, and since it's built on many hills, there are a lot of stairs, and even some escalators and elevators. It definitely is quite the workout getting around town! Everywhere you go in the city there are expensive cars - Bentleys, Ferraris, etc. There are also so many people that have yachts,and the rent in any apartment is a fortune!

One Night in Pisa

The day we left Rome we had gorgeous warm weather, so I could finally wear a dress! We drove for about four hours and stopped in Pisa. Since it was about the halfway point of our trip, we were in serious need of a washing machine, so we went to a nearby Laundromat. €25 later, we left with fresh, clean clothes (though perhaps they were a little too clean, since we added soap without knowing that the machines also do so).

After checking into our hotel, we walked 3km into the city to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is pretty awesome, and was leaning since construction. We took a bunch of pictures, then had a nice dinner at an outdoor cafe. As the tower is pretty much the only thing to see in Pisa, we headed back to our hotel before the drive to Monaco the next day.

More Rain in Rome

Because we didn’t have enough rain in Venice, it rained quite a bit on our way to Rome, and then even more on our first day in the city. We parked our car at the metro station, and took the subway to get downtown. Our umbrellas from Venice were pretty bad, getting blown inside out by the wind every time we experienced a mild gust. Nonetheless, we still went out around the city. 

Our first stop was the famous Trevi Fountain, which was crowded, despite the rain. We both tossed coins in, then soon noticed a guy with a magnet on a stick, nabbing the bigger coins before running off. We also went to the Vittoriano Monument, which had some interesting things about Italy during the war. We had enough of rainy Rome for one day, so we headed back to the hotel.

Our second day in Rome was much better than the first. We started out by heading to Vatican City, because it was Sunday and we wanted to see the pope. We were quite surprised at how many people were heading over there from the subway, and then even more shocked at how crowded the city was! 

Nonetheless, we still got a pretty good view of the pope, even though he was quite high up. It was a pretty cool experience, even if we weren’t able to understand him. We later found out that there were around 150,000-200,000 people in Vatican City for a rally showing support for the pope during everything that’s going on with the Church right now.

After Vatican City, we headed to the Colosseum, which was my favourite part of Rome. The line looked really long to get in and so many tour guides were trying to tempt people to pay extra to skip the line, but it really only took about 20 minutes so it wasn't bad at all. It’s amazing how a building so old with so much history is still standing, right in the middle of a developed city. The weather was beautiful for looking at it too, warm and sunny!

After the Colosseum we went to Palatino/the Roman Forum, which are the ancient ruins right next to the Colosseum. These were also really awesome to look at, and we got some amazing pictures.

Our third and final day in Rome started out warm and sunny, but it was rainy as soon as we got off the metro. We ended up at the Trevi Fountain again, for a brief moment on our way to the Pantheon. We actually went to the Pantheon the first day as well, but the interior was closed off. This time we were able to go inside. Unfortunately it was undergoing construction before the tourist season, so the picture of the exterior isn’t very visually pleasing.

Afterward, I grabbed a “Granita” from a nearby café, which is coffee-flavoured ice. Kind of like an Iced Cappucino from Tim Horton’s, but so much better! We then had lunch at McDonald’s – the first McDonald’s in Italy, in fact, built in 1986, and headed over to a park north of the city, which apparently has really nice gardens. We only walked around for a bit and didn’t get a chance to see the gardens before the rain picked up again. It was alright though, since we did pretty much everything we wanted to in Rome.

Rain and Romance on our 2nd Day in Venice

Our second day in Venice started out dreary, with rain all morning, and a packed boat ride with most people standing. The rain quickly cleared up when we arrived on the island, and we walked around St. Mark’s Square for a bit. This was where we saw video cameras and security everywhere blocking people off from a certain area. There were two girls dressed in business suits in the middle of the square; I think they were actresses, waiting for their cue. We originally thought that it was just an Italian film, but later looked up the movie name we saw on the sign (“The Tourist”) and found out that it’s quite a big movie, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. Too bad we didn’t see them, apparently Johnny Depp was filming that day! The one time I didn’t bother to take pictures too :P

After that, we took a boat over to the island of Murano, where they specialize in glass-making, which we got to see a demonstration of. We had quite a relaxing afternoon walking around the island, and finally got to enjoy some warm, sunny weather.

Upon return to St. Mark’s Square, we had dinner, then tried to navigate through the streets to find a gelato place that I read about on the Internet. Our GPS was actually quite helpful in the city, when it was able to get a signal. The gelato place took much longer than expected to find, but it was quite good, and had some really unique flavours. As we were finishing up, it began raining a bit, then suddenly started pouring rain! We escaped the rain for awhile in a sheltered area, and waited it out until it lightened up. Before long the sun was peeking out again, casting a pretty glow on the city. This picture was taken from the famous Rialto Bridge.

We were lucky that the rain lightened up, because it was our last night in Venice, and we didn’t want to leave without taking a gondola ride. We were the first to ride after the storm, right after the gondoliers dried out their boats. The canals were so calm and peaceful, and it was the perfect time to go, right at dusk. The ride was very romantic. By the time the ride was over, there were huge lineups at the gondola docks. Also on the gondola ride the gondolier pointed out the hotel where Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie were staying, which can cost €4,500 per night!
Overall Venice was a nice city and fun to walk around; a great start to our trip to Italy.

Celebrating Gerry's Birthday In Venice

We arrived in Venice the same day we left the Swiss Alps, so we were quite tired out from a long drive. We went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel, where I ordered fish with shrimp. I was quite shocked for a minute when they brought out the food, with a whole fish on a plate – head, eyeballs, and all. I was relieved when the waitress chopped off the head and tail, and deboned the inside. At least now I know how to eat a fish if I’m ever served a whole one :P

Instead of staying directly on the island of Venice, we booked a hotel on the mainland, about a 15-minute drive from the boat dock, which has “vaporettos” to take you to Venice. The main boat stop, St. Mark’s Square, was a big tourist zone, with the most people we’ve seen so far on this trip. The streets were cluttered with souvenir stands, and there were tons of guys with fake designer purses trying to sell them to tourists. We saw quite a few of them running from the Venice cops all afternoon.

We celebrated Gerry’s birthday on our first day in the city on May 12th, since we were driving the day of his actual birthday. We had dinner at a seaside restaurant, which was nice until the birds started landing on the tables and helping themselves to our bread. Luckily I had already taken my piece ;P This was also the place with outrageous prices for soft drinks. Two small bottles of Fanta totaled €14... maybe we should have gone with the wine! :P

Switzerland!

Switzerland was a really pretty country! We spent two nights at a hotel in Zurich, and one night in the Swiss Alps.

We chose to explore Zurich on a Sunday, where we soon discovered that pretty much everything was closed. We did, however, see the famous St. Peter's Church which has the largest clock face in Europe (9 metres in diameter). We also enjoyed a nice walk along Lake Zurich :)

We also visited Rhine Falls, which is the largest waterfall in Europe. It was about 30 minutes outside of Zurich. It was nothing compared to Niagara Falls in terms of size, but I thought it was awesome how everyone was able to fully walk around the falls on a little trail, so you could see them up close at certain points! I got some pretty awesome pictures! :)

Keukenhof and the Atta Cave

The morning of May 7th, we left Amsterdam and headed towards Keukenhof, the annual Tulip Festival in Holland. I think it was the coldest day we had so far, not to mention it was quite rainy. I ended up wearing a shirt, two sweaters, and a coat! The exhibit was really nice, with so many tulips to see. The coolest part were these little circle platforms in the water that people could walk on to take pictures. Below is a collection of a few pictures I took at Keukenhof.

Our schedule was tight, because we were supposed to leave the tulips by noon so that we could make it to our next destination – the Atta Cave in Attendorn, Germany – by 4:30, since the caves only accept visitors until 4:30. Since we left the tulips a bit late, we were lucky that the Autobahn had no speed limit, so we could make up for some lost time. Although we encountered some traffic, we made it to the caves with two minutes to spare, just in time for the last tour! The caves were amazing and beautiful inside. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but my favourite part were the crystal formations on the ceiling. Here are a few pics of the cave I found online:

In Germany, we visited two grocery stores during our one night stay. I have to say, grocery stores are quite amazing, with tons of cheap prices! We stocked up on a bunch of snack foods and drinks, and even got a 1.5 litre bottle of water for €0.19. I also picked up a box of my absolute favourite chocolates, Belgium seashell chocolates! We even bought enough supplies to make multiple sandwiches for probably just over one Euro! This is a cool picture of some German houses seen from the highway.

Amsterdam!

We seem to be on a trend of going to places when there are national holidays. Our first day in Amsterdam, May 5th, was a holiday to celebrate Holland’s freedom from Germany after WWII, so there were a ton of celebrations in the streets. There was also some large concert in the middle of town, and the square was completely packed full of people. Our hotel was in the outskirts of the city, so we took public transit to get into town. That was probably for the best, because the majority of the population rides bikes, and the streets are very car-unfriendly. The picture to the right shows the bike parking zone by Central Station, packed full of around 9,000 bikes.



Amsterdam has many rivers flowing through the city, so a great way to get around is by boat, so we purchased a 24 hour Canal Bus pass, letting us see the city from the water. We also visited the Van Gogh museum, which had a lot of awesome paintings. I especially like his paintings of almond blossoms. Here’s a picture of me standing in the museum district, in the park in front of the “I amsterdam” sign.




One of the interesting things that we kept seeing around town were ads like this one for “Yofresh,” which I believe is essentially egg in a tube. I’m not really sure how that works, but in England they had something similar that was ham and cheese in a tube.

A Change in Itinerary and Four Countries in One Day!

After only two days of being in Europe, we’ve already been to four countries. In fact, the visits to those four countries happened all in one day!

After spending the first night in London, after some delay in getting the rental car, we travelled to Longfield, England, where Gerry lived for a year when he was young. We even drove down the street where he used to live. Then we headed to Bluewater, the mall that was being built when Gerry was here. However, May 3rd was a “bank holiday” in England, meaning that everything is closed. Yet for some reason the mall wasn’t, and we encountered quite a bit of difficulty finding parking and then maneuvering through the mall. We stopped at a candy store in the mall, where for some reason they were selling Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops for £10.99!

The second day of our trip, we drove to Dover, where we visited the Dover Castle. It was a really cool castle, and was used in many wars throughout the years. After heading to Folkestone and taking the Channel Tunnel, we ended up in France! We just drove through, however, because we decided to change up our itinerary and visit Amsterdam first, and France last. This last minute decision was made when we looked at the weather and in essentially every European country the forecast predicted rain and weather around 10 degrees for 10 days! We decided to save France for closer to the end of May when things would warm up. We also drove through Belgium, where we ended up stopping for dinner. Finally, at the end of the long drive, we ended up in Amsterdam!

Europe in less than 12 hours!

...Well not quite. But I will be at the airport in less than 12 hours. I'm flying out to London tomorrow morning at 8:50, and I'm happy to say that I'm finally all packed! Since I'm going away for 35 days, I definitely need to bring a lot, especially considering it's that transition time between spring and summer. Despite the bed being full of clothes and other supplies, it's really not even that much :P

Needless to say packing it into the suitcase certainly took time. I went from medium suitcase, to slightly bigger medium suitcase, to large suitcase, back to suitcase #2, and finally into a slightly different medium suitcase (that I didn't even know we had!). It's a bit of a tight fit so I hope I have room to bring a few new outfits home! I'll figure something out though :) And the good news is that I'm under the weight limit! We can have a max of 23kg, I only have 19! Yay :)

I'm tired but excited! Hopefully I can sleep tonight, it's gonna be an early morning and a lonnnng flight!