Julianna and I had the best time in Europe!! It was such an amazing adventure and I am so glad that I was able to go. From the moment we met at the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy, all the way up to to the Eiffel Tower Paris, France, we shared some really great times together. It was not all fun- my feet were killing me and we were both hating our backpacks, but we made it.
We met up in Rome and spent a few days there. We visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Trevi Fountain. We went into Vatican City and saw St Peter’s Basilica. We even met up with my friend Katherine from Haiti and had dinner with her. Then we were off by train to Florence, where I talked Julianna into staying at a campground. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t the worst and we had a breathtaking view of the city of Florence and the Duomo. The highlight of that city was definitely either seeng Michelangelo’s David or seeing where Dante was buried.
After Florence, we spent a day doing a bus trip in Chianti, and we visited some wine tasting cellars. Much fun, although neither of us liked the grappa at all. Then we were off to Venice, which we liked but agreed it would have been more romantic with a boyfriend. We did have some fabulous gyros there, though. Again we stayed at a campground, this one with a pool, but we were so busy sightseeing that we barely had time to get in it. Then we trained over to Pisa, just to see the leaning tower of, and then up to Cinque Terre, which Hunter and Mikey had recommended to us. And there we fell in love. The scenery there was so beautiful. Just five little villages and tons of walking and hiking and relaxing. We rented an apartment from this sweet old man and it was absolutely perfect. We even saw a small acrobatics show in town and we got to do some kayaking!
By then we were ready to leave Italy and we trained on up to Nice, France. We went to the beach there and went parasailing. Nice was pretty good, but we stayed at a scary hotel. Next was Marseilles, and we really had some good tips from our guidebook- a huge hotel room with a bathroom for next to nothing, and a very cool underground rum bar! We were going to head into Spain, but at that point I lost my passport, so we decided to go on into Paris so I could straighten that out. We arrived in Paris in the rain and had a hard time finding a hostel. But once we did, we stayed there for the rest of the week. We visited Jim Morrison’s grave, Moulin Rouge, the Louvre, Versaille, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and tons of other places during our week in Paris. By the end we were exhausted but we felt like we had really accomplished our goals!
PalmTreeMusings 