Paris, Day 12

We got off to a slow start today because we needed a rest. Unfortunately, we are only in Paris for one full day so we couldn't lounge around too long. We started off by viewing the Arc de Triomphe. I could have watched the activity in the traffic circle for hours. With all the scooters around and high speeds, I'm surprised we haven't seen any wrecks yet.


After the Arc, we headed to the Louvre. We spent a few hours there, but it was so massive there was no way to see it all, and unfortunately we had kinda reached art overload. The highlight to me was the hand sketches by Delaroche and the corresponding paintings. We saw the crowd favorites Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, but they just kinda leave you wondering why are they so famous compared to the others... some statues still had arms. I had a ham and cheese baguette at the museum and it was so good we found a sandwich shop for dinner as well.


After the Louvre, we headed to Notre Dame. The stained glass was incredible and looked good since it was another nice sunny day. The colors really came out in the pictures on the camera, not so much on the phone...





We walked a little to find "the best ice cream in the world" at Berthillion. It was very good, but did not live up to the description. We took a stroll down the Champ-Elysées and then called it a day.

We definitely needed more time in Paris... It's a very spread out city. We had to take the metro between every location and still ended up walking many miles.

We have really enjoyed all the cities so far. Maybe it's because it's out of the typical tourist season, but everything seems safe, uncrowded, and everyone has been extremely nice. The weather has been perfect as well. It's looking like rain in London, but we'll see...

Location:Rue Boissière,Paris,France

Paris, Day 11

We determined the optimal length for a stay in a city is 2 full days 3 nights... Anything less makes you feel like you don't get a break from traveling.

We had to wake up at 6:30 because the Rome airport is 20 miles away! We had our hotel book us transportation because we didn't want to get ripped off by a cab at that distance. We also had to forfeit our free breakfast because it didn't open until 7. We stopped at McDonalds to take care of that. During the flight we passed over the Alps again and had a connection in Zurich.


The Paris airport was also 45 minutes away from the city so we had to catch a bus to the metro and ride the metro (with our bags... ugh) to the hotel. It was an exhausting day of boring and stressful travel that lasted until around 4pm. Luckily our travel agent has got the rest of the transfers fixed so we should have stress-free travel from here on.

We got to the hotel and we're pleased to find it right next to a grocery store. We are gonna try and keep lunch and dinner tomorrow cheap. We were also only a 10 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower so we thought we'd check it out.


The sun was kinda in the wrong spot for that picture, but it was another really nice sunny day in the 60's. We headed to dinner nearby at a frou frou French restaurant that was highly rated on tripadviser. We were both a little new to French cuisine so we didn't know what to expect. Linz said it was the best salmon she's ever had, and my steak was good too. We got dessert also, to really send our bill through the roof, hence grocery shopping for tomorrow.


On our way back we debated going up to the top of the Eiffel Tower but it had gotten colder and we had no jackets. We also didn't have our matching berets with our names embroidered on them yet...


Tomorrow we'll use the metro to hop around to all the sites within the city. Unfortunately with only one full day, I don't think we'll have time to make it to Versailles :(

Location:Rue Saint-Didier,Paris,France

Rome, Day 10

Well I promised you a quick update, but we were so tired after dinner that we both fell asleep...

We started off the day by getting picked up from the lobby by our tour guide. It was a riding and walking tour which was nice. We walked around the streets and saw a few landmarks. Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain which is the largest in Rome.


We passed a few obelisks and government buildings before stopping at the Pantheon. We got to go inside and walk around, Raphael's tomb is there. The dome is apparently the largest in Rome.


After a few more government buildings, we bused over to the Vatican. Being a Wednesday and nice outside, the pope was addressing the crowd in St. Peter's square! I took a picture but we were kinda far back. He addressed the crowd in Italian, English, German and Spanish... Pretty neat.


Because of the activity in the square we couldn't enter St. Peter's Basilica for a few hours so we headed over to the Vatican museums. We spent a good amount of time checking out the statues, paintings, maps, and tapestries before walking into the Sistine Chapel. The paintings were surprisingly very crisp and colorful due to the restorations. We ate a quick lunch, our first of the trip, and headed back to the Basilica. The line wrapped around the square, but only took us about twenty minutes to get in. It was amazing for sure. We got plenty of pictures as it was one of the few churches that allowed them. We decided against walking up the 330 steps to the top.


By staying in the Vatican we had to forfeit the tour bus ride back into town so we experimented with the metro. We took the line straight to the Colosseum. We were a little surprised the "Classic Rome Tour" did not include this, but oh well... We walked around inside for a while and walked around the ruins located nearby. As you can see from the picture, it was a beautiful day out...


We did a search on Tripadvisor to find our restaurant of the night, Babbo's. It was a nice italian restaurant, Lindsay got what I got the night before, pasta and lobster, and I got one last pizza. The pizza was good, but not as good as in Venice. Tasted just like Cinelli's.

Location:Somewhere in Rome

Rome, Day 9

I posted last night about day 9, but I had to post it over 3G and it failed and deleted it all... I just found out there is free wi-fi in the lobby so I'll try and remember what I wrote:

The travel agent sent someone to meet us in our Venice hotel lobby at 9 am. She walked us to a water taxi and took us all the way to the train platform. We boarded the train with no problems and began our 4 hr. journey to Rome. It was our first time traveling by train, and I really enjoyed it... traveling through the Italian countryside was nice.

We arrived in Rome and ran into a few hiccups. First, there was no one there to meet us... It was a little nerve-racking being in a crowded train station with no plan. After verifying we had no local transfer scheduled with the travel agent, we caught a cab to the hotel. I'm pretty sure we got ripped off with a scheme where I handed him a 20 and he did a quick turnaround and claimed I only handed him a five. At the time, I just laughed at my "mistake," but after thinking about it a while, I was pretty sure I handed him a twenty. I'll point at the number next time.

It was 3:30 by the time we got checked in, so we had time to kill before looking for dinner. We decided to walk to the Colosseum as it was the closest thing we knew within walking distance... It was pretty impressive. We didn't go inside because we had a tour planned the next day.


We ate at a restaurant recommended by the concierge and it was great. I had linguine with lobster and red sauce and Lindsay had some spicy pasta dish. They were great and the staff was super nice.

Look for blog post day 10 within a couple of hours... It'll have some good pics.

Location:Via Goito,Rome,Italy

Venice, Day 8

Sorry no pictures today. We went inside a few churches and museums which did not allow cameras. We started out by going inside St. Mark's Basilica, it was definitely the most impressive thing we've seen so far. From there we headed west with the Scuola de San Rocco as our intended destination. We stopped in a museum that featured old musical instruments which was pretty interesting. We also stopped in Santo Stefano and took in the sights. We crossed the Grand Canal on the Accademia bridge, and I'm pretty sure we passed a place used during filming of Casino Royale... We finally made it to our destination which apparently contains tons of paintings from Tintoretto who seems to be a pretty big deal. Unfortunately there was a sign on the door that said "closed march 12." There were lots of police in the area so it must have been some special event. After 3 hours of walking, we headed back to the hotel and napped for a while. For our last tourism stop, we checked out the Museo Correr located in the building that surrounds St. Mark's Square. It had plenty of different exhibits; art, coins, architecture, statues... We stayed until we could barely stand anymore and headed back. Seeing all that stuff really had me wishing I would have done some research before this trip. I'll just have to buy a lot of coffee table books when we get back...

We decided to eat at our first dinner spot again to guarantee a good last meal in Venice. I had pizza again and Lindsay had a pretty good pasta dish. Once again we picked up some gelato and headed home. We head to Rome in the morning by train. The weather is looking pretty good.

Location:Sestiere Castello,Venice,

Venice, Day 7

Today I took a lot of pictures... Unfortunately, not with my phone. We started the day with our walking tour. We met the group at 9 and began. There was a Spanish speaking couple and later an Italian speaking couple so the tour guide had to give three explanations at every stop, which was a little annoying but gave us time to take pictures. The tour took us through the popular areas of Venice and into the Doge's Palace. They didn't allow cameras inside so that was a bummer. There were tons of painted canvas covering the walls and ceilings. We'll just have to find a good coffee table book when we get home. The tour ended at 12 and they told us to come back at 2 for a free tour of a glass blowing shop on the island of Murano with transportation by water taxi included. I thought that seemed a little too good to be true, but it was something we wanted to see. Us and two of the other american families in our group showed up. We got to the shop and saw a really cool glass blowing demonstration. The glass blower made a vase and a horse, but that only took about 10 minutes. Then we found out why we were really there... They took us into a showroom full of ridiculously priced glass items and turned up the sales pitch. Luckily for us the cheapest items were priced at 1000 euros so we didn't have to worry about any haggling. The other two families had deep pockets so they drew all the attention quickly. Unfortunately we had to wait until the haggling and purchasing was all done... It took 2 hrs!! We did have a nice conversation with one of the families while we waited. They were from Texas and had brought their granddaughter for a European tour for her graduation gift.


Afterwards we found out they had a modestly priced gift shop adjacent to the showroom, so we probably could have bought something for all our trouble... oh well.

We got a restaurant recommendation from our new friends from Texas, and went there for dinner. It was good, but would have been better if I knew what I was ordering. The spaghetti I got was lacking tomato sauce... but ok without. We picked up some gelato before heading back to the hotel room.


We have one more full day in Venice, but no plans. I'd like to find a museum or two or just walk around some more. Just no more glass blowing...

Location:Sestiere Castello,Venice,

Venice, Day 6

Lindsay's flight got in around 9:30 am and I picked her up. Lindsay's only goal was to find some strudel. I did a search on google and found a blog about it. In the blog, the person tried out 3 or 4 different strudels in different locations in Germany and said her favorite was a bistro in the Frankfurt airport. We found it with no problem and ordered some apple strudel. It was tasty (and so were those red berries which were the same ones on my schniztel... counting on a comment from mom or nana to clear this up... cranberries?)




We caught the flight to Venice with no problems and we were there in a little over an hour. We flew over the swiss alps on our way... It looked like a nice place to snowboard. I guess I'll have to go back one day. Our travel agent planned out every detail, so when we arrived, there was a lady waiting for us. She took us to the water taxi and walked us to our hotel and got us checked in. Very stress free. The boat ride over took about 20 minutes, after we got to the city we got to sit out on the deck as we cruised through the canals.




After we got checked in, we walked around for a few hours, getting lost constantly, but feeling pretty safe. Maps were of little help and I consider myself pretty handy with one. We walked into St. Mark's Square and over the Rialto bridge.




We got a recommendation for some gelato and pizza for dinner. Both were terrific. We had heard that the pizza in Italy wasn't all that great, but those poor people must have missed the place we went to. We have to thank the concierge for that though. After dinner, it was dark and we headed back to the hotel. Lindsay is asleep at 8:30 and I'm watching the BBC World News and typing this blog. We have a guided tour tomorrow at 9am... Should get plenty of pics.




Proof we were actually there... Bad pic though... Try again tomorrow.

Location:Sestiere Castello,Venice,Italy