Paris

Paris smells. That was the first impression we got. I'm not sure if it was the drunk Frenchman on the Metro that crapped himself and passed out with his pants down, or the pee puddles around every corner or the overfilled garbage, but it just didn't smell pretty. It's like the city of love is starting to ripen and go sour. Despite the smelly business, we made it to our hostel and immediately started to trek around the city. We visited the classic French monuments, such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysée, the Musée du Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Sacre Coeur. On the first day Jesse ate a bit of cheese at the Arc du Triomphe, and we had hot chocolate while walking down the Champs-Élysée towards the Louvre, where we spent the entire day staring at paintings and getting stared at by marble statues. On a side note, we found the French have a few of the Metopes still from the Parthenon in Athens. At Notre Dame we played with the leaves left by the trees in the courtyard. On November 11, we walked to the Arc du Triomphe to watch the Remembrance Day service which featured guards on horses and a large french flag flying inside the arch! It was neat to see and we may have even seen the French president drive by in his car. After that, we climbed up the Eiffel Tower all the way to the top. We then made our way to Notre Dame, where we played in the leaves fallen from the trees in the courtyard. After a warm meal, we went out for a walk to take pictures of Sacre Coeur. Thus ended our time in Paris.

Bern, baby Bern

After our train from Milan was delayed for 2 hours due to a person on the tracks, we finally made it to Bern, Switzerland. My friend, Rahel, who was an exchange student to my school about 3 years ago, met us at the train station and escorted us to her place where we stayed during our time in Bern. Rahel took us all over Old Town; to an 18th century Cathedral that had an amazingly designed ceiling and beautiful woodwork; to see Bern's 3 brown bears; up a huge hill that gave a splendid view of the city; and to find a baby-eating ogre fountain that Jesse had read about online. After showing us everything there was to see in Bern, Rahel cooked us a traditional Swiss dish with potatoes and sausage, it was delicious. Bern is a quaint Alpine town, so there isn't a busy night-scene or business district. It was a good time to relax and take in a breath of cold mountain air before traveling on to France.

Milan

On our way to Switzerland, we made one last stop for the day in the Italian city of Milan. On our way from the train station to the main Cathedral, we came upon a sort-of flash mob. There was a DJ there, and there were people dancing, and it was kind of flashy. Anyways, the Cathedral is an immense white stone building with a huge courtyard. We climbed up the small stone passageway to the top of the Cathedral and sunbathed in the glorious sunshine. From the top of the church, we could see all over the city of Milan and even the Alps in the distance. The roof of this Duomo is quite amazing as it has hundreds of sculptures of saints in every nook and cranny and on all the spires. They are still undergoing restorations works on the main spire and on several pillars, but it still looks brilliantly white. After we toured the top, we climbed back down and walked around until we found the Castello Sforza. Castello Sforza is a Renaissance fortress and a former home of Leonardo da Vinci. From there, we made our way back to the train station, stopping at the aquarium to take some pictures of some fish that were in a fountain outside, and then we continued our journey to Bern, Switzerland.

The Fall of Rome

Rome was more than we expected. Around every corner there was something old; we found it to be much like Athens in this aspect. We opted for a hop-on/hop-off bus tour rather than trying to figure out public transport. Our first stop was the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, which got us really excited for Rome. We first walked all around the ancient Palatine Hill, which included the old markets, the Forum, Caesar Augustus' villa, and other interesting sites that are still being excavated. From there, we crossed the road and took our first step into the Colosseum. It is huge, and there are all sort of tourist traps around it. People offer you tours for 'very cheap, we treat you well' and everyone sells knock-off gladiator helmets and other things you saw in Russell Crowe movies. But we decided to do it on our own; no audio-guides, no tours, just an entry ticket and reading the signs. Every now and then we'd listen to a fact from other guided groups, but really we were there to experience it for ourselves. We also did this for the Vatican; the Vatican offered more sites and treasures than the Colosseum, but we preferred to do it on our own anyway. In order to enter into the Vatican, we had to go through a medical detector and let our bag get checked. No worries, it is totally worth it, because St. Peter's Basilica was absolutely stunning and we were able to see the tomb of the Popes and the famous Michelangelo statue that stands in the Northeast corner of the church. Also inside the Vatican, we found they had the Vatican Museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel and other precious works of art and history. We couldn't include any pictures of the Sistine Chapel because we weren't allowed to film it or take any pictures. After seeing all that the Vatican City had to offer, we made our way to Castel sant'Angelo, a former home of the Borgias; and Trevi fountain, one of the most beautiful fountains that is carved with great white marble statues. Here, we threw in some coins for good luck. From there we took a gander on down the road to the Pantheon, an ancient pagan temple that has withstood the test of time and is now a famous church. The Romans built it with a huge hole in the dome, so that we could see the sky from inside, and making it one of the coolest bits of architecture we have seen in Rome. As the sun set in West and the streetlights came on, Jesse and I walked to the Spanish steps and climbed that steep staircase, finding a really cool old church at the top. After walking all over it, we sat on our butts, and scooted down the stairs. From there, we made our way to Isola Tiberina, Tiber Island, and walked all over it in the dark. This was our last night in Rome; a truly remarkable experience. We spent a total of 3 nights in Rome, which we figure is the perfect amount of time to sight-see all the interesting bits, although we definitely want to return some day.

Venice: jaywalking could lead to accidental drowning

As if the city wasn't wet enough. Jesse and I rode the train into Venice arriving with a drizzling rain that continued to fall all day. Despite the rain, we made the most of our one and only day that we had to spend in Venice--the city of gondoliers, paninis and watery streets. We took the city water bus down the Grand Canal past the big cruise ships to the Piazza San Marco to see the Dogès Palace. This palace is a beautiful building, built with many different kinds of marbles. During the winter season, Venice floods and so in many piazza's and squares, boardwalks have to be erected for the common folk to walk upon to keep their little toesies dry. From there, Jesse and I walked around, turning corner, squeezing past other tourists down narrow streets between tall buildings, getting lost the deeper and deeper we got into Venice. To make matters worse, we were soaked and miserable and all we wanted to do was sit down and eat our cheese and sausage and drink our wine on a nice and dry bench. Alas, to no avail, for we could not find a bench anywhere and we had to settle for a semi-dry doorstep down a random lane. The wine warmed our bellies enough to get us to a water bus stop and from there we went to Lido Island for some hot chocolate and a pastry. After warming ourselves for a good hour, we took the water bus back to the train station, hopped on our train and waved 'goodbye' to Venice and 'hello' to Rome.

Da Firenze

We arrived directly from Pisa via the small regional train running down the Arno river, coming to the brightly lit marble-lined streets that makes up the grand city of Florence. To get to our hostel, we had to walk past the Duomo, which completely blew us away. My first thought was, "We have to climb this." The next day we did climb it, and we discovered that the entire interior of the dome is a giant fresco covered in a depiction of judgment day; it was really cool to see. The Duomo remains the tallest building in Florence and as a result, it offers a breathtaking bird's eye view of the whole city with it's classical red-tiled roofs, which have remained virtually unchanged since the Renaissance period. From the Duomo we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio, a famous renaissance bridge that is now covered in expensive jewelery shops. Across the bridge, Colleen stuck her fingers up a stone lion's nose before we headed back to the other side of the river to see the marble statues at the Piazza della Signori. Aside from statues of famous people of history, like Galileo and Machiavelli, there were also renaissance statues of Greek and Roman gods including Perseus with the head of Medusa, and a (copy of) Michelangelo's David. Every corner brought us to a new masterpiece, and every street had it's own charm and wonders. It was one of our favourite cities, and I don't think we'll see another one like it if we searched the whole world.

Pisa, a little of piece of Italy

On November 1st at 6am, Jesse and I flew out of London to the first stop on our latest adventure. We arrived to blue skies and gelato in Pisa, marking the 1st of a 24 day train trip around Europe. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa from the airplane after flying over the snow-capped Alps and flying across the great blue of the Adriatic Sea, and couldn't wait to stand beneath it's marble columns. The airport provided a bus shuttle that moved everyone 30 feet from the plane to the terminal. It was the shortest bus trip we've ever taken. We walked all the way from the airport to the Leaning Tower, stopping only for gelato and to take a picture of a statue missing a bit of stonework from what we think was a cannon shot at its base. We could see the Leaning tower from quite a distance away, and it took a while to figure out just how big the tower was due to its position in the courtyard of the Duomo of Pisa. When we got there, we were gobsmacked to learn that we could actually climb the Tower and so, after purchasing a ticket and ditching our bags at the luggage drop, we climbed on up. As we ascended the stairs, our centers of gravity would shift depending on which side of the tower we were walking upon. The top offered views of tile-roofed villas and centuries old walls--it was truly a sight to behold. After sneaking a quick lick to one of the bells, we were finally forced to descend with the rest of the people from our tour group. Before heading off to find dinner, Jesse ran and bought cheese so that he could fulfill a life-long dream of eating cheese in front of national monuments around Europe. For dinner, we found a near-by restaurant and ate pizza and drank wine like true grown-ups before catching the next train to Florence for the night. Thus concluded our first day in Italy.