While writing this blog, I'm already contemplating getting some lottery tickets tonight so that I can win big and move to Paris! Although London and Rome were great, I fell in love with Paris and can't wait to go back there in the future. Here's the short version of our trip along with only a few of the 550 pictures we took.
We arrived in London after 6-7 hours of sleep on the plane and were excited to just get to our hotel and hit the town! Our hotel was tiny but in Covent Garden (one of the best areas of London) and we had a great view on a main street. Over the next three days we managed to see almost all of the major historical sites in London. The best for me was Buckingham Palace! In August and September the Royal Family travels on vacation and their state rooms are open for tours. Those 19 rooms are used extensively by the Queen to entertain their guests and it was pretty interesting. London pictures below.
Ratings:
City: A
Sites: A-
Food: B
People: B-
Then, after 12 years of running smoothly, there was a fire in the Chunnel only 12 hours before we were supposed to ride it over to Paris. Without getting into the entire story, we managed to find a last minute flight to Amsterdam airport where we would then take a train down to Paris. We checked out about 3:30am and caught a taxi to the airport where there was not a single sole! 24 hours without sleep, not to mention the fact that our bodies were already messed up with the 6 hour time change!
Regardless, we made it to beautiful Paris only a couple hours after we were originally supposed to and our hotel was so adorable. We spent the next few days touring the amazing sites, loving the perfect weather and enjoying being in the most romantic city in the world! I fell in love with the Eifel tower and was fortunate to see it two different days (once at night lit up and once during the day!). Pictures below.
Ratings:
City: A+
Sites: A+
Food: C
People: B
The last night in Paris was spent sleeping in our cabin on an overnight train! We ended up stopping in Switzerland (we were asleep) and Brussels to let other passengers on. Views of wine country also zipped by in the morning as we passed through that area on the train.
Arriving in Rome was a big change as there was trash and graffiti all over the city! Our hotel was the much larger, however, and came equipped with an actual bidet in our room (Yes....I had been looking forward to testing one out!). The sites over the next few days here were the oldest we saw and definitely worth the trip. The Coliseum was everything you would imagine and I was very excited to see the famed Treve Fountain! We drank tons of wine, burned out the phrase "When in Rome" completely and ate tons of pasta. Rome pictures below.
Ratings:
City: B- (graffiti and trash everywhere)
Sites: A+
Food: A+
People: B+ (not sure if they know what deodorant is)
Finally – The last picture is of my personal tour guide that I was lucky to have with me the whole trip. He came fully loaded with backpack, water and our travel book and even gave short histories on every site we saw!
All in all we were very fortunate to have taken such a fabulous trip!
