The Trip of a Lifetime

paris. cinque terre. florence. rome.

2011.

marci. val. nichole.

The plan was to leave August 27, a Saturday, to Paris. We were using my mother in law, Lorie’s buddy passes, so we were flying standby. As Saturday got closer, we started checking availability for that flight, knowing that if we couldn’t get out on Saturday, we would try Sunday. The availability looked good, until the day before, then by Saturday morning it looked impossible! The flight was over-booked due to the airport shutdowns back east from the hurricane. Not only that, all flights to Paris were over booked until Tuesday, which would have messed up a lot of plans and cost us a lot of money. We had to get out that day. We were 5^th, 6^th and 7^th on the waiting list and both business class and coach was over-booked. Nichole, Val and I decided to try anyway. We went to the airport and waited. The flight was delayed so we all waited some more. Finally, after everyone boarded, the attendant at the desk called my name and I asked if we had all made it and she replied yes. I called over to Nichole and Val an excited “yes” and we all started whooping and cheering. Not only did we make it when the chances were a negative zero, but we all got to sit by each other. We feel like we were very watched over and it set the tone for the rest of the trip.

In Paris, 10 hours later, we headed to Nichole’s friend’s apartment that we were staying at for a few nights.

After being lost in a huge park, we finally made it to the metro, which took us to the Arc d’ Triomph. We climbed the stairs to the top and had a wonderful view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. The Arc d’ Triomph is the center of a round-about, that gets pretty crazy with cars. We had a great time watching all the cars get jammed up in the round-a-bout. We spent the rest of the evening walking around Paris, getting our bearings and the feel of France.

That night, I woke up wide awake around 2am. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I wrote a few postcards. Not too long after, Nichole and Val woke up and we just stayed up talking till we made some toast and finally went to bed around 5am. We slept in till 10am and didn’t feel one bit bad about it. We visited the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Pompidou Center that day. The Louve was amazing! The museum is huge. Saw the Mona Lisa in a big crowd and the Venus de Milo (which I had to draw in art class back in college).

After the Louvre, we crossed the Seine River and walked to the Notre Dame. It was magnificent and the huge, stained glass windows were beautiful. We picked up a sandwich and crepes and walked somemore. We found the younger crowd of Paris hanging out around the Pompidou Center. There was a lot of (more affordable) shopping in that area too.

Common expressions we used were: merci, bonjour madame, monsieur, S'il te plait (pronounced -see voo play, please) and parlez vous anglais (pronounced - parley voo anglay - means, do you speak english?)
Arc de Triomphe.
Climbing the Arc de Triomphe.

Spectacular views of Paris at the top of Arc de Triomphe.


This is La Defense.

Nichole and Val in front of the Louvre.

This is a 2,000 yr. old + mummy - incredibly well preserved.
Mona Lisa behind a huge crowd.


Nichole and Egyptian artifacts.

Venus de Milo.
We loved the exit signs in the museums! (Above Nichole's head in green)
Got a pic with the Louvre guards.
Behind us is the island where Notre Dame is - you can see it's pinnacle.
The Seine River.
A cute cafe that we really wanted to eat at, but was closed. We pretended anyway.
Loved the cars!
Notre Dame.
Dinner.
What is with the egg on the pizza?
There is a park in front of the Eiffel Tower called the Champ de Mars. This is a pic of the Michael Jackson dance memorial.


This was our last night in Paris.

After Paris, we took an Easyjet flight to Milan, Italy. We barely made that flight - the gates had been closed, but miraculously, the attendants let us on. From there we took a 3 h. train to Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre means "five lands" in Italian. It is made up of 5 tiny towns on the coast of Italy. It was one of our favorite parts of our trip. We stayed in the town of Riomaggiore. We loved the laid back, take your time feel of Cinque Terre. The Italians and tourist alike were great. We spent 2 and a half days there and we wanted to stay longer!

This yellow building was the hostel we stayed in. We were concerned about this one, but when we got there we loved it. Our room was a private in an apartment with a kitchen and other rooms and guests. It was so clean and our host, the ever busy Luciano was so kind and warm.

Luciano.
Our room locked with a skeleton key!!! At night we would climb out the window and sit on the roof listening to the locals go about their lives and watching the happenings in the street below. Those were good times.
This restaurant called, Trattoria de Billy, was located way up in the hill and one would only know where it was by recommendation, which we had. We had to make the reservation in the morning. We were celebrating Nichole's birthday.
Val and I shared a red as red can be, lobster pasta. I must confess, I got a little queasy in the stomach.
This waiter, Samir, was a riot. For Nichole's birthday, he turned out all the lights in the restaurant for 20 seconds then brought out a cake with candles and sang happy birthday to Nichole. It was great! Everyone, including us, thought the power had gone out or something. Then, he was hitting on us and kept asking us if, "we stay with him?" We explained that we all had husbands and then he kept bringing out different drinks, even though we told him that we didn't drink. We definitley had to have a picture!
Scenic Vernazza (pronounced, "vernatsa") in Cinque Terre, where we snorkeled and swam.
Eating the best pizza I've ever had!

The next stop on our itinerary was Pisa. This is a funny story actually. We planned to take a train to Pisa, stop, walk up the road to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and then make the next train to Florence. We gave ourselves an hour to walk to the Leaning Tower and back to the train station. How unrealistic! We got off the train in Pisa, walked up the road with all of our bags and luggage (so hot outside, btw) and after we were 3/4ths the way to the Leaning Tower, Nichole informed us that we had 20 mins to make it back to our train! Normally, we could catch the next train, which was an hour later, but we had reservations to galleries in Florence, so we didn't think we had enough time. So guess what we did? We turned around and caught the next train! The worst part was later, when we had made it to Florence, we realized that we were misinformed about the length of time the train was from Pisa to Florence and actually could have seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa, caught the second train and still have made it to our reservations in Florence! What a bummer, but a funny story. Maybe someday, I will really see it.

Florence. I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed Florence. Florence was small and yet still had an "old world" feeling. We were able to walk everywhere. We visted the Ufizzi Gallery, the greatest collection of Italian paintings in the world and the Accademia Museum, that houses the famouse Statue of David, by Michelangelo. We made reservations a month in advance for these galleries so we could bypass the 2 and 3 hour ticket sale lines and walk right in! Thank you Rick Steves!
We observed this part of the museum for a long time..... ;)
The doors of the Duomo, the first dome ever created.
All of the restaurants in Europe were out doors surrounded by pots of plants for privacy. I loved it. Although, after two or three days of pasta, we were a little sick of it. I ended up ordering cheese pizza for the rest of the trip. I loved the pizza!
The doors of our hostel.
Our second day in Florence, we took a 40min bus out into Tuscany, where we rented bikes and rode out to some vineyards. The exact town was called Greve in Chianti. Thanks to Val, who waved the bus driver down that was pulling away from the station, we were able to get on and ride for free!
The countryside was so beautiful. Everything we imagined!

Loved the yellow car!

We stayed in Tuscany for a half day.
Back in Florence, we wandered the city and visited markets. The next day we took a train to Rome.

Rome.

Rome was the trickiest part of our trip. We had made reservations to a B+B called City House. When we arrived there was no one there to check us in. Not a huge problem, except we had all of our luggage, which made it difficult to get around and sight see. Nichole tried calling Daniella, the host of City House, but there was no answer. We waited for a while and the waiter at the next door restaurant invited us to sit at one of the tables while we waited. He asked us what the trouble was and when we told him, he said his boss, Rocky, knew Daniella and offered to call her for us on a different number. The waiter and actually the whole restaurant staff was so helpful to us. We finally saw Daniella coming out of the door, so we ran up to her and asked about our reservations. She informed us that the toilet was broken in our unit and that she had sent us several emails saying that we could not stay there (which she didn't). She was awful. When we asked her if she knew of another place we could stay, she yelled at us and told us to get out! We tried to reason with her, but nothing! She just kept yelling at us! We were pretty frustrated. We had no place to go and no internet to find something else. The waiter, Mimo, offered to let us keep our luggage behind the counter while we looked. Another worker said he knew a hotel owner down the street, he called him and booked us a room. It was out of our budget, but there is a point where saving money isn't worth the time we had just wasted on that fiasco. We really wanted to get out and see and do what we came to do. So we did.

Rocky. We wanted a picture of the waiter, but he wasn't working the day we came back to have lunch.
We went to dinner, got some delicious gelato and wandered to the Trevi Fountain. I must stop here and say that gelato is the best stuff I've ever had! It comes in every flavor and every flavor is so flavorful. We had it everyday in Italy. Between that and crepes with Nutella (I'm a new convert to Nutella, btw) we had plenty of desserts!

The magnificent Trevi Fountain. A million times better than the one in Las Vegas!

The saying goes that if you throw a coin over your right shoulder and make a wish, the wish will come true. We wondered what happens to the hundreds of coins that get tossed in everyday.
This is part of the Roman Forum. There happened to be a union meeting that morning that made this and the Colusseum open later. We heard that there was going to be a union strike the next day and there was.
A weathered column.
View of Rome from Palantine Hill at the Roman Forum.
The Roman Forum was the center of Rome in the time of Julius Caesar. It was the place of government buildings and markets. It is ruins now, but I could imagine what it must have looked like and how grand it was.
The three of us inside the Colusseum. The Colusseum was graniose and also imposing. It was magnificent! The Colussem was perhaps my favorite thing to see in Europe. It is unbelievable that people about 2,000 years ago, without calculators or machines could build that.



The Colusseum at night was brilliant!
There were creepers dressed up as gladiators who offered to take pictures with tourist. They were pretty impolite!
Nichole and Val are hairstylist at Lunatic Fringe and they are encouraged by their work to visit other salons around the country and world for new ideas. We got our hair done here, which was highly needed - our hair was dirty!


With our hair freshly done at my birthday dinner! Our waiter asked a saxaphone player off the streets to play happy birthday to me. It was perfecto! The saxaphonist then held out his cup and I gave him a euro coin. Happy Birthday.
This is in front of St. Peters Basilica at Vatican City the next day. We took one of the few metro lines in Rome there. Luckily, we did it early enought before the union strike started and closed the metro down and many bus lines.

St. Peters Basilica
We again avoided a massive line for the Vatican Museum and walked right in. The Vatican was very cool. Every square inch was ornate and the Sistine Chapel did not disapoint. I was a huge fan of Michelangelo by the end of the trip.

We headed for the airport after Vatican City to catch our Ryanair flight, which we just barely made by 5 minutes again! We flew to Paris and the next day flew first class home to Salt Lake. This trip truley was the trip of a lifetime.

2 videos: one in Florence and the other on top of the Arc de Triomphe.