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Trip Review! LONG
We left on the 11th out of DC. We got the airport way too early, but it gave us the chance to grab some breakfast. Of course, we get to what the board says is our gate at the boarding time, but it?s not our flight. Apparently the gate had been changed, but nothing was updated to reflect this. Luckily, we found the right gate just a few down the hall. We realized a little bit later that we had passed boarding time but they hadn?t boarded yet. They made an announcement that there was an overhead compartment that was broken so we had to wait at least a half hour to get repaired. So annoying! We finally got to JFK and had a major layover. We eventually boarded and then get an announcement that we are going to be delayed because 2 of the pilots had to be replaced?one called in sick and the other they realized wasn?t qualified to fly the type of plane we were in. Uhhhh, comforting. So we had to wait over an hour on the plane for two new pilots to arrive.
We finally arrived in Rome and checked into our hotel and
then went on a walking tour of Rome that we wouldn?t see with our tour
group. We saw many of the Piazzas
(include Piazza Navona ? a must see).
We went to Ara Pacis ? a museum with Caesar Augusta?s peace altar. If you love Roman history, go see
it. If you?re not into it, skip
this one. Ian loved it?I wondered
how they could charge 9 euro!
We also stopped at Largo Argentina, where Caesar was killed. That was neat to see because you also see how much Rome has built upon it self by seeing where street level used to be.
After our walk where we also saw the Trevi Fountain & Spanish Steps, we went back to our hotel where the real fun started?not. We got into our room to find that our suitcases had been cut open along the zipper line. The hotel wouldn?t take any responsibility for it and we had to go to the train station and find new suitcases. This was NOT the start to the trip we had hoped for! To cheer ourselves us, we went to see the Trevi Fountain at night, which was much pretty than during the day. A must do!
The next three days we spent in Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, and Capri on a trip booked through viator.com. Naples was okay, but I wouldn?t go back. Pompeii was awesome. I would highly recommend going there as a day trip from Rome. It was incredible to see the ruins so well preserved and walk the streets of this town. We then spent two nights in Sorrento in Hotel Ambassitori, which was gorgeous. Sorrento is such a cute town, but there isn?t much to do there except shop. We went to Capri and I fell in love with it. It is such an adorable island. We were able to get into the Blue Lagoon, which isn?t always open because of rough seas. It was beautiful in there. We also did a chairlift at the top of the island in the town of Anacapri and had an amazing view. I LOVED these three days! I highly recommend a trip there if you can.
We went back to Rome and did a guided tour of the Coliseum and the Vatican. We booked them through viator.com. They were both incredible tours. The tour guides were so good and knowledgeable. I highly recommend the Coliseum tour in the morning that takes you to the basement and 3rd level, where most tours don?t go. It was so neat to see those extra levels. Both sites are must sees.
The next day we met up with our Trafalgar tour group. They went to the two places we already had gone the previous day, so we went to Castle Saint Angelo. The view from the top of the castle was awesome! It?s worth the price of admission just for that view!
Next we went off to Florence. We saw the David statue. It was so much bigger than I expected! My favorite part was actually the unfinished Michelangelo pieces because you could see his chisel marks and how he worked. The next day we went to Pisa. It was very neat to see the leaning tower, but I didn?t get to climb the tower because we didn?t have enough time. Other than the tower, I wasn?t impressed by Pisa. There were a lot of people trying to get you to buy stuff and the whole area surrounding the tower was just lined with stands selling stuff. We got a little tshirt of Pinocchio and the tower for a future kid since the story is supposedly was written.
That night we had dinner in the Tuscan hills. WOW. It was absolutely gorgeous!!!! I highly recommend trying to do something similar. It was just wonderful. OH?and I love Italian wine!
Venice was next. We took a gondola ride through the canals which was so much fun! You have to do that in Venice! I think I would do it at night if I had had a choice. Then we saw St. Marks Square which had a WOW factor as soon as you walked into it. We went into the Basilica as well, which was incredible with its golden mosaics all over the inside and outside. The next day we were back in Venice and went to a glass blowing factory, which was neat to see, but SO expensive!!! We did a walking tour of the backstreets of Venice and saw the Rialto bridge. Then we went over to the island of Burano. This was my favorite part of Venice. It was so adorable! Every house is painted a different color and the seafood is incredible! This is the lace making capital of the area, so we bought a table runner for ourselves and lace letters to put on a baby?s christening dress.
Next we were off to Switzerland, but first, we stopped in Verona, where they have Juliet?s balcony. It was an adorable town that I would highly recommend! It was neat to see the balcony. We also saw their Coliseum, which was set up for the show Aida. That was neat to see because you get a better idea of what the Roman Coliseum would have looked like.
Switzerland was breathtaking! In Lucerne, we went to a heritage show where we saw Swiss heritage demonstrated and had Swiss fondue. That was a fun experience.
We also saw the Lion Monument which is just so impressive and has an incredible story behind it. We then took a little train then cable car to the top of one of the mountain peaks, but it was foggy so we couldn?t see anything, but I am sure the view would have been perfect. We also did a cruise of Lake Lucerne. I could have done without that, but pulling into town to dock was pretty neat. Finally, we went to a small alpine village and had a carriage round around the town. Ian loved this.
Finally it was off to Paris! We ate at a restaurant called Chez Clermont. I highly recommend it. They have one on the Champs Elysees. It was so good and the Cr?me Brulee was incredible! We took a boat cruise of the Seine River. I think everyone needs to do that in Paris because you get to see so many sights! We also did a ride around Paris at night to see everything lit up and to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 10pm. So beautiful!
The last day with our group with went to the 2nd level of the Eiffel Tower for the incredible view. You can go all the way to the top, but Ian is terrified of heights so I didn?t get to do that. But if you?re okay with heights, I think it would be worth the weight for the second elevator. Then we went to the Palace of Versailles. That is a sight to see for sure!!! I adore the garden, especially. Try to go on a weekend from 11 to 12. That?s the only time they have the fountains on in the garden. The palace itself is beautiful inside and definitely worth the trip. That night, Ian & I went to the Arc de Triumph and went to the top for those views. We ended our day with a stroll down the Champs Elysees. We ate under a tent on the Champs Elysees at Vesuvio and it was very good and not too expensive considering you could look at the Arc while eating. We also went to Laduree, which is the place where macaroons where invented. The chocolate one was my favorite and their croissants were amazing!
For our last day, we started by going through Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle churches. They are both beautiful in their own ways. Sainte Chappelle was beautiful because of its floor to ceiling stained glass windows. You should definitely see both, as they are not far apart from each other. Next we went to Napoleon?s Tomb and the Military museum. Seeing the tomb was neat, but I was not into the army museum, but I took the time to just sit and relax while Ian went through the exhibits. We ended our day with a walking tour of Montmarte and Sacre-Coeur. Again, we went through viator.com. I was glad we did a walking tour because we would have missed most of the stuff they showed us if we had gone on our own. Sacre-Coeur is beautiful and the view from there is insane (my current FB profile picture).
All in all, it was just a wonderful experience.
Ask away with any questions!
Re: Trip Review! LONG
Thankfully we had nothing valuable in the suitcases...we had all of it with us. We have no clue what happened. When we got into our room, DH noticed the bags from my suitcase sprawled all over the floor near it and he questioned the hotel worker. He responded that it much have ripped. Okay, maybe this could happen to one bag, so we let the guy leave. When we looked at it closer, we saw that it was along the zipper line about 1/2 of the way around the suitcase...odd, but the bag is 10 years old and took a serious beating coming over on this trip. Then DH looked at his bag which was laying on the bed and noticed the same type of tear/slit in the same spot. Now we were suspicious. How could both of our bags tear in the same spot?! The hotel people said it couldn't have been anyone associated with the hotel and that the bags were fine when they were put in the room. Blah. So we had to file a police report so it could be claimed with insurance and get a refund for the luggage we had to buy, which definitely isn't nearly as good since both of our parents had bought us good luggage when we were younger but we had to go the next day to our 3-day trip south, so we had to buy whatever we could find since it was a Sunday evening. So that is our saga. ugh.
Glad it was a helpful review. Please feel free to ask any questions
I totally saved this for reference for our hopefully-next-year trip. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions once we actually book something.
As a side note, a good friend of M's family got married on Capri six years ago- the groom's parents have a house there - and M and his parents went. I was invited to go along but didn't because I felt weird since I didn't really know them. I'm totally kicking myself now for it.
Kate's Recipe Box || Relatively Bookish
Glad I can help!
You'll just have to make sure you get to Capri when you go with M!
We are going with Intrepid. I'm hoping it's going to be good!
That's crazy about your suitcases! I can't believe that happened, especially as soon as you got there!
How was the jet lag? Did you have any trouble adjusting?
Your trip sounds like it was so great, it's getting me so excited for ours! I still can't believe we're leaving in 4 days!!!!
Kate's Recipe Box || Relatively Bookish
For me, I was trying to plan the trip on my own, but it was getting really overwhelming. I've never been to Europe before, and only speak a little Spanish (and none of the counties we were looking at were Spanish speaking). It all seemed very complicated with all the trains and everything, so I decided to contact the travel agent I've used before, even though she specializes in tropical vacations, to see if she could recommend someone. Another TA with her company specialized in Europe, so I started working with her. She was helping me with the itinerary, and train situation, figuring out what we wanted. She e-mailed me with two options, one for us traveling by ourselves, which was very complicated with all the trains and stuff we would need to take. The second one was for a tour, which seemed much more simple, and I felt so relieved when I thought about someone else helping to guide us along, I knew it was a good fit for us. So, I didn't really research all the tour companies, but she chose this one because it was a good fit for us as far as where we wanted to go, it's an "active" tour, which means there's some biking and hiking involved, and the age group is limited to 18-39 year olds. Overall, it seemed like a good fit, so we took a leap of faith.
Whoa, that got long, sorry!
I had horrible jet lag on day 2 when we were on the bus. I couldn't keep my eyes open at all anytime we sat down. But I was okay after that day and it was only an issue when I was sitting on the bus.
We each made a list of our top 10 places we wanted to go. Then we compared them and came up with a list of places we wanted to see. From there, we just googled guided european tours and found a bunch of tour companies and looked at their itineraries for some of the places we wanted. We saw lots of good itineraries, but most of them only stayed one night at a city and we knew we wouldn't see much in one night, so when we found the Trafalgar tour company's European Splendor that stayed two nights at each city and it hit our top 5 places, we were sold. Trafalgar definitely is an older demographic, but we really didn't mind it and there were some younger people. They were all really great and fun, though each tour group differs, of course. There are a lot of Aussies on Trafalgar tours for some reason, but they are known to be fun (and were in our case) so age didn't really matter!
Kate-
just to give another perspective, we are doing our own trip without a tour. For us we just felt ok doing it this way. We had looked at some tour options first, and couldn't find anything that fit what we wanted to do and the time frame we wanted to follow. I did a lot of research on hotels on tripadvisor, and DH felt comfortable booking our travel between countries. We are doing 3, and travel between London and Paris is very easy with eurostar. We are flying from Paris to Rome and Rome back to London. I have also asked a lot of friends and family members who have traveled to these places and got recommendations and tips from them.
We very much like doing our own thing and didn't want to be tied to a tour or set itinerary.
I agree that if you just want to do major cities, you really could do it on your own. Ian wanted to go to Lucerne, Switzerland, which is why traveling on our own just couldn't happen. There weren't any direct ways to travel there so the tour that went there worked better for us.
Just a warning though, the metro's don't have elevators or escalators for the most part (at least in Paris & Rome) so you'll have to lug your luggage up and down steps if you need them.
We definitely want to do a tour. I really want to do Paris and Southern France - Mark wants to go back to Italy. My spoken French is dismal and neither of us speak Italian so we don't feel comfortable going it alone!
We've been looking at this tour: http://www.globusjourneys.com/product.aspx?content=itin&trip=1HH
The plan is tack a few extra days on to the beginning and the end. I really want to do Disneyland Paris and if our friends will be around in Italy, we'll visit them too.
Kate's Recipe Box || Relatively Bookish
I totally agree with this. Originally, we were going to do London, Rome, and Paris, and at that point, I felt ok planning it. But, DH really wanted to go to Switzerland, and especially up into the Alps, and that's where all the train schedules and everything started getting a little dicey.