Help Stray Tourists

OK...so, I've officially been home for 3 days, I've rested, I'm feeling somewhat better and I'm ready to tell all (or at least what I can remember on the spot) about my European vacation.

I got myself on the plane - that was the first step. Turns out, it wasn't so bad after all - I've discovered that I don't like flying, but I'm not afraid to do it anymore and that is a feat in itself.

We landed in Paris after a very long night - I got barely any sleep, and was exhausted but it was nice to finally get there. We hopped off the plane, grabbed our baggage and got onto the metro so that we could drop off our bags at the hotel and go exploring. Unfortunately, it wasn't this easy - perhaps a sign of things to come. We got two stops from the airport and the train broke down, had to get off with all of our luggage and wait for the next train in the rain. Not a good start when you're exhausted and it’s cold. Train comes; we get on it, transfer once and get above ground to check into our hotel. Fortunately, we got settled quickly and headed out for lunch - I think it was 1pm there or something like that which was weird because of the 6 hour time difference. We found a quaint place to eat in a small square - I ordered a pretty standard meal...tomatoes and mozzarella (the real stuff) and a steak. Helen and Marijke decided to order the 'special', veaux (veal). When the meal came, my steak was fine - but the veal did not look like veal. H & M made a few guesses as to what they were eating - possibly mushrooms, possibly liver. No, it was brain - veal brain. Gross, but they were troopers and made it through the meal.

Fast track a few hours later after a nap, more food and one night, we head to the Louvre for the day to see as much as we possibly could in one day - trust me, if you haven't been there, I'll tell you that it would take a week to see everything, and years to remember everything you saw. Definitely a highlight to the trip - we had a great, long and tiring day. Went back to the hotel, got ready and went to the ballet. I wasn't all that impressed with the ballet; however the opera house was spectacular. As soon as I have my pictures back I'll upload some - wow! Anyways, we did a ton of other things in Paris; in short, went to d'Orsay (where I had to use the men's washroom and was horribly embarrassed when I came out of the stall and there were 6 men standing at the urinals), Pompidou, Eiffel Tower, Rodin museum, shopping - standard tourist stuff.

On the 4th morning, we got up at 4am, got ready and hopped on a bus to another airport, boarded a plane and flew into the suburbs of Milan. From there, we took an hour and half long bus ride to the train station, got there 4 minutes before our train was leaving, and literally ran to catch it. 5 seconds after the train started moving, we figured out that we were on the wrong train and spent 9 hours trying to get back to where we were supposed to be on the train (should have taken about 4 hours in total). Mental note - do not take the trains in Italy - if you get on the wrong one, you're essentially screwed.

Finally, 6 pm we arrive in Vernazza, a small town (part of Cinque Terra) on the coast of the Mediterranian. Oh My God - truly breathtaking. Five sleepy towns surrounded by mountains, vineyards and authentic Italian countryside - needless to say, we spend the next day and a half touring around each of the 5 towns. Did a lot of walking which was nice. Have I mentioned that by the end of our stay in Vernazza, 6 days into the trip, we had only seen to sunshine twice? Yah, it rained pretty much steadily.

We get up in the morning, having purchased another set of train tickets the day before to head to Pisa and transfer to a train heading to Florence. We get on the train, go 4 stops and get off to catch another train headed for Pisa, wait for 2 hours in the rain and cold, finally get on the train, only to realize as we were passing Cinque Terra (again) that we were going the wrong friggen way. The saga continues...

We get off the train at the next available stop (you have to understand that these stops are sometimes 20 minutes apart), go to ask for help only to be told 'check the schedule' - which by the way, NO ONE can understand - buy new tickets and wait another 2 hours to get on a train to Pisa, only to get on another train to Florence. Let’s recap...

Plane to Paris - bus to airport - plane to Milan - bus to train station - 9 hours trying to backtrack - train going backwards - train to Pisa - train to Florence.

Ah, we finally arrive in Florence at 6:30pm (12 hours have passed in transit and waiting by this time) and wander the city for 40 minutes trying to find our hotel. Florence, for the record, can be walked in its entirety in about 30 minutes, however the streets have no logic - roads lead to nowhere, roads take you back to where you started, roads are named one thing on one side and another on the other side. Were we ever frustrated by the time we got there. Got settled in our dump of a hotel room, and went out for dinner. After dinner, I was so tired that I decided to go back to the room while H & M toured around a bit. It was a nice excuse to grab a few minutes to myself which was really nice. Called my mom, called Monty and passed out cold.

We woke up refreshed the next day and decided to go to the Academy museum. The line was long but we figured it would move fast. Nope...we waited for 3 hours to get in to see David and leave. In all fairness, it wasn't that bad - we had a good time occupying ourselves with street vendors and the name game.
After that we headed to Ponte Vecchio to spend some time outside which was nice. There were lots of tourists in the city so it was busy, and we also finally got our third day of sunshine since we got there. We then headed to the Uffizi museum and got into another line - much shorter. This one only took 1.5 hours. We did as much as we could before they closed and got out of there.

The next morning, we went back to the train station - this time it took only 5 minutes to get there and boarded a train to Rome. Thankfully, the train was direct and there was no way to screw it up. After 3 hours, we arrived in Rome, grabbed a cab and got to our final hotel, got settled and went for a quick walk through Ancient Rome - raining again. The next day, we got up and walked to the Vatican - got in line, which we expected and found ourselves in St. Peter's Basilica. Unbelievable architecture and we got to see Pieta which was great as well. We decided we wanted to go into the Sistine chapel, got in line, only to find out that the museum was closed until Monday (it was Saturday at this point). So we left and wandered around Rome. Looked in shops we couldn't afford, went to the Spanish steps, went to Trevy Fountain. By the time this was all done, we were soaked so we went back to the hotel to get dry clothes and went out for dinner.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to the Coliseum to take a guided tour and ended up paying one rate to get an additional tour of Ancient Rome. I highly recommend this - you can stop and stare and speculate about the buildings and artifacts that have been uncovered, but you'll never truly understand their history unless it is given to you. I found the whole experience truly enlightening, and was amazed that we were walking on grounds where people lived 4th century BC - truly unbelievable.

On Monday (our last day) we went back to the Vatican Museum and got in a line that crossed 2 streets and turned 5 corners - wow, long. It was pleasant though - we had a great time chatting and the line moved much faster than we expected. Once in, we decided to do the Sistine Chapel first. Let me tell you, there is no such thing. The place is structured so that you have to walk through umpteen mazes and galleries (very cool by the way) in order to get there. We wandered for 2 hours and at the end, found ourselves packed into a room with hundreds of other people staring at the ceiling being pushed through by security. Oy, but I've seen it, and it was truly spectacular for the 10 minutes that we had to view it.

We spent some more time shopping around and walking - in fact, a lot of time, and went for our last dinner in Europe. On Tuesday, we hopped in our airport limo and headed for the airport, boarded the plane and found our way home again.

In short, my trip was truly eye-opening. I cannot pick out single highlights because it was all so amazing. My favourite was Rome, we ate amazing food, we drank amazing wine (every night and sometimes at lunch), I absorbed another culture and finally learned why everyone has told me I need to travel. I was even sad to be home - and now I want to go back. It even made me start to wonder if Toronto is where I want to be anymore. I can't wait until my next adventure, and I will do my best to take everything I possibly can out of my experiences (helping lost tourists from now on is at the top of the list).

Till next time,
JP