Paris; City of Unknown Smells and many stairs

This was our first ride on an overnight train and we had fun with it. We started at the bar car with some wine and then retired to our cabin at the Milan stop to get ready for the long ride. It was beautiful pulling out of Venice as well.

Our arrival in Paris on the Venice-<->Paris night train was relatively uneventful. I personally awoke a bit ahead of schedule as we made our first stop in Dijon 4 hours out of Paris; no matter, it was a pretty ride and we actually slept quite well in the night. 
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Unfortunately we didn't have a shower or anything like that but remembering our first trip to Paris we weren't too worried. After some teeth brushing in our little sink, a lot of fabreeze, and some freshening up we stepped out into the city. We were immediately greeted by that bouquet of aroma that would easily cover our travel weary selves. Venice has nothing on Paris in the realm of stink, in fact I dare say I've never been anywhere that does.

I know Lauren and I are both always very down on Paris and we tried really hard to give it a second chance. Our first encounter with a Parisian didn't really help the deal though as our waitress in the bar car was from Paris and understood our problem; telling us she hated it and had bought a home in Switzerland to get out of it. Soldiering on we headed for our hotel; the same awesome one as last time. Amazingly the metro was clean (ish) and we suddenly realized the French Open was in town and the dogs were cheating by cleaning up the city for the extra tourists... We even saw a man scrubbing the sidewalk at the Arc d'triumph, something we never saw before.

After getting our stuff secure in the hotel we started sightseeing, and climbing stairs. Both are things that never, ever end in this city. 

Over the next two days (arrival day and today) we saw many sites. Some of them I got a snap of on the iPhone which I posted above, others we will add to the Flickr feed later. To name a few we revisited the Army Museum/Napoleon's Tomb, The Louvre, the park alongside the Eiffel Tower, and many more. The Eiffel elevators were broken and given the amount of stairs involved you can probably understand our hesitance to revisit it... Speaking of stairs, this city is awash with them. Let me highlight some of them for you:

Broken by the way, so this still counts.

My butt is going to look amazing if I ever make it down from the stairs. Among those you may notice some particularly long spiral stairs: we finally made it up the Arc d'triumph which was spectacular, if tiring.

We also revisited the Louvre today which we said we would never do; and though we didn't get stuck between construction sections this time the AC didn't seem to be working at full power which wasn't helping the already tough nasal atmosphere of the city.

We saw many other sites which I am not the most qualified to mention as they all revolved around modern art which I cannot talk about for more than one run-on sentence without venturing into a long argument about how chairs and paint splatter are neither hard to make or "art." Either way one of the buildings was the Pompidou Centre which was cool enough to distract me from the epic amounts of waisted time placed into the "art" within for at least 2 minutes. 

 


We probably won't have another post as the wifi here is hard to find and we will be home soon. This trip was truly great, but just like our first European trip; Paris is a good city to visit if you want to make yourself wish you were back home (or anywhere else really).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Free day in Venice

Last night we took a few night cruises and visited the night version of st. Marks. Amazing, I will add some real pictures to the flckr thing soon as the iPhone won't take anything good in that low light.

Not much to write about today, after hitting all the sites already. Today was basically a free day so we woke up a little late, and we hit a few fresh sites like the naval museum and the frari church which holds st. John's father's corpse... I know.

Otherwise we've just eaten far too much delicious food and had some wine as we relaxed. We have a night train to catch at about 8 and will wake in Paris tomorrow, so that's something we've never done before, should be fun.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Calle de la Scuola,Venice,Italy

Strolling in Venice

Today we took some time to enjoy Venice. We rode the water buses around the city a few times, really taking in the views. We even took the entire route to the Lido! We strolled around our favorite part of the city-Accademia. We also visited the city's other two churches-San Rocco & Frari. These churches were quite unique & ran into each other! They were built & decorated by the famous families of Venice, even battling to have the best church!

We tried the "street pizza" and a veggie caprese sandwich for lunch! We again snacked on gelato this afternoon. I'm really enjoying the food in Italy! And last night I had my favorite Strongbow on draft, which is always a treat!

We are going to try the very locale Resturant tonight for dinner near our hotel, so hooray for more yummy food! Then we are going to try to ride the water bus at night. Perhaps back to the breathtaking San Marco's square!


Adding some pictures (we found Internet again) - Jordan

Venice, day due, no funny tittle I can think of

Today we woke up a bit late which is a luxury on these trips but is clearly the custom in Italy; then we headed for St. Marks again to view the Basilica and other surrounding sites thanks to Lauren's fine work making us reservations; lines are for chumps...

After the Basilica we headed for the Doge's palace next door. Pretty but not amazing. (will post more pictures on the flckr feed later)

Next we hit the Corror Museum (I got bored and stopped taking pictures since it was the 4th museum of the day). It was pretty, still not sure what it was though, but free with our pass so...

After that we got some Italian food and focused on the wine mainly; it was a great lunch. Moving on, we walked about 80 miles to the university on the southern side and decided to hit the Guggenheim to complete the trifecta of things that bore me and make Lauren happy. I paid my $12 and set on the balcony because my feet hurt and they had no beer:

Later, after our modern art fix we hit the end of the southern section and found a nice view.

After that we were largely done with sights so we hopped on the bus-boat for the Rialto again and found some dinner nearby. There was an ambulance boat during our dinner, which was exciting.

And now we are at an Irish bar drinking English beers posting a blog post.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Off to Venice

Today (wednesday) we left Switzerland for Italy (Brig to Venice to be precise). Brig was a cute city; although not a real tourist hotspot we found it to be a good layover in preparation for leaving the country today.

I'll leave it to you to spot some of the differences between the last stop in Switzerland and the first in Italy.

Although things did greatly improve as (after 4.5 hours) we pulled into Venice.

During our little train adventure we ran a cross a bit of a snafu; having booked a ticket which the girl at the ticket office gave us that was made out for several stops short of Venice and also having a used up rail pass. The ticket check finally made it to us about 2 hours from Venice (well after our supposed stop) and we managed to BS our way into; well, not getting kicked off the train. Basically we confused him so much he said he was going to check but just gave up and never came back.

After making it to Venice we stopped by our hotel, which is incredible, and then we went right for two of the bigger sites. Although we'll be seeing them again we visited the Rialto (bridge over the grand canal) and then St. Marks square. Both were awe-inspiring.

Then, considering a powerful desire for some free water and a big meal we hit the Hard Rock just off St. Marks, a very nice spot.

While our main goal is still hitting all of the Margaritavilles, we are ticking off a lot of Hard Rocks.

After that we headed back to our room but finding the internet unable to support both our iPhones and the laptop and needing to post Lauren's post from earlier we found a bar with WWF playing and wifi which is where I'm posting from now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Calle dei Preti o del Pistor,Venice,Italy

Swiss finale; Castles, Torches, and Broken Trains

 On Tuesday we ventured down the mountain one last time.  Although the views were stunning and the people were so nice, I was glad to get down to a decent breathing altitude!! I had really struggled the past few days with the thin air, so it was probably better for me to get down towards our normal sea level.

 We trained into Lausanne, which is on Lake Geneva.  There were only two reasons we ventured down to this part of Switzerland: Olympic headquarters & Chateau Chillon.   I knew the Chateau was quite a bit around the lake from Lausanne, but I wanted to see my first real castle with a moat, dungeon, etc.  We hopped on an inter-regional train which was on the right route to the Chateau stop.  However, the train kept on going past the station.  Luckily we could get off at the next stop.  The next stop was over a mile later.  From that station we had to walk to the Chateau.  Luckily Switzerland believes in making the entire country extremely walk able, so we got to stroll down the lake to the Chateau.  The Chateau is really a castle used from the 1100s to the 1800s.  It sits directly on Lake Geneva, first situated upon a rock that jutted out from the banks of the lake.  It was a great experience to tour a real castle!  Also, this castle is famous because Lord Byron wrote a poem about the prisoner who was held the longest in the Chateau.  We walked back to the far station and ended up on a train that stopped at the Chateau station!  The train was delayed for some kind of other train wreck, so it took forever to venture back into the city of Lausanne.

Once we returned from that crazy adventure, we rode the metro down the huge town hill to the waterfront.  The Olympic headquarters was placed in Lausanne (Ouchy).  Why you ask (as Jordan did)…because the man who revived the games in the 1890s was from here.  He founded the games as we know them & formed the committee in his hometown.   Now of course I knew the Olympic museum was under construction, but they had a temporary exhibit open across the street on a boat.  We got to see the two things we were actually interested in: the Olympic torches & medals from every games in chronological order.  Please notice we have already previewed the London torch & medals for 2012! We also saw the outside of the museum with its various fountains & statues.  We ate along the lake which was quite pretty!

As we end of week in Switzerland, I’ve tried to collect my thoughts about this country.  It is truly the most beautiful country I have ever been to in my short life.  The Alps, especially the three highest I observed for over three days, were stunning every day.  This country values its customs in each region, but mostly values the outdoors.  It has sidewalks, bike tails, and ski lifts in every corner of the country.  People seem to live outside.  Even their houses/apartments all have balconies and sunrooms.  It is truly inspiring.  However, the country is so pretty is almost beckons you to come outside.  We have been to practically every corner of this country and have really enjoyed it.  The views alone were worth it!  We are not sure if we will ever return to all of these places but we are ok with that fact.  Every city cannot be our Amsterdam…

Onto to see what this Italy is all about…

*sorry, few pictures due to bad internet…
-Lauren