Part Venice

Originally Venice was not on our plan, but knowing how much I wanted to go there, Stephen, being the legend he is, co-ordinated a trip for us to Venice for the day.

We got up early and hopped a train from Rome to Venice, 3 hours later we arrived!

Funny Story: While waiting for Stephen at the train station, a group of tourists approached me to ask a question. An older gentleman, pointing at me says "Italia", to which I respond, smiling, saying "No". He stares at me for a minute then turns to his group and says " Brasil (Not Brazil)" to which I smile and shake my head and say "No, I'm from New Zealand". He looks at me for a minute, perplexed then smiles and says "Ah, INDIA" . Way off old school!)

I decided I wanted to do a Gondola ride first thing in the morning, it was quieter in the canals and it looked to be high tide, so we wandered along the grand canal until we found a Gondola we would be happy to ride.

The gondolier took us through some smaller canals and pointed out some historic buildings (Marco Polo’s house, Don Juan’s villa).

It was so nice and peaceful to ride on the water through the streets, I think we only saw one other gondola while we were out there. Romantico!

After that we wondered the streets looking at the market-like-stalls set up everywhere. We followed the crowds through the narrow streets over to St Mark’s Square and sat down with our giant 5 foot map to figure out where else we might want to go.

We ate pasta on far canal (HAHAHA) and then jumped on the taxi boat and rode it for an hour, just to see where it went.

What I loved about Venice ? No vehicles, artists painting everywhere, and the people.

There were random service workers with dolly's walking around carting peoples luggage from the boats to the hotels, power walking through the streets. I was pretty impressed with their ability to maneuver through that many people with the swiftness in which they moved.

We wandered some more and finished our day in Venice with some delish gelato (+ 5 pounds).

Venice was awesome!

Part Roma Coliseum

Italy was on our list of places to visit for a couple of reasons.

1. It's awesome
2. It would be place the two of us could experience together for the first time

So it was no surprise that I was so excited I almost peed my pants when I arrived in Rome.

Stephen made me read this taxi warning the explained all taxi's in Rome are white, and it was only 40 euro from the airport to the city center. Lucky I read that, coz some scammer tried to get me to ride in his "taxi" and when he said it was 65 euro, I told him to piss off!

I spent a night in Rome on my own while Stephen was in Russia, living my dream as a lady of leisure ordering room service while sitting on a terrace overlooking the city, reading.

We had booked two tours before we arrived in Italy, the first being the Colosseum . Since it was a PM tour we decided to leave our hotel early in the morning and explore the Eternal City together.

We began our day walking past the Trevi Fountain, which was PACKED! 

We’d read online that it was better to go there at night so we headed over to the Pantheon.

One of the perks of visiting the Pantheon, built in 126 AD, was that it was FREE! The building itself was nothing short of majestic and there was an odd reverence to the place.  

Following our visit to the Pantheon we meandered on over to have lunch and meet up with our tour. 

Food for the day? Gnocchi.  Pasta in Italy is necessary right ? RIGHT!

Our tour was set for 3 ½ hours and it is something I HIGHLY recommend. Our tour group was small, 12 people, and when you pay for private tours you are able to skip the lines, which are ridiculous, and we were able to walk across the stage and under it, as well as walk across the top tier where there was only one other tour group.

The Colosseum is impressive, to say the least. It is massive, built between 70 – 80AD its apparent Roman’s must have been geniuses. The architecture, the sheer mass is completely overwhelming.

After a few hours at the colosseum we headed over to the Roman Forum. For archeologists, this place must be heaven. There were still a number of people sifting through the ruins finding random pottery and other treasures.

Here again, there was so much to see, so much history. There as some old residences that had uncovered terracotta “pipes” that were used to produce hot water for the top floors, I’m telling you, the romans were some smart people.

Once we were done with the Forum we headed over to the Kings Monument. By this time the sun was starting to go down, so we decided to head over to the Spanish steps to watch the sunset, and stopped for gelato on the way.

We decided to finish off our day by going back to see the Trevi fountain and stopping for some dinner at a café close to it. This was followed by another stop at another café for dessert (Tiramisu, Cannoli and more gelato) before comatosing out. 

What a grand day, definitely one of my favs.

Part Paris

Recently, the husband and I went to a few countries in Europe, and since it was such a joyous experience, I figured I would write about it.

My flying experience to Europe was less than stellar, and I'll dedicate a post to Delta at a later stage.

I arrived in Brussels a few hours later than originally expected without my suitcase. 

For me, this is frustrating for a number of reasons.

1. I plan all my outfits in advance (yes, I'm that narcissistic)
2. One Euro = 1.42 USD
3. Showering and putting on your husband’s clothes, or the funky clothes you travelled 24 hours in is not the business.

Lucky for me, there was an H&M at the mall not far from the hotel, which was probably the cheapest place to shop, and I was able to a dress and everything else I needed. Inspite of this snafu and the lack of sleep, we decided to head to the city centre in Brussels and have something to eat, and look around. The city itself was quite beautiful, very heavy on the French influence, cleaner than other areas we went to, and the waffles? Delish!

We took the train from Brussels to Paris, which was an hour and a half ride, and started our ridiculously busy day the minute we arrived. We bought ourselves some all day subway passes, good deal and easy to  get everywhere on. (Side note: There are some gifted musicians that play in the subway tunnels) 

We did a free walking tour from the Paris Opera House ending at Tuileries Garden.  

We walked over to the  Lourve (if you ever go there, go to there, to avoid the ridiculous line, there is an exit on the south side I think, with Lions, there was no line to get in that way). 

Spent a few hours there, walking around and looking at everything (amazing) and headed over to café on the Seine River for lunch and to people watch. 

After that, it was Notre Dame cathedral and then on to Champs-Elysees to look at the shops and take a photo by Arc De Triomphe.


Final destination for the day was the Eiffel Tower.

We finished the day eating crepes on the river.


The food ? So tasty.
The people ? Nice

The city of love with my love ? Marvellous.

And it was his birthday ? Even better!