When In Rome!

As the title suggests, we experienced Rome like the Romans would. Well, at night we did, but more on that later. 

First we woke up ad headed straight to the Vatican. Keeping with the incredible luck that is our trip, we just so happened to choose the one day a month (last Sunday) that the Vatican is free! So we waited in a 2 hour line to see the museums for free! We were instantly struck by how many sculptures there were, and how old they are were too. Most of the were first century or older. We slowly but surly made our way to the Sistine Chapel and we were awestruck by the church. We sat in there for quite a while until our legs could take no more and we headed out. 

Next we found a great pizza place and ate there. We then wanted to see the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain in the daytime, so we went over to those again.

After a little rest at the hostel we then went for a dinner in the form of a kabab, which are delicious, although not Italian. We had nothing planed for the evening so I pulled out the map and saw a nice looking plaza with gardens nearby so we decided to hang out there. 

As luck would have it, in that very plaza was the final night of the Music Summer Festival Tezenis Live. It was this huge stage set up with crowds filling the plaza, thousands of people! Instead of just one main act playing a set, they had about 25  popular Italian or international musicians playing a wide variety of genres. There were a couple songs in English, but every thing else wasn't, and that just made it that more fun!

It was an incredible night in Rome! More sights tomorrow, hopes full more luck too!

More of Italy

This morning, we woke up quite early and embarked on another train adventure to Rome. The ride was about five hours

through beautiful Italian countryside. We got here at 1:10 and began the task of figuring out how to get to Barcelona on the second of July. Our choices were over 30 hours of train travel, or a quick flight...we chose the flight. 

With that out of the way we found our hostel, checked in, and got some dinner at a pizza place near the Vatican. 

Afterwards, we took a quick nap then went out for some gelato and saw some sights. We walked awhile and saw both the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain. Both lived up to the hype. 

With a big day planned tomorrow we decided to go to sleep earlier than normal. Next stop, The Vatican!

Venice Day 2

Today we slept in a bit and woke up with one goal: exploration. Yesterday we saw all of the main sights Venice had to offer so today we figured we could see the less touristy parts. So we walked across the islands and made our way to the train station where we booked our next train, then we took a different, long route back to the hostel. We stopped and had ice cream while sitting and people/sight watching on the Grand Canal. Once we got back to the hostel, we were overwhelmed by the aroma of a dinner being made by fellow hostel-mates. We then decided to make our own dinner consisting of pasta, meat sauce, and sautéed veggies. After making friends with the girls who cooked before us, we all decided to hit the town and test some nightlife. We tried a bunch of different places, had another great time, and made some more friends! Venice is so great. We are sad to leave in the morning but excited to get to Rome as well!

Venice

When Ben and I were in Bruges, we heard that it was the "Venice of the North," but trust me, nothing can compare to the real thing. 

Last night Ben and I had a sleeper car on the train and met two guys who were in our car which made us four people in a six person car. We become fast friends and spent the day in Venice together and even got a hostel together. Dimitri and Michael are going to southern France next but we're  going to meet up in Barcelona on the fourth in order to spend it with other Americans!

We arrived in Venice around 8:30 this morning and as we stepped out of the train station, we are awestruck by the initial view. 

We then took a water bus to our hostel which was 7 euro for a one way ticket and took us through the entire grand canal because our hostel was one of the last stops. We dropped our bags and began our day in this beautiful city. Luckily we followed the pattern of Vienna and took it easy today as we toured the city. 

What an interesting concept, no cars, no motor bikes, just canals and sidewalks. The city is slowly sinking which is quite interesting because you can see steps leading down into water where you used to be able to walk! 

While there aren't any super popular sights here, we saw a cathedral or two and some pretty cool castles and museums (all from the outside because of our limited budget of course). The awesome thing though is that Venice is a sight to see in it of itself. The place is breathtakingly beautiful and is one of our favorite cities so far! 

Food here was a lot less expensive than expected, the only trick was eating out for our multiple lunches. The price almost doubles if you sit inside of the restaurant. Here is one of the classic Italian dishes we experienced. 

Yes, this is a hot dog wrapped in pizza. 

Anyway, we found that we were sticking out too much as tourists so naturally we attempted to blend in. At one of the open air markets, we found a wide variety of scarves (which are ever so popular in Europe) and we each got one for the evening segment of our adventure. 

We decided that since we are in Italy, and want the full experience, that we would have an authentic Italian meal on the grand canal no less!

We had a great first day in Venice and are excited for a second tomorrow!

Vienna!!

Vienna was a great experience because we actually got to relax while we enjoyed yet another amazing city. The city itself was beautiful with buildings similar to Prague, so we loved walking around. After our night with Tyler and being shown some of the sights, we were given a list of places to see. We woke up for tyler to go to work, so really early, so we had over 12 hours to see the sights. 

One of our favorites we did early was the castle. It was this sweet building, and when we went around back, the grounds were surrounded by vast gardens that were beautiful. There were fountains and statues that were awesomely detailed. Then we walked up the hill that was in the back and hiked to the top to get the most spectacular view of Vienna. We could oversee the entire city and castle grounds and we stayed there for a little while just observing the skyline.

After that we wandered to the great Stephansburg Cathedral where, for free, we could go in and look around inside.

Then we saw the oldest Farris wheel in all of Europe and that was attached to a carnival area with other rides. Of course we got rained on again so it wasn't very busy and we could roam pretty freely.

Then we made our to the government buildings and then to a really cool island with a ton of cool bars and restaurants that all were deserted because of the weather. We saw all Vienna had to offer and were able to do it at a slower pace which was greatly refreshing. 

Halfway! Vienne!

Today is a monumental day of our trip because we are halfway done. Two weeks of traveling down and two to go. It's been an amazing time so far and we have many cities and sights yet left to see and are excited for them. 

With that said, we continued our usual routine of waking up early and going to the train station to catch a train to the next city. This was a long one and we didn't get to Vienna until about 5:00 when we met Tyler. Tyler is Ben's sister's good friend a friend of mine from ski team doing an internship here for the summer so he agreed to let us stay with him and show us around a bit. 

We dropped our bags at his place and got a taste of what tomorrow will bring. He took us out to eat and we had authentic Wiener schnitzel with potato salad. We then walked around quite a lot before finding an relaxed outdoor bar to unwind and have some nice conversation over some cold beers. 

All in all today was another relaxing travel day in preparation for a new city tomorrow. Vienna here we come!

The City of 1000 Spires

Prague is the first city on our trip that we have not met or stayed with on our trip. It was very exciting setting out with no one to contact or anything. We were given a pamphlet at our hostel of various activities, one of which was a free tour of the city! How perfect!! We immediately decided to go and planned our day around it. 

It was one if the best decisions ever. Our tour guys was an awesome Australian guy named Callum and he was young and hilarious! We started our tour at the oldest working astronomical clock in the world! Every hour on the hour between 9 and 9 the clock puts on a little show! There are these 2 small doors that open and it reveals the 12 disciples rotating around one in each window at a time. At the same time, these four figures all move their heads. It might not sound like much, because it really was not impressive, until you consider that the gears and everything were built in 1410! 

We learned that and so much more about Prague, the buildings we were seeing, and the whole history of the Czech Republic on our tour. We were taken through the old town square, to the Charles Bridge, through the Jewish Quarter and much much more. It was so great seeing all the sights and learning so much at the same time. 

We loved Callum (man in the picture) and we were very thankful for the great and free tour! We both love Prague so much because of the buildings. Everywhere you go there are beautiful old buildings with many different architecture influences, all differently colored; it was breathtaking. 

Then we had an amazing night on the town! We both loved Prague and will forever hold it in our hearts as one of our favorite cities!!

Traveling to Prague

Today we embarked on another grueling train ride, this time from Berlin to Prague. I finished an entire book on the trip and Ben got through most of his before dozing off, these train rides are exhausting. 

The train ride from Berlin to here was beautiful though. There was one point that we looked out the window to see a wide, winding river that we followed for awhile with large cliffs on the opposite side and lush fields between us and the river. There were wonderful looking homes in this area and we both imagined how cool it would be to retire to a place as beautiful as this. 

We got to Prague and bought a map first thing, and dropped our bags off at the hostel. Following our friend Jessica's advice (she spent a semester here last year) we went to dinner at kolkovne and each got a classic Czech dish and beer in order to be apart of the culture here. 

Walking through the streets of Prague is incredible, every road and sidewalk is made up of brick pavers and cobblestone, and every building seems like is either very old and well kept, or simply was built to look old fashioned. Either way the scenery is a sight to behold. 

Tomorrow we are going on a free walking your and are very excited to see more of Prague!

Berlin!

Today was another day of our own version of traveling; walking as much as possible and seeing as much as possible in little time and for little money. Berlin was a great place for this style because almost all the sights were fairly close and everything (food and beer) is less expensive than our pervious cities. 

Let me start the list of places we visited by saying we did not go into pretty much any of these places because of either time or money, but we saw them and got the gist nonetheless. We saw the TV tower, Saint Hedwig's Cathedral (we did go inside here), then we walked down the Main Street where there were many museums like the Berliner Dom, the Palace of the Republic, and a couple university buildings. At the end of the street was Brandeburg Gate

which lead us to the Reichstag. We wanted to go in the Reichstag but the line was staggering! 

Then we walked along the River Spree as we heading across town to the Eastern Art Gallery. When we got there we found the gallery is actually a 1.3 km stretch of the Berlin Wall that had been painted by artists in remembrance. The paintings ranged from messages 

To all sorts of different styles and colors of patterns and distorted images

All the way to different people and forms of people, like the famous Dmitri Wrubel's depiction of east and west German leaders kissing!

We also took a tour (free of course) to the Holcaust memorial museum. It was so sad but incredibly well done and we learned a ton about WWII. Then came the night... The music festival is still in full swing but today has a new twist: GAY PRIDE! There have been countless men and women wearing rainbows, crazy costumes, glitter, or almost nothing at all, all of them going just crazy. The scene was unbelievable and nearly impossible to describe, but I'll do my best. It was similar to last nights music festival activities except the ratio of gays to straights was probably 6:1 in favor of the gays. There was a different stage every 200 yards on the street in front of the Brandeburg Gate and there were thousands of gay men and women going buck wild in celebration of the rights they have in this country. It was an... Interesting sight to say the least and Austin and I very much enjoyed it, no matter how many things we saw that we cannot un-see. 

Our day in Berlin was incredible and we saw as much as humanly possible. We are sad to be leaving tomorrow but excited to see a new country and city as  well; Prague, here we come!

Berlin Music Festival

Yes you read the title correctly, we just happen to be in Berlin on the one day of the year that the Fête de la Musique Berlin takes place. 

The day started in Amsterdam where we left the hostel at 7:30 to begin a day of travel. We returned out bikes and hopped a train to Berlin. As usual our train was delayed about 20 minutes and our connection was delayed 40 but after 11 long hours of traveling, we arrived in Berlin and sought out the Ducker Berlin building to meet up with Wouter, a Ducker employee that Ben knows through working in Ducker Detroit. 

He informed us of the music festival so after dropping our bags at his apartment, we took the train to northern Berlin and found thousands of people crowding fields and streets as a myriad and plethora of bands played their own unique genre to the crowd around them. One particularly large field had electronic dance music and a couple thousand drunk Germans dancing to the beat. 

Just another crazy stroke of luck that the city we are in has an amazing event the same time we are here, tomorrow we begin our site seeing phase of Berlin and are excited to see what all of our friends have been raving about when it comes to Germany. 

Amsterdam!

Bikes bikes bikes bikes and more bikes. That is the first thing I will forever think about when someone brings up Amsterdam. There were so many bikes it was unreal; we read that bikes outnumbered cars 4 to 1!!! They are so popular that there are bike lanes on every street and even separate traffic lights! So naturally we rented a bike for the day in order to properly explore the city. First we checked in at the youth hostel (our first one of the trip) and dropped our bags off in lockers there. From there, we rode around the whole city for about 5 hours, only stopping for lunch once. We saw all the major sights, yes, including the red light district. It wasn't bad at all during the day!

After our adventure on the bikes we took a short nap before meeting Austin's cousin Wijnand. He bought us dinner and drinks and we had a wonderful time conversing with him about Amsterdam, Holland, and everything else! He showed us the oldest pub in Amsterdam that has hardly been changed, and it turns out that the pub is older than America! It was a great day and new city, but we do have to leave in the morning! Next stop: Berlin!

Brussels and Bruges!

Last night we decided to courageously take on two cities today instead of just one. Suffice it to say, we are exhausted. To begin the day we took an hour train to Bruges and started a long day of walking old cobblestone city streets along canals and thousand year old buildings. It was amazing to see a city that is older the United States itself. 

We came upon an open market area and remembered the four things we were told to try here-beer, chocolate, chips, and waffles. Naturally we went for the most appetizing option and got our first taste of real Belgian waffles and let me tell you, they were delicious. 

We walked past cathedrals, museums, and other incredible buildings in Bruges until our legs needed a rest and we sat down at a cafe for awhile. 

We took the train back to Brussels and met up with our lovely host Liz, and we saw the Grand Place or central square of the city and had a nice cold refreshing Belgian beer. 

After a bit more sight seeing we went to the train station and got our train reservation to Amsterdam tomorrow morning sorted. 

As the trip continues, the pace quickens. It was our goal to see as much of Europe as we could and we're right on schedule, and excited for the next 3 weeks!

Paris!!!

With the grace of God and the help of two literal and figurative angels and one very kind man, we made it to Brussels. 

Our day in Paris was, by most people's standards, not possible. We took the metro from our awesome host's (Jochen Kemnitz) house and started at Notre Dame.

We walked from there along the Seine River and saw many amazing buildings, mostly government offices, and many gardens. We made our way along to the Eiffel Tower to see it in all it's wonder in the day time. It seemed so much larger than at night! We planned to sit around there for a while, but someone was climbing where they shouldn't high up the tower, we left as police got involved. We then walked to the Arc de Triomph where we would have gone up, but on our limited budget we decided pictures from the bottom would suffice.

Then we walked down the famous shopping street that is he Avenue des Champs Élyées which landed us at the Palais du Louvre where we took more pictures outside without going in. Many of you may not realize I said walked for all of those distances in about 4 and a half hours, and our legs are very sore now because of the great speed and distance we covered. Looking back on describing Paris, one word comes to mind: grand. All the buildings and monuments and statues were all so grand , it was amazing to see. The main difference in our travels through France was the language difference. We learned a few phrases like "thank you" and "do you speak English?" And once people saw we were American, they were happy to try their English on us and it was easy to convey what we wanted to say. Sometimes, it was even fun! Now we look forward to Brugge and Brussles tomorrow!

Last of London and First of France

We began our day a bit later in order to rest up for the city switch that was ahead of us. At about 11:00 we walked about 100 yards from Richards house to a tennis club next door where the first of many Wimbledon qualifying matches will be held. By comets chance we got to see some amazing young athletes try and fight their way to Wimbledon! 

After we watched some tennis we took their dog for a walk through a vast wild deer reserve and ended up walking for more than two hours around this park seeing beautiful wildlife and hundreds of deer. 

After this, we packed up, had a bite to eat, and bid Richard, his family, and their wonderful and much appreciated hospitality farewell to start our next adventure to Paris. We boarded an 8:01 train and arrived in Paris at 23:17 with a one hour time change. 

Mine and bens first thought after emerging from the metro was "wow." After navigating the French labeled subway system we walked up the stairs to see a glimmering Eiffel Tower right in front of us and were absolutely speechless. We walked toward it and as we approached, the sparkling lights turned off but we didn't mind, we sat on the lawn in front of it for an hour under a light sprinkle of rain in awe.  

Around one o'clock, Ben's dad's work colleague and friend picked us up and drove us for a short tour through Paris and then took us to his home. Being such a kind and gracious host, he stayed up awhile longer sharing some bread, cheese, and a glass of wine with us before showing us our room where we are now. 

Our second city switch has been an amazing success and we cannot wait for what Paris has to offer tomorrow. 

London Day 3

London Day 3 was nothing short of great. We caught up on some sleep before venturing out to see the main sights London has to offer. We first walked around Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, which were incredible. 

Next we walked our way back to Buckingham Palace, where the parade was the day before and we followed the path it took.  

After that we wandered back towards the river Thames and ate on the south bank of the river. The south bank was such an entertaining place because there were various street performers and musicians and a fair for little kids. Next, we wheeled and dealed with some legit scalpers for a few discounted tickets to go up the Eye of London. The view was spectacular, we  took tons of pictures!

We ended the day at a pub back in Leicester Square. It was just another amazing day! Tomorrow will definitely bring more excitement!

London-Day 2

Yesterday as we made plans with Ben's aunt Caroline, we were informed that today the queens birthday was being celebrated (called Trooping of the Colour) and there would be a parade in the morning! So naturally, going along with the theme of the trip, we took advantage of the unique opportunity and saw a magnificent parade through the streets of London, out of and then back to Buckingham palace! 

After the parade we met Ben's aunt and her daughters for a much appreciated lunch where we tasted the Indian cuisine that London has to offer. 

Because of our train tickets to Paris being a day later due to availability, we are exploring London a little bit at a time and are excited to do some site seeing around the south bank tomorrow. 

London Day 1

We left Chester bright and early to get on our 5 hour bus to London. When we arrived we found a place to eat lunch, so we enjoyed our first pint and fish and chips in London.

After that we made out way to our host's house, Richard Atterbury, who is an old friend of my dads. We rested for a bit then went back into central London where we walked around for most of the night. We walked through Covet Garden, Leicester Square, Piccadilly  Circus, Soho, and Chinatown. It was incredible seeing the nightlife and so many people being so lively in the countless pubs, clubs, and restaurants. We even saw a couple street performers! It was a great first day in London and we look forward to a busy day tomorrow!

Chester-Continued

After lunch we drove around for awhile with Ben's grandma and ended up at the Chester zoo! Without paying we managed to make it to the elephants and saw two very young ones! 

After a great dinner thanks to Ben's grandma, we went to see what night life in Chester was like. Turns out it ends at eleven but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. 

We find ourselves completely exhausted in the hotel room now ready for a good nights rest and a new adventure in London tomorrow!

Chester-Day One

After a full english breakfast and a morning of booking our bus and train transports to London and Paris, Ben and I have found ourselves in downtown Chester, wandering about the shops and streets it has to offer. 

Here is Ben at the Rows cafe where we had a small sandwich and cup coffee to hold off our hunger for some fish and chips later on tonight. 

The Journey

We had 5 legs of our trip to Chester, England, and they could not have felt more like the amazing race. All 3 of our flights were delayed, which actually worked out well because we were able to make the next one each time. The only problem was our time in Dublin was cut short which meant we only had an hour to "tour" Dublin, which really meant making our way to the ferry (the only leg that was on time) so we did not get to see as much as we would had hoped. On the ferry we enjoyed our first taste of a different culture with a Guinness each. After that we took the train from Holyhead, Whales and finally made it to Chester where we were greeted by my grandma! We enjoyed a lovely dinner of Chinese food with my grandparents where we were complimented by stranger on our manners,

then made our way to the hotel we are now! It was a long and exhausting trip but we made it!!!

Today's the day!

We leave today and we could not be more excited to start our adventure! We are all packed and eagerly awaiting the 4:30 departure time! We will arrive in Dublin, Ireland by tomorrow morning and we will be off from there!

As we're gearing up and mock packing our bags, we are finally realizing how real this trip is! In exactly one week from today Ben and I will be embarking on the trip of a lifetime, how exciting!

Here is a rough outline of our travel plan using none other than Mapquest! As you can see we start in Dublin, Ireland and will be finding our way toward Madrid, Spain (not directly of course).

We hope to blog from our phones throughout the trip and can both be reached by email when internet is available.

I hope you guys can all share in our adventure through this blog!