Trip Summary I

Well, we made it home. The trip was great. There were a couple little snags, we exhausted ourselves completely almost every day, and we unexpectedly extended a night, but it really was a great trip. We didn't have any problems come up; no lost passports, no getting separated on the subway, no pickpockets, no getting hit by cars. We did get lost in Rome for a couple hours, but it was a fun adventure.

We may eventually post a more exhaustive posting of the trip, but for now I'm just going to show a few highlights. Mostly because I'm tired and still recovering from the trip.

As mentioned previously, we were able to ride first class direct to Paris. After we landed we took the train to the hotel. That was quite the change. On the plane we had enough room to lay down completely, our own TVs with anything we wanted on them, somebody bringing 3-course meals every couple hours. On the train we were stuffed into 4 small, hard seats with our luggage teetering precariously above us. Then we had to change trains twice to get to the hotel. It was fun.

After arriving at the hotel we walked to the Eiffel Tower. It was just as big as I remembered it. We took the elevator to the top, fighting sleepiness the whole time (we'd been awake over 24 hours at that point). It was a nice way to start the trip.

The next day (or sometime around there; it's all still a blur) we saw the Arc de Triomphe and all sorts of stuff around Paris. We went to the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge, the Notre Dame Cathedral. We even took a trip out to the Palace at Versailles.
From Paris, we took a plane down to Florence. After the adventure of riding the train from the airport we decided to take an airport shuttle. It only cost a few dollars more than taking the train, and saved us a ton of stress.

Florence was really nice. It felt so relaxed compared to Paris. Paris is a very fast-paced city. Florence is much more laid back. The only really bad thing there was the mosquitoes. Over the course of 3 days I got over 100 bites, but I smashed quite a few of them, too.

Here we are on top of the Dome at the Duomo in Florence. It was a lot of stairs, but a great view.
We also took a side trip out to Pisa. Good thing we did, too, because this tower was falling. It turns out Annie was just strong enough to keep it from falling.I think our best food may have been in Florence, too. The restaurants were very tourist-friendly, but still cheap, and still really tasty. I think they had my favorite ice cream as well.

After Florence we took the train down to Sorrento, just south of Napoli. It's a pretty touristy town, but so quiet and laid back that it was really relaxing. We decided to scale back our plans a bit there and really enjoyed it. We still saw everything worth seeing, but had a lot of time to enjoy it and relax in the evenings. Here we are at Pompei.
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