Were in Italy!


Upon driving into our final destination we stopped in Verona to see the most well known balcony.




Yeah, we all touched Juliette's boob. And read the letters! Verona was a cute little stop, but its Venice that's stolen my heart.





The floating city welcomed us with a floodless day full of pizza, gelato, gondola rides, espresso, mask shopping and other very Italian things (did you know Venice floods 200/365 days a year?). We had a walking tour to start off our day then visited a glass blowing demonstration which blew all our minds and definitely made me question what I do with my time. The Glassman(?) made this horse in under one minute!


We spent the day doing super touristy things and experiencing Venizia to the fullest, we even sat off the edge of a canal and dangled our feet for a while.


In the evening we went off for our gondola ride, and our amazing tour guide Rex surprised Mike and me with a private romantic gondola tour separate from the group which was absolutely lovely of him. The entire time people were snapping pictures of us from the bridges and windowsills, but we had such a nice ride and really loved the experience.




Tomorrow we head into Florence and I'm so excited to continue this week through Italy! Next week were in Greece and I'm so happy the two places I was most excited for are finally happening!


Ciao!
Were back in France!
Today we journeyed into beautiful Nice for a lovely day of relaxing in the sun. And by relaxing, of course I mean walking. Were always walking.



We had the chance in the morning to visit the Fagonard Perfurmery and got to see how perfume is made, and of course I splurged on two bottles of amazing French perfume. I held out for the perfect souvenir from France!


Then we carried on to find crepes and gelato, and had the best gelato I've ever had in my life (did you know there's such a thing as speculos ice cream?!) and some delicious fresh savory crepes.
Nice has this amazing viewpoint you can climb up (or take a lift up if you don't want to walk) and see over the entire area, and we spent a good hour staring at the beauty that is Nice. I don't think any of us really wanted to climb back down but it was almost 23 degrees and the beach was right there so we tredged on.




Later in the evening (at 8pm) we hopped on the coach and drove down to Monacco for the evening. Just a little back story in case any of you don't know (I certainly didn't), Monacco is considered the richest country in the world. Rumor has it there's no taxes, so you have go pay millions to become a resident and live on rich turf. Walking through the streets in a dress from Dynamite and shoes from H&M I felt super out of place, but it was pretty cool to see the palace and the Monte Carlo and eat McDonalds like peasants in the richest place in the world (we weren't about to pay over €100 per plate thank you very much). I didn't bring my camera to avoid looking like the worlds biggest tourist amungst the rich (although I really wanted to take a picture of George Clooneys yacht) but I'll see what I can steal from Facebook.


Nice taught me to try new things (frogs legs are delicious) and was definitely one of the nicest places we went in France.
Now to Italy!
xx
Hola from Barcelona!


Tomorrow we head off to Nice, then were off to Monacco, then to Italy, and apparently we won't have much WiFi at all anywhere we go. Its currently 2am here, and I have to be up at 730 for the 10 hour trip back to France but I realized I should update you all before we leave here as we probably won't be able to for a week or so!



Barcelona has treated us well. The night life here is absolutely insane as they free pour alcohol and clubs don't even open until midnight, and no one even shows up till 2am. People are super passionate about where they come from here and wear their flags so proudly, so everywhere you look there's culture and authenticity.





We explored a lot of the touresty things (like, how amazing is Sagrada Familia?! Pictured above) but we mostly tried to see the area like the locals, going to their food market, walking their outdoor shopping centers and best of all searching for the most authentic paella. Our amazing tour guide Rhett (better known as Rex) told us to not settle at a restaurant until they charge us around £30 for two people and tell us it'll be at least a 45 minute wait, and although most places charged £6 per plate we trecked on and finally (after what felt like forever of searching) found a place to settle in.



We found out the chef was someone's grandmother slaving away authentic cuisine in her puny kitchen in their 20 seater restaurant, and considering we took up half their capacity we felt horrid and had to wait over an hour for the poor lady to make 10 massive seafood paella dishes but oh my god was it ever worth the wait.
We also sat down as a whole (37 of us) and shared tapas and saw a Flamenco show, and drank way more sangria than I thought physically possible. I'm so sad to be leaving Spain tomorrow, but I know they'll be more amazing cultures to come.


Adios, Barcelona!
As a perk of going Contiki, you get to stay in exclusive "stopovers" full of other Contiki-goers. When I heard that we were staying in a chateaux I didn't really know what to expect, and when we pulled up my jaw quite literally dropped.





The building was surrounded by vineyards and farms and small dirt roads with chickens running free and nothing but the sound of birds. We had the most beautiful hike up what felt like a mountain and had a picnic of brie, baguettes, fruit and chips and relaxed all afternoon, and when night came we partied so hard we could barely wake up for the 9am breakfast call. It was two days of complete bliss and even though I'm currently poised in the corner of our adorable hostel in Barcelona, I miss looking out the window and seeing the breathtaking French scenery.







Tomorrow we have an entire day to explore Spain, and although I'm super excited, I'm also slightly exhausted and hoping I can get a good enough nights sleep to keep powering through! 
Bonjour mes amis!
Mike and I have officially started our contiki tour! We couldn't have landed a better group. The lot of us had been chatting on Facebook for months before the big meet up in London but I'm sure none of us expected to bond as quickly as we did.
And we made it to our first destination; France!




Our first day in Paris was spectacular. We decided to go up the Eiffel Tower at night and it was the most beautiful experience and I'm so glad we opted out of doing it during the day. You coud see for miles, and we all stood at the top for ages just chatting and taking endless pictures and soaking it all in. I mean, were in Paris surrounded by some of the best company out there; could life get any better?






Oh, it can. Today we walked all over (in the blazing heat may I add!) to see le Louvre, l'Arc du Triomphe, Avenue des Champs Elysées, le Tour Eiffel, Pont des Arts and more. We walked for hours on end exploring the culture and craze that is the city of love and not a single person was sitting at the dinner table tonight without a permanent smile on their face. I'm completely flabbergasted that today is only one week into our adventure. It feels like its been two months, but in reality that's how long we have left till we're home! Tomorrow were going to see Moulin Rouge (!!!) and have an authentic Parisian feast, and I could not be more excited. 





Here's to new friendships and awesome adventures!
(PS, due to the god awful WiFi at this hotel I had to durastically cut the quality of my pictures so they wouldn't take 10 years to upload.. I cried inside).
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