Kyra Over Seas

You know the saying "When in Rome"? Well, when we were in Rome it rained. A lot. Rain is kind of an understatement, it was pouring so bad half our first day got cancelled!


However. We saw everything we needed to see, and we all bought ponchos and umbrellas off the random men walking around yelling "Lady Gaga! Poncho! Free for you! €2!". It was quite the experience in itself.


Trevi fountain has apparently been under construction for over a year and I was pretty choked, but I guess that just means well have to come back! We got to see a bit of it at least? Although it was drained other than the collected rain water so it was kind of pointless.


The Roman Forum was super cool to see! We had a guided tour and got all kinds of information on every pile of brick and column. However what I really enjoyed was the Colosseum. Our tour guide explained how it worked; they had criminals being tortured as a show, wild animals such as elephants or lions fighting against each other or humans, gladiators fighting and other very violent performances.


The next day we went into the Vatican City, which is the worlds smallest country. Unfortunately there were no Pope sightings, but we saw everything there was to see! It was quite the day. And of course, it rained for us.




I was pretty choked to leave Italy- I mean, I was excited for Greece but Italy was super cool and I definitely want to go back someday. Maybe when it's not raining, that'd be a bonus!

We were in Italy for a week, and I probably could've spent triple that in Florence alone.


We started Florence off with a really cool leather making demo, and learned how to tell real leather from fake. Leather is literally everywhere in Florence, so it was awesome to know what to spend your money on. Mike and I both picked up really cool rings from the jewelry section of the leather shop; mikes has three parts to it and the center ring spins, which definitely keeps him entertained. And mine is what is called a puzzle ring, so its four bands entwined to make one ring. The only problem is if you let them fall out of their hold on each other, its a fricken puzzle to get back together. It took us nearly an hour the first time I accidently dropped it!

After our demonstration we went on a walking tour of Florence and got to see all of Michaelangelo's sculptures, which are incredible. The entire tour we were starving, so a few of us asked our tour guide where to get the most authentic Italian pasta to which she directed us on our little maps to a hole in the wall restaurant down an alleyway with no other tourists. We stuck out like sore thumbs- the waiter took one look at us, said "English menu", and came back with dust-covered never been looked at menus. So basically, you know we found the right place. It did not disappoint.

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

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!

There's nothing quite like waking up and realizing you're not at home, you don't have to go to work and the sun is already shining.


We've been falling asleep early and getting up early, and it feels great! The hotel were at right now has an amazing continental breakfast so we've basically sprung out of bed every morning to start our day out right. This morning we walked the seawall to central Cascais and visited their public market and shopped all the local boutiques. We found an amazing seafood restaurant (the only one that wasn't €190 per person) and had a delicious lunch before walking along the beach back to the hotel. It was a beautiful day at 21° so after all the walking we dove straight into the hotel pool for an after lunch swim which was the perfect end to our day. It may only be 6pm now but we plan on staying in our room and finishing off our brie, crackers, wine and pastries from our favorite little cafe.


Our flight to London takes off tomorrow at 9am, and it will really suck to leave portugal behind. However the thought of being in Rome next week has really got me keen on hoping in another plane! I've loved how relaxing its been here, and I know these next few weeks are going to be super jam packed so I'm so happy we had this time to unwind! As soon as we start our tour there will be so much to write about, however Im afraid we might not always have WiFi to post it! I'll probably have to write a bunch of entries, save them as drafts and post them in masses as soon as I get WiFi. We'll see how it goes!

I hope you're all having a good weekend as well.
xx