firenze

FLORENCE

after just an hour&twenty minute train ride from rome we arrived in the small, beautiful city of florence.

we were blessed to be able to stay with the Evertsen family in their cute yellow& green shutter florentine style home & have them as our personal tour guides.

we had a short stay there but were still able to see a lot thanks to them.

florence really was a city of art because the buildings were so detailed and there were so many statues and beautiful things everywhere.

we first had lunch on the grass from puigis & then stopped for gelato.

saw the famous duomo, clock tower, & the uffizi (most expensive bridge in the world because its full of jewelers).

heather cooked us homemade lasagna & it was so nice to have a home cooked meal. then of course we had more gelato.

we made our way to michelangelo's plaza that night for a beautiful view of the city lights.

saw art being drawn on the streets & musicians playing for coins on our way home.

we had a good nights sleep & then made one last stop in the morning to firensole in the mountain side for a view of florence in the daytime

ate a pesto pasta lunch & then were off to venice by train.

la vita bella

ROME

in rome we stayed at the oversea's hostel ran by an Asian family.
it was near termini train station in the trashy part of rome but we survived.
the first thing we did was find food. and lots of it.
at a pasteria just around the corner. it was so good to eat heaps of pasta & we were ready to take on another country.
our first stop was vatican city. but after popping up from the subway and savannah & i thinking we remembered the right way since we'd been in rome before... we became lost tourists. so we resorted to the map & found our way soon after. 
the pretty little streets were wet with rain that night. out of all the places we were traveling to; we never expected rain in rome. but rome ended up being the first & last place we had to use our umbrellas. 
the rest of our stay in rome consisted of//
plazza navona which was full of art & fountains
wishes at the TREVI fountain
lots of pizza&pasta and a late night search for gelato
collosseum&roman ruins.
picture with a "roman"
lots of drinks from the fresh water taps all around the city
the spanish steps & a view of rome.
then an early train ride onto florence, italy where we realized how not so nice italian men can be. 
but rome was lovely & i was lucky to surrounded by its history for a second time. 

bonjour

PARIS

since i had already been to paris once before, the best part this time was visiting my british bestie, holly.

she is doing a year abroad in paris right now, dreamy right? so she let us stay in her cute little flat with her & even take over her bed. 

she was a lovely tourguide & her french helped us out quite a bit.

holly lives close by the montmartre so that was our first stop. & we watched the eiffle tower sparkle with thousands of lights from up there on the hill.

we did a good job of eating like parisians. with coffee&pastries at a nice cafe for breakfast. baguettes&savory crepes for lunch. dinner reservations at a nice restaurant called Le Progres. and we even had the best gelato of the whole trip which was shaped like a flower [and we definitely know our gelato].

we relaxed at a few different parks throughout our explorations of paris & on the grass by the eiffel tower.

we climbed the stairs to see the view from the top of the arch de triompe.

& we compared british/american english like how they call a fanny back a bum bag :)

who would have known i'd be seeing holly for the third summer in a row after we said goodbye the first summer we met in girona, spain? life is fun like that.