Sorry, Paris, but Rome wins the Romance Award

Vacation is the best. 

I just love it. 

It's not only an excuse to travel and de-stress from work and school, but also to eat freely, get fat, and have zero regrets about anything. 

I love eating. Therefore, I love vacation. 

I digress. 

Let's start with day one: departure to Italy.

Saturday, October 25th

My travel companion Kevin and I made our way from Rennes to Paris via train, where we stopped over for a quick visit to the Eiffel Tower and the Brioche Dorée pastry store on the Champs-Elysées.

After taking a quick selfie per Kevin's request with the Arc de Triomph....

Lots of selfies = necessary on a two-person trip.

....We boarded the shuttle bus to Beauvais airport (as all RyanAir customers know, that airport is HELL AND BACK FROM NOWHERE). 

 Kevin's first RyanAir flight!! And we SURVIVED, YAAAYY for discount airlines!

Once we were all packed onto our magical flying tin can (kudos to Kevin for coming up with that one), it was only a mere hour and a half until we landed in Bologna. Let me tell you, travelling in Europe is SO. MUCH. EASIER than travelling in the States. Everything just takes so damn long across the Atlantic. 

From our plane, we took the shortest bus ride of our life to the back of the airport (like, couldn't we have just walked that? Really?). From the back of the airport, we took yet another bus to the central bus station. From there, we walked about twenty minutes north to our hostel, where we were happily surprised to find that we had a two-bed private room!

So, recap of the day: walk-train-metro-walk-metro-walk-bus-walk-plane-bus-walk-bus-walk. 

Let's just say we slept incredibly well when we got to the hostel at 1:30 in the morning... only to wake up the next day to pop on a train to Ferrara to see my love: Jessica!

Sunday, October 26th to Thursday, October 30th: Italy 

Sunday was the beautiful day in which I was able to reunite with my bestest friend of all time in her current hometown. With a population hovering a little under 150,000 inhabitants, Ferrara is quite a bit smaller than Bologna, and much smaller than my hometown of Rennes.

The day was spent peacefully meandering through the city with Jessica as our personal guide, eating fabulously wonderful pumpkin/squash-stuffed pastas known as cappellacci, eating gelato, eating bread reminiscent of male sexual organs, eating spaghetti, eating pizza, eating tiramisu, drinking wine, and drinking spritz.

Lots of eating. 

First stop: gelato!!! 

Coppia ferrarese, a type of sourdough bread evidently made to look as inappropriate as possible.  

Lots of pictures of food. Be prepared. 

TIRA-MI-GET-IN-MAH-BELLEH

Monday, Kevin and I said our good-byes to Jessica and headed back to Bologna, where we remained for a day to see the city and eat even more yummy Italian food. 

We visited the Piazza del Nettuno and numerous other Piazzas as well as the Basilica San Domenico, where famous artist Niccolo dell'Arca achieved his name by creating the Arc of Saint Dominic. We even took a quick personal tour of the University of Bologna, quite a shocking difference from our petit Institut in Rennes! 

My favorite activity, however, was climbing the 498 wooden steps of the Asinelli tower to get a phenomenal view of the city. 

Kevin climbing up the beginning steps of the tower!

LET'S DO THIS. 

View of the city from the top. Totally worth the huff and puff. 

I could have stayed up there all day.

Our stay in Ferrara and Bologna was markedly non-touristy; i.e. the absence of crowds of people mindlessly bumping into each other, shouting, and checking maps made our lives incredibly tranquil and exponentially easier.

But then came Rome.

And so followed... the TOURISTS.

*dun dun DAHHH!*

Tuesday, we took a two-hour train from Bologna to Rome, where we fought the crowds to see such classic sites as the Colosseum, the Vatican, St. Peter's Cathedral, the Arco di Costantino, the Pantheon, the Piazza del Popolo, and countless other awe-inspiring attractions. 

Italy is one beautiful country.  

Being fabulous on the steps of the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele. 

Wandering the streets of Rome, you suddenly become enraptured by the immense, ancient history of the city, and everything -- even with its flaws and broken parts -- is beautiful. 

Construction on this building began in the 70s... 70 AD, that is, thanks to the Vespian Dynasty.

The Pantheon!! 

Surrounded by enormous, ancient marble landmarks connected by a maze of wandering cobblestone paths, it is hard NOT to succumb to the beauty that is Rome. As my Italian friend Francesco clearly put it before Kevin and I embarked on our journey, "Rome... is MAGIC!"And he was absolutely right. Although a bit dirty, with clear unemployment problems and the constant presence of restoration projects (read: scaffolding), strolling through Rome is like bursting into the pages of a storybook, a storybook that is almost 3000 years old yet never fails to enthrall every new generation that experiences it. 

One of my favorite highlights of the entire Euro-trip was taking a tour through the Museo Vaticani, seeing the Sistine Chapel, and climbing to the very top of St. Peter's Basilica. 

The top of the dome... on the inside. The outside was soon to follow!

Kevin climbing up St. Peter's!!!

Stairs+climbing were a trend of this trip. 

We made it to the top of the outside of the Basilica just in time to see the sunset. 

Rome just brings out the dramatic flair in everyone. 

As I'm sure you guessed by the title of this post, Rome has taken the place of Paris in my heart. Sure, I still love the City of Lights deeply... but sometimes the lights shine brighter in another city, and that city just happens to be Rome!! Even with the insane amount of tourists overwhelming the streets, Rome is incredibly special. I only wish I had had more than two days to enjoy it. 

And here we take a brief intermission to drool over more pictures of Italian food!

.... And, yes, we did go to an Irish pub our last night in Rome. And the Guinness was wonderful.

Barbeque burger. So Italian.  

Friday, October 31st to November 2nd: Germany 

As our week of travel wound down to the end, we spent most of our time leisurely walking along the river Rhine, shopping, sleeping, and eating... like the proper bums we are. Besides celebrating Halloween (and Kevin's birthday!) with all of the local Germans, the most exciting thing we did was to visit Cologne and tour the Chocolate Museum as well as the Gothic Cathedral. 

Düsseldorf on a Sunday!

The Gothic Cathedral was an absolutely amazing structure, taking more than 600 years to finish. Now, it is a World Heritage Site, and is one of the largest cathedrals I have ever seen after the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Duomo in Florence and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The Shrine of the Three Kings. 

I must say, though, that the Chocolate Museum... was pretty awesome. We not only learned about how cacao is harvested and chocolate is made, but also of all the environmental and social issues associated with chocolate. 

Also.... the Shrine of the Three Kings. Made of chocolate. 

47 carved chocolate figures. Kudos to this artist, Sonja Alhäuser!

In Düsseldorf, I also went on my own personal brewery tour while Kevin took a nap. Trying five different beers made enhaus -- Schluessel, Scumacher, Uerige, Fuechschen, and Schloesser -- I decided that my favorite was.... *ding ding ding* Fuechschen!! 

 

After a week of fast-paced travel abroad, I actually got homesick. But I didn't want to go back to the States necessarily; I wanted instead to return to Rennes. A few months pass, and my heart has already settled into my new home so much that I think of the comfort of walking through the Parc du Thabor, or the constancy of going to the market with Antoine and Kevin every Saturday, or the pleasure of stopping by the Rue de Vassilot for the infamous cookies at the local patîsserie. 

Life is funny. If we don't stop and look around once in a while, we could miss it. 

Cheers.

<3 D