Paris

This is the creative arts building. Inside is a bunch of modern art. We went in once but it was pretty expensive to get into the main part.

This is in the front of the Creative Arts building and about 2 minutes away from the hotel that we were staying at. This is kind of like a improv show being put on by the man that is in the arms of the other man. It was pretty funny! He just kept making lots of sound effects so that everyone could get the story and not drive people away by speaking a language that nobody understood.

This is the basic layout of Paris and some of the main attractions. They are all within walking distance, but Paris has a great transportation system especially the subway. It would take you anywhere in the city and it is way easy to understand and relatively cheap.


The Eiffel Tower! All the movies and pictures in the world do not do this thing justice. It is absolutley amazing! We could've stayed there all day and all night. We got some pretty good pictures of it, but like I said the pictures don't do it justice. It is really one of those things that you must see for yourself.
This is the Arch de triumph. It is huge. They also light a fire there everyday in memory of the lost soldier. It represents all the soldiers that they have lost and don't have burials.




The Louve. This is where the Mona Lisa is. There is actually 3 of these pyramids in this courtyard all of which are glass with ponds around them. There was hundreds of people that were just relaxing and having a good time. The building that you can see in the back round is enormous. It goes all the way around the Louve, which is actually underground, and is so miticulously sculpted. It was beautiful.

Notre Dame. The thing about Paris is that everything is amazing. All the buildings are so crafted, every inch of the Notre Dame was sculpted with some kind of statue or art, like the picture below. These are life size statues above the entrance into the Notre Dame. Then in the arc thing at the feet of the statues are smaller statues of people. Just amazing.


This is the back of the Notre Dame. There is a sweet park that sits behind it that is shaded and beautiful.

This is one of the many little cafes that line the streets of Paris. Look how close together the tables are.

The Pictures explains all. The famous Moulin Rouge! We didn't spend much time here because we were told that this is where all the prostitution goes on, but we wanted to see it while we were there.


This is the Bisilica du Sacre Coeur. It has THE BEST view of Paris. You have to go all the way to the outer part of Paris to get to it then climb a thousand stairs, not really only 234, but it is worth it. You can see for miles.

Place de la Concorde. It was donated to Paris by Mohammad Ali, not the boxer,but the Viceroy of Egypt. There is a bunch of Egyptian writing all over it.

This is a picture of the river that runs through the middle of Paris. You can see how beautiful the city is by this picture.

Paris was amazing! We had heard a lot of things about it that made us really nervous like -people are very rude and - nobody will even attempt speaking English to you until you try to speak French. So we ended up buying a French language book and I studied it hard core on the plane! And the girl I was sitting next to had just finished an Au Pair position in Ireland, which is like a nanny program. She spent the whole trip giving us phrases that we could use for different situations. She was a very nice girl. She told us not to worry because the French we really nice people and they would help us out. She was right. The French were so nice. We would try and say something in French but they would be quick to speak English to us and answer our questions. We loved Paris and consider it one of our favorite places in the world!!!

Italy

From Paris we flew in to Venice, Italy. We rented a car in Venice and had to be in Rome 6 days later! We were really scared to drive there because everybody told us that it was impossible to drive in Italy let alone Rome! I was terrified at first! The thing that makes it so scary is actually all the scooters! I bet that scooters out number cars 10 to 1 not kidding. There are no laws, at least they didn't act like it, for the scooters. They drove where they wanted and when they wanted. Lines on the road meant nothing. Luckily we didn't get in a wreck. Our only car problem was a flat tire that resulted in having to get another rental car. The drive from Venice to Rome was breath taking. We saw old ruins and picturesque country side! Here are the cities that we visited on our road trip through Italy!


Venice
Venice was absolutely amazing! We loved every bit of it. We only got to stay there for a day but we would definitely go back. It is one place that we would love to live. It was nice not to have any cars. It was a totally different place. It was easily one of our favorite places.
This is on of the biggest pieces of pizza I have ever seen. There was little pizza places every where. It was good and cheap. Oh and I didn't eat both of these, one was for Shauna.


The ice cream was soo gooood. We probably spent just as much money on ice cream as we did food. Just looking at it made my mouth salivate.


This is piazza San Marco. This is the most popular place in Venice. There were a ton of people here! It was fun to see all the different people here in this romantic city of water!


We snapped this picture just before the owner told us that we couldn't.



Our Gondola trip was unreal. It was almost surreal, it was so movie like! We tried to so hard to get a picture of us with the whole boat, but it was a little hard to explain to the Italians, so these are the best we got!! This is definitely one thing that every one should do!!!

We thought these were some amazing pictures!!
Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre was one of the coolest places that we went too! It kind of happened on accident. Shauna saw it on her e-mail one day and thought it looked amazing. So after leaving Venice we found it on the map and decided that it was a must see. We absolutely loved it there. It was basically a city on the side of the mountain right next to the ocean! It had 5 beaches on it each with it's own city, hence the cinque. We spent our time on the beach and ate at a local pizza place. We would vacation there again!!

If you look close you'll see that man holding up the mountain on his back. There is actually a hotel in the mountain.

Gotta love the toilets or should I say squatters!

Florence

We started off Florence with a bad taste in our mouth. We had made arrangements to sleep in an ancient convent, which is basically an old monastery. We arrived in Florence at about 10:30pm and continued to drive around until 1 am looking for the place. We ended up figuring that the only way there was to drive up one way street! Luckily it wasn't out of the ordinary. We finally arrived. We we went to leave the next morning We had a flat tire! So we spent the next couple hours dealing with that! After that all panned out we had a blast.


One of these is a statue and one of them is a human pretending to be the statue of Leonardo....okay the one on the top is the statue, but the human is doing an impressive job!!


This girl drew this with chalk! she was looking at a little picture and then drawing it! There were artist every where! They were all so good!


One of the most fun things in Florence had to be dancing with some Italians. In the convent we were staying in they hosted a dance night every week. We happen to be there the night they were holding it. We spent the night learning Italian line dances and other dances. All the guys loved dancing with Shauna. as soon as a song came on that involved a partner an Italian would jump up and ask Shauna to dance! I wasn't jealous, Italian stallions ain't got nothin on me!! JK


This is the Duomo. Each city had one of these enormous cathedrals. They were all basically the same. The detail on them was so fine. It made us wonder how long they spent building it.

This was Shauna's favorite store! :). Any one for a pig or cow leg?

Sienna

We only spent an afternoon in Sienna but it was an amazing little city. Walking through the narrow streets lined with buildings was an dreamy feeling! The cobble stone walk ways didn't help any! It was all such a great experience!


This is the town square! Where they would hold concerts and town gatherings.


Rome

Rome Rome Rome. It wasn't exactly what we had pictured, a lot more modern and not so much ancient, at least that was our first impression. When we drove into Rome we had no idea where to go and no place to sleep on top of that! Everyone that we talked to said that Rome was the worst place to drive in the world. I was turning left then right and really anywhere. We had no clue. We drove around for like a half hour then finally decided to find the next parking spot and park. So I pulled over to the side of the road where i squeezed into a parking spot. We got out and found a map and just out of luck we had ended up smack dab in the middle of the city. Within 5 minutes of the Vatican city and within walking distance of all the main attractions. We spent 3 days in Rome and enjoyed every minute of it. We slept in our car and cleaned up in nice hotels. Memories that we will never forget.


These are the Spanish Steps. In front of us, is a big fountain that you can actually walk on these isle things that lead you to drinkable water. I decided that I wanted to get my head a little wet so I stepped down two stairs, slipping on the water and landing on my back in a huge puddle inches away from falling into the fountain its self. Probably the most embarrassing things that happened on the trip. (Below is the fountain, I fell right where the kid is standing)


Shauna loves her Fettuccine. We looked for it in every city we were in and only found it in Rome. We had to get a picture of Italian Fettuccine.


These next pictures are in the Vatican City. We saw where the Pope addresses the people every Wednesday. You could sense the history there. It was a special place. We got to see the Sistine Chapel and admire the art work of Michelangelo, truly amazing!
Here is a picture of the Sistine Chapel.
The Last Judgment Right in front of St. Peter's Basillica


These are some of the statues that have been collected from around Rome. They were in the Vatican City.

This is the Pantheon. If you've ever seen Angels and Demons they go inside the Pantheon. We got to see an orchestra perform there. We just happened to be there 10 minutes before they opened the doors of the free concert. It was sweet!

Seeing the Coliseum had to be the moment when we knew we were witnessing history. Amazing would be the least of words that could describe this historic monument! Just thinking about what went on here and how long ago it was that it was used blew our minds. Just down the road we the ancient ruins of Rome. This is what we thought Rome would be like. Another one of those things that you must see!!


A young boy did this piece of spray paint art. He was so good!

Some of the ancient ruins.

This man was performing in one of the piazzas. You can't see it but he has Micheal Jackson one his finger. It was funny and entertaining. He even busted out the moon walk!

This picture is actually from Florence but it looks a lot like the piazza's in Rome too! There were artist everywhere! All looking for work. Most of these artist were drawing charactitures, but some were drawing portraits.

We found a lady originally from Russia that was jaw dropping good. We just had to have our pictures done by her. It was 1am when she got done. It was well worth the wait. You can see our unfinished portrait in these pictures. Sadly on our way home we lost it! We realized while sitting in the Paris airport that we didn't have it any more. I ran all over the Paris airport looking for it, almost missing the flight back to Salt Lake. This was the saddest part of the trip.


We made on more stop before we had to head to the airport. The catacombs. This is a grave site dung miles into the earth. The catacomb that we were in held at one time 500,000 graves. They dung out of rock graves. It was amazing to see the work they went through to bury their dead.

This sums up our trip, but does not at all due it justice! We have memories that we will have the rest of our lives. We enjoyed our Europe excursion and were sad that it had to end. It was an experience of a life time. We only wish that it could have lasted longer.