





Monday morning we took our time getting up because the Bran Castle, our main destination, didn’t open until noon. We ate breakfast at the hotel and enjoyed surfing a bit on the web. We left at around 11h30 for Bran…
Monday morning, I woke up at 4h30, took a shower and at 5h15 we left for the Northern Train Station which I hear so much about because whenever the phone rings too much at home mom says “Ie ca Gara…
When I got off the train in Marseille it was freezing! I’ve officially been through a complete year in a week a far as weather goes! On my way to my host I got a bit lost and some very kind old man helped me back on my way.
When we got to the train station in Lyon it was crowded. The snow had delayed a lot of trains and it took us about 10 minutes to walk from one end of the train station to the other because you had to push through a very thick crowd. We were early so we went to buy out tickets for the next destination. Nice for me, Paris for my sister. Then we made our way to our host’s and Audrey met up with us at the tram station. While waiting we noticed how similar to belugas their trams looked.
Our arrival in Geneva was a lot merrier than our stay in Lausanne. It wasn’t snowing and although the bus was packed we got to our host’s pretty easily. My sister knew the place since we stayed with the same person that hosted her when she came from Paris to Venice.
After a somewhat problematic train ride we arrived in Zürich and were faced with problematic tram rides. With some help from our host we managed to make our way to their place.
We left Rome with some sadness at leaving some good friends but with the feeling that we’d been in Rome for a month. When you change cities every 3 days, spending 6 nights in one is very disorienting. We wish we’d have had less rain but in all we had a great time. Let’s just hope we can rest now and take it slower!
Tuesday night we arrived in Florence and on our way to our hosts it felt rather surreal. Statues a every corner, squares, old buildings, churches everywhere.
Once we got to Verona, Laura called our host and he came to pick us up at the train station, which was really welcome since he had a car! He then took us into Verona to show us around a little and to point out to us some things we should visit the next day. He knew a lot about the architecture and history of the city and he gave us some useful tips about the city dos and don’ts. (For example he told us there was a 300 euro fine if you were caught sitting down and eating near the main attractions of the city. They had a special picnic area available for eating purposes.)
Did you know Venice is the doom of tourists? Maps are useless and you just have to go with the flow. The city is really beautiful though, with all its small alleys, bridges, canals, and no car/bikes anywhere.