Tag Archives: Rome

Rome!

After making my list of 2013 travel destinations last September, our travel plans changed quite a bit when we decided to go to the US for Christmas and also are planning on visiting again for a friend’s wedding this year. But my sister and brother in law surprised me by planning an Easter trip to Rome, so even though it is an expensive time to travel there we went for seven days back in April!

To save money we all rented a condo together and ended up only paying around 33CHF per person per night, which was definitely not bad. All the hotels would have been over 150 a night just for two people! And to save money on flights, we flew out of Basel for the first time.

Rome is also an amaaazing city. I’m so happy we went… just look at all we saw!

The Pantheon… the Colosseum…

Ruins…

Rome at night.

The Spanish steps.

The Vatican… where, I kid you not… the heavens opened up and sunshine poured down on us ALL FOUR times we went there. For a rainy week, this was pretty spectacular.

We saw the pope too! He gave us a blessing and Kay stayed for mass before we went to the Sistine Chapel.

The Vatican at night…

But they did call for rain every day that week… and on our second day we encountered this:

Which pretty much soaked my sister and brother-in-law’s shoes completely. But I was pretty happy in my gortex rain jacket and hiking boots. Best shoe choice yet!

We saw more ruins… just scattered around the city.

We saw the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel and all around the museum. 🙂

Ate tons of gelato, mozzarella, pasta, pizza and wine.

Trevi fountain:

Spanish steps… yet again! 🙂

Some beautiful sunsets.

Colosseum at night!

St. Peter’s:

We also saw the catacombs with 2000 year old graves from Romans and early Christians. Between that and ALL the basilicas we saw, the Vatican, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum… I feel like we “did” Rome.

Now I am only feeling a bit guilty that we’re almost half way through 2013 and I’ve only been to one of the cities on my 2013 list. I’m not sure we are going to make it to Venice… but I’m hoping we can still manage London this year!

2013 Travel Destinations

I feel like a really lazy expat in Europe.

When I first came to Switzerland for a study abroad experience, all my other friends were traveling all over Europe for around one month before their terms started in Germany. I was the only one in my class heading to Switzerland so I chose not to join my friends traveling.

I had a paid internship in Ohio and while my parents were generously paying my school tuition, I had to foot the study abroad bill myself. I refused to go into credit card debt or take out a loan for study abroad, so I limited my travel to what I could afford and headed to Switzerland after a long summer working.

For three months on my visitors visa, I spent almost every weekend within Switzerland traveling to different towns, large and small, so I could feel like I really got to know Switzerland itself. After my stay was up and I needed to exit the country, I planned a train trip through Germany to visit all of my friends in their respective German locations. During my entire stay, I never needed to pay for a hostel or hotel!

It worked out well. My budget was happy and I felt like I got to see a fair amount of Switzerland and Germany during my stay, but I missed out on a lot of European biggies. France, Italy, England… I didn’t see any of them and when I returned to the States I really felt like I would have to come do a big European backpacking trip to make up for it.

Now I’ve been living here for four years and shamefully, I haven’t gotten around to doing a lot. In fact, it took me FOUR years to take a 4 hour train ride down to Italy. Blasphemy.

It seems that “There’s always next month…” has derailed my travel excitement. Between Kay’s flighty schedule and my laziness, I just haven’t gotten around to traveling around Europe that much. Since those university days I’ve been to Paris, Stockholm, Dublin, Madrid, Vienna (thanks to Kay this summer!), a few more German cities and finally Milan after I told Kay that I refused to travel to Germany again before we went to Italy.

Here are the top European cities I would really like to visit on a long weekend in 2013:

1. London

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Oh my God… I haven’t been to England yet. This is also blasphemous. I cured my Italy-visit status, but if I am to be a real member of European society, I must, must visit London this year and soak up all the English breakfast and tea I can get.

2. Venice

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Although I’ve been to Italy once now, it wasn’t nearly enough and I know there is still much more to explore. I’m really meaning to visit Venice before it sinks so that I can enjoy a coffee on the waterside.

3. Rome

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Yes, another biggie. I’ve been planning to go to Rome for a few years now, but it’s always a question of when and how as it can be very hot in the summer and uncomfortably cold in the winter. Autumn seems to fly by with Kay’s military time and spring is expensive with Easter. There’s never a good time!

I have a bunch of other cities and countries around Europe that I would like to visit, but I’m keeping this list short so that it remains somewhat realistic. We haven’t started planning our 2013 holidays yet, so there’s no telling where we’ll wind up.

Where would you travel in Europe?